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2016-01 | Barcelona-697570852 | Barcelona | Barcelona
{{Infobox settlement
| official_name = Barcelona
| native_name =
| other_name =
| settlement_type = City and Municipality
| image_skyline = Barcelona collage.JPG
| image_alt =
| image_caption = Central business district, Sagrada Família, Camp Nou stadium, The Castle of the Three Dragons, Palau Nacional, W Barcelona hotel and beach
| image_flag = Flag of Barcelona.svg
| flag_alt =
| image_shield = Coat of Arms of Barcelona.svg
| shield_alt =
| nickname =
Abbreviation(s): Barna, BCN
| motto =
| pushpin_map1 = Spain Catalonia
| pushpin_label_position1 =
| pushpin_map_alt1 =
| pushpin_map_caption1 = Location of Barcelona within Catalonia
| pushpin_map = Spain
| pushpin_label_position =
| pushpin_map_alt =
| pushpin_map_caption = Location of Barcelona within Spain
| latd = 41 | latm = 23 | lats = | latNS = N
| longd = 2 | longm = 11 | longs = | longEW = E
| coordinates_type = type:city(1,582,738)_region:ES
| coordinates_display = inline, title
| coordinates_footnotes =
| coordinates_region = ES
| subdivision_type = Country
| subdivision_name = Spain
| subdivision_name2 = Barcelona
| subdivision_type3 = Comarca
| subdivision_type1 = Autonomous community
| subdivision_name1 = Catalonia
| subdivision_type2 = Province
| subdivision_name3 = Barcelonès
| established_title =
| established_date =
| seat_type =
| seat = Barcelona City Hall
| parts_type = Districts
| parts_style = coll
| parts =
| p1 = Ciutat Vella
| p2 = Eixample
| p3 = Gràcia
| p4 = Horta-Guinardó
| p5 = Les Corts
| p6 = Nou Barris
| p7 = Sant Andreu
| p8 = Sants–Montjuïc
| p9 = Sarrià-Sant Gervasi
| p10 = Sant Martí
| government_type = Mayor–council
| governing_body =
| leader_party = Barcelona en Comú
| leader_title = Mayor
| leader_name = Ada Colau Ballano (2015)
| total_type = City
| unit_pref =
| area_total_km2 = 101.4
| area_footnotes =
| area_urban_km2 =
| elevation_footnotes = (AMSL)
| elevation_m = 12
| population_footnotes =
| population_rank = 2nd (Spain)
| population_total = 1602386
| population_urban = 4693000
| population_metro = 5375774
| population_as_of = 2014
| population_density_km2 = auto
| population_demonym = Barcelonan, Barcelonian barceloní, -ina (ca) 'barcelonés, -esa (es)
| postal_code_type = Postal code
| postal_code = 080xx
| area_code_type = Area code
| area_code = +34 (E) 93 (B)
| blank_name_sec1 = INE code
| blank_info_sec1 = 08 0193
| blank1_name_sec1 = City budget
| blank1_info_sec1 = €2.5 billion
| blank_name_sec2 =
| blank_info_sec2 = Catalan and Spanish
| blank1_name_sec2 = Main festitivity
| blank1_info_sec2 = La Mercè
| blank2_name_sec2 = Patron saint
| blank2_info_sec2 = Eulalia of Barcelona
| website =
| footnotes =
}}
Barcelona (, , ) is the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia in Spain and Spain's second most populated city, with a population of 1.6 million within its administrative limits. Its urban area extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of around 4.7 million people, being the sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, London, Madrid, the Ruhr area, and Milan. It is the largest metropolis on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, and bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range, the tallest peak of which is high.
Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After merging with the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona continued to be an important city in the Crown of Aragon as an economical and administrative center of this Crown and the capital of the Principality of Catalonia. Besieged several times during its history, Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural center and a major tourist destination. Particularly renowned are the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean is located in Barcelona. The city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments.
Barcelona is one of the world's leading tourist, economic, trade fair and cultural centers, and its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It is a major cultural and economic center in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world (before Zürich, after Frankfurt) and a financial center. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union and 35th in the world with GDP amounting to €177 billion. In 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion; it is leading Spain in both employment rate and GDP per capita change. In 2009 the city was ranked Europe's third and one of the world's most successful as a city brand. In the same year the city was ranked Europe's fourth best city for business and fastest improving European city, with growth improved by 17% per year, but it has since been in a full recession with declines in both employment and GDP per capita, with some recent signs of the beginning of an economic recovery. Since 2011 Barcelona is a leading smart city in Europe. Barcelona is a transport hub with the Port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port, an international airport, Barcelona–El Prat Airport, which handles above 35 million passengers per year, an extensive motorway network and a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe.
Names
The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Barkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin in Iberian script as , in Ancient Greek sources as , Barkinṓn; and in Latin as Barcino, Barcilonum and Barcenona.
Sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC.
During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.
Internationally, Barcelona's name is usually abbreviated as 'Barsa' or 'Barça'. Locally, this name refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. Locals refer to the city instead as 'Barna'.
Another common abbreviation is 'BCN', which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.
The city is also referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan, and Ciudad Condal in Spanish, owing to its past as the seat of the Count of Barcelona.
History
The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear. Around the actual neighborhood of Raval have been found remains of an early settlement, including different tombs and a hut from 5.500 BC.
The founding of Barcelona is the subject of two different legends. The first attributes the founding of the city to the mythological Hercules. The second legend attributes the foundation of the city directly to the historical Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, who named the city Barcino after his family in the Third century BC.
In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum (Roman military camp) centerd on the "Mons Taber", a little hill near the contemporary city hall (Plaça de Sant Jaume). Under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. Pomponius Mela mentions it among the small towns of the district, probably as it was eclipsed by its neighbour Tarraco (modern Tarragona), but it may be gathered from later writers that it gradually grew in wealth and consequence, favoured as it was with a beautiful situation and an excellent harbour. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens. The city minted its own coins; some from the era of Galba survive.
Important Roman vestiges are displayed in Plaça del Rei underground, as a part of the Barcelona City History Museum MUHBA; the typically Roman grid plan is still visible today in the layout of the historical center, the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter). Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have been incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, also known as the Basilica La Seu, is said to have been founded in 343. The city was conquered by the Visigoths in the early 5th century, becoming for a few years the capital of all Hispania. After being conquered by the Arabs in the early 8th century, it was conquered in 801 by Charlemagne's son Louis, who made Barcelona the seat of the Carolingian "Hispanic March" (Marca Hispanica), a buffer zone ruled by the Count of Barcelona.
The Counts of Barcelona became increasingly independent and expanded their territory to include all of Catalonia, although on 6 July 985, Barcelona was sacked by the army of Almanzor. The sack was so traumatic that most of Barcelona's population was either killed or enslaved. In 1137, Aragon and the County of Barcelona merged in dynastic union by the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla of Aragon, their titles finally borne by only one person when their son Alfonso II of Aragon ascended to the throne in 1162. His territories were later to be known as the Crown of Aragon, which conquered many overseas possessions and ruled the western Mediterranean Sea with outlying territories in Naples and Sicily and as far as Athens in the 13th century. The forging of a dynastic link between the Crowns of Aragon and Castile marked the beginning of Barcelona's decline. The Bank of Barcelona, probably the oldest public bank in Europe, was established by the city magistrates in 1401. It originated from necessities of the state, as did the Bank of Venice (1402) and the Bank of Genoa (1407).
The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 united the two royal lines. Madrid became the center of political power whilst the colonisation of the Americas reduced the financial importance (at least in relative terms) of Mediterranean trade. Barcelona was a center of Catalan separatism, including the Catalan Revolt (1640–52) against Philip IV of Spain. The great plague of 1650–1654 halved the city's population.
In the 18th century, a fortress was built at Montjuïc that overlooked the harbour. In 1794, this fortress was used by the French astronomer Pierre François André Méchain for observations relating to a survey stretching to Dunkirk that provided the official basis of the measurement of a metre. The definitive metre bar, manufactured from platinum, was presented to the French legislative assembly on 22 June 1799. Much of Barcelona was negatively affected by the Napoleonic wars, but the start of industrialization saw the fortunes of the province improve.
During the Spanish Civil War, the city, and Catalonia in general, were resolutely Republican. Many enterprises and public services were "collectivised" by the CNT and UGT unions. As the power of the Republican government and the Generalitat diminished, much of the city was under the effective control of anarchist groups. The anarchists lost control of the city to their own allies, the Communists and official government troops, after the street fighting of the Barcelona May Days. The fall of the city on 26 January 1939, caused a mass exodus of civilians who fled to the French border. The resistance of Barcelona to Franco's coup d'état was to have lasting effects after the defeat of the Republican government. The autonomous institutions of Catalonia were abolished, and the use of the Catalan language in public life was suppressed. Barcelona remained the second largest city in Spain, at the heart of a region which was relatively industrialised and prosperous, despite the devastation of the civil war. The result was a large-scale immigration from poorer regions of Spain (particularly Andalusia, Murcia and Galicia), which in turn led to rapid urbanisation. The city gained vitality in 1992 when it hosted the Olympic games.
Geography
Location
Barcelona is located on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Mediterranean Sea, on a plain approximately wide limited by the mountain range of Collserola, the Llobregat river to the southwest and the Besòs river to the north. This plain covers an area of , of which are occupied by the city itself. It is south of the Pyrenees and the Catalan border with France.
Tibidabo, high, offers striking views over the city and is topped by the Torre de Collserola, a telecommunications tower that is visible from most of the city. Barcelona is peppered with small hills, most of them urbanised, that gave their name to the neighbourhoods built upon them, such as Carmel (267 m), Putget (181 m) and Rovira (261 m). The escarpment of Montjuïc (173 m), situated to the southeast, overlooks the harbour and is topped by Montjuïc castle, a fortress built in the 17–18th centuries to control the city as a replacement for the Ciutadella. Today, the fortress is a museum and Montjuïc is home to several sporting and cultural venues, as well as Barcelona's biggest park and gardens.
The city borders on the municipalities of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs to the north; the Mediterranean Sea to the east; El Prat de Llobregat and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to the south; and Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Sant Just Desvern, Esplugues de Llobregat, Sant Cugat del Vallès, and Montcada i Reixac to the west. The municipality includes two small sparsely-inhabited exclaves to the north-west.
Climate
Barcelona has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa), with mild, humid winters and warm, dry summers.
Its average annual temperature is during the day and at night. The average annual temperature of the sea is about . In the coldest month – January, the temperature typically ranges from during the day, at night and the average sea temperature is . In the warmest month – August, the typical temperature ranges from during the day, about at night and the average sea temperature is . Generally – the summer / "holiday" season lasts about six months, from May to October. Two months – April and November – are transitional; sometimes the temperature exceeds , with an average temperature of during the day and at night. December, January and February are the coldest months, with average temperatures around during the day and at night. Large fluctuations in temperature are rare, particularly in the summer months. Because of the proximity to the warm sea, frosts are very infrequent in the city of Barcelona. In fact, only 1 day in the last 30 years was recorded with a temperature under the freezing mark. Snow is infrequent, but it snows lightly once or twice in a decade.
Barcelona averages several rainy days per month (≥ 1 mm), and annual average relative humidity is 72%, ranging from 69% in July to 75% in October. Rainfall totals are highest in autumn and lowest in early summer. Sunshine duration is 2,524 hours per year, from 138 (average 4.5 hours of sunshine a day) in December to 310 (average 10 hours of sunshine a day) in July.
Main sights
The Barri Gòtic (Catalan for "Gothic Quarter") is the center of the old city of Barcelona. Many of the buildings date from medieval times, some from as far back as the Roman settlement of Barcelona. Catalan modernista architecture (related to the movement known as Art Nouveau in the rest of Europe), developed between 1885 and 1950 and left an important legacy in Barcelona. Several of these buildings are World Heritage Sites. Especially remarkable is the work of architect Antoni Gaudí, which can be seen throughout the city. His best-known work is the immense but still unfinished church of the Sagrada Família, which has been under construction since 1882, and is still financed by private donations. As of 2007, completion is planned for 2026.
Barcelona was also home to Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. Designed in 1929 for the International Exposition for Germany, it is an iconic building that came to symbolize modern architecture as the embodiment of van der Rohe's aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details." The Barcelona pavilion was intended as a temporary structure, and was torn down in 1930 less than a year after it was constructed. A modern re-creation by Spanish architects now stands in Barcelona, however, constructed in 1986.
Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture, the first (and as of 2015, only) time that the winner has been a city, and not an individual architect.
World Heritage Sites
Barcelona is the home of many points of interest declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO:
Historic buildings and monuments
Minor basilica of Sagrada Família, the international symbol of Barcelona
Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, included in the UNESCO Heritage List in 1997.
Works by Antoni Gaudí, including Park Güell, Palau Güell, Casa Milà (La Pedrera), Casa Vicens, Sagrada Família (Nativity façade and crypt), Casa Batlló, Crypt in Colonia Güell. The first three works were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1984. The other four were added as extensions to the site in 2005.
The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St. Eulalia (Gothic)
Gothic basilica of Santa Maria del Mar
Gothic basilica of Santa Maria del Pi
Romanesque church of Sant Pau del Camp
Palau Reial Major, medieval residence of the sovereign Counts of Barcelona, later Kings of Aragon
The Royal Shipyard (gothic)
Monastery of Pedralbes (gothic)
The Columbus Monument
The Arc de Triomf, a triumphal arch built for entrance to 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition.
Expiatory church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the summit of Tibidabo.
Museums
Barcelona has a great number of museums, which cover different areas and eras. The National Museum of Art of Catalonia possesses a well-known collection of Romanesque art while the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art focuses on post-1945 Catalan and Spanish art. The Fundació Joan Miró, Picasso Museum and Fundació Antoni Tàpies hold important collections of these world-renowned artists, as well as Can Framis Museum, focused on post 1960 Catalan Art owned by Fundació Vila Casas.
Several museums cover the fields of history and archeology, like the Barcelona City History Museum (MUHBA), the Museum of the History of Catalonia, the Archeology Museum of Catalonia, the Barcelona Maritime Museum and the private-owned Egyptian Museum. The Erotic museum of Barcelona is among the most peculiar ones, while Cosmocaixa is a science museum that received the European Museum of the Year Award in 2006.
The FC Barcelona Museum has been the most visited museum in the city of Barcelona with 1506022 of visitors in 2013.
Parks
Barcelona contains sixty-eight municipal parks, of which twelve are historic parks, five are thematic (botanical) parks, forty-five are urban parks and six are forest parks. They range from vest-pocket parks to large recreation areas. The urban parks alone cover 10% of the city (). The total park surface grows about per year, with a proportion of of park area per inhabitant.
Of Barcelona's parks, Montjuïc is the largest, with 203 ha located on the mountain of the same name. It is followed by Parc de la Ciutadella (which occupies the site of the old military citadel and which houses the Parliament building, the Barcelona Zoo and several museums); including the zoo), the Guinardó Park (), Park Güell (designed by Antoni Gaudí; ), Oreneta Castle Park (also ), Diagonal Mar Park (, inaugurated in 2002), Nou Barris Central Park (), Can Dragó Sports Park and Poblenou Park (both ), the Labyrinth Park (), named after the garden maze it contains. There are also several smaller parks, for example, the Parc de les Aigües (). A part of the Collserolla Park is also within the city limits. PortAventura, one of the largest amusement parks in Europe with 3,000,000 visitors per year, is located one hour's drive from Barcelona. Also, within the city lies Tibidabo Amusement Park, a smaller amusement park in Plaza del Tibidabo, with the Muntanya Russa amusement ride.
Beaches
Barcelona beach was listed as number one in a list of the top ten city beaches in the world according to National Geographic and Discovery Channel. Barcelona contains seven beaches, totalling (2.8 mi) of coastline. Sant Sebastià, Barceloneta and Somorrostro beaches, both in length, are the largest, oldest and the most-frequented beaches in Barcelona.
The Olympic Harbour separates them from the other city beaches: Nova Icària, Bogatell, Mar Bella, Nova Mar Bella and Llevant. These beaches (ranging from were opened as a result of the city restructuring to host the 1992 Summer Olympics, when a great number of industrial buildings were demolished. At present, the beach sand is artificially replenished given that storms regularly remove large quantities of material. The 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures left the city a large concrete bathing zone on the eastmost part of the city's coastline.
Demographics
According to Barcelona's City Council, Barcelona's population as of 1 June 2006 was 1,673,075 people, on a land area of . It is the main component of an administrative area of Greater Barcelona, with a population of 3,218,071 in an area of (density 5,060 hab/km²). The population of the urban area was 4,223,000. It is the central nucleus of the Barcelona metropolitan area, which relies on a population of 5,083,000.
The population density of Barcelona was , with Eixample being the most populated district. 62% of the inhabitants were born in Catalonia, with a 23.5% coming from the rest of Spain. Of the 17.4% from other countries, a proportion which has more than quadrupled since 2001 when it was 3.9%, the majority come from (in order) Pakistan, Italy, China, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Morocco. The city has the largest Muslim community in Spain, 322.698 people in Barcelona are of Muslim faith. The city also has the largest Jewish community in Spain, with an estimated 3,500 Jews living in the city. There is a Japanese community clustered in Bonanova, Les Tres Torres, Pedralbes, and other northern neighborhoods, and a Japanese international school serves that community.
Spanish is the most spoken language in Barcelona (according to the linguistic census held by the Government of Catalonia in 2013) and it is understood almost universally. After Spanish, Catalan language is the second most spoken one in the city, and it is understood by 95% of the population, while 72.3% can speak it, 79% can read it, and 53% can write it, thanks to the language immersion educational system.
While most of the population state they are Roman Catholic (208 churches), a number of Muslims due to immigration (169 locations, mostly professed by Moroccans in Spain), there are also a number of other groups, including Evangelical (71 locations, mostly professed by Roma), Jehovah's Witnesses (21 Kingdom Halls) and Buddhists (13 locations), and Eastern Orthodox.
In 1900, Barcelona had a population of 533,000 people, which grew steadily but slowly until 1950, when it started absorbing a high number of people from other less-industrialized parts of Spain. Barcelona's population peaked in 1979 with 1,906,998 people, and fell throughout the 1980s and 1990s as more people sought a higher quality of life in outlying cities in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. After bottoming out in 2000 with 1,496,266 people, the city's population began to rise again as younger people started to return, causing a great increase in housing prices.
Population density
Note: This text is entirely based on the municipal statistical database provided by the city council.
Barcelona is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe. For the year 2008 the city council calculated the population to 1,621,090 living in the 102.2 km2 sized municipality, giving the city an average population density of 15,926 inhabitants per square kilometre.
In the case of Barcelona though, the land distribution is extremely uneven. Half of the municipality or 50.2 km2, all of it located on the municipal edge is made up of the ten least densely populated neighbourhoods containing less than 10% of the city's population, the uninhabited Zona Franca industrial area and Montjuïc forest park. Leaving the remaining 90% or slightly below 1.5 million inhabitants living on the remaining 52 km2 at an average density close to 28,500 inhabitants per square kilometre.
Of the 73 neighbourhoods in the city, 45 had a population density above 20,000 inhabitants per square kilometre with a combined population of 1,313,424 inhabitants living on 38.6 km2 at an average density of 33,987 inhabitants per square km. The 30 most densely populated neighbourhoods accounted for 57.5% of the city population occupying only 22,7% of the municipality, or in other words, 936,406 people living at an average density of 40,322 inhabitants per square kilometre. The city's highest density is found at and around the neighbourhood of la Sagrada Família where four of the city's most densely populated neighbourhoods are located side by side, all with a population density above 50,000 inhabitants per square kilometre.
Religion
In a 2011 survey conducted by InfoCatólica, 49.5% of Barcelona residents of all ages identified themselves as Catholic. This was the first time that more than half of respondents did not identify themselves as Catholic. The numbers reflect a broader trend in Spain whereby the numbers of self-identified Catholics have declined.
In 2014, 322,698 people in Barcelona identified themselves as Muslim.
Economy
General information
The Barcelona metropolitan area comprises over 66% of the people in one of the richest regions in Europe – Catalonia, with a GDP per capita amounting to €28,400 (16% more than the EU average). The Barcelona metropolitan area had a GDP amounting to $177 billion, equivalent to $34,821 in per capita terms (44% more than the EU average) making it the 4th most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union and 35th in the world in 2009. Barcelona city had a very high GDP of €80,894 per head in 2004, according to Eurostat. Furthermore, Barcelona was Europe's fourth best business city and fastest improving European city, with growth improved by 17% per year as of 2009.
Barcelona is the 14th most "livable city" in the world according to lifestyle magazine Monocle. Similarly, according to Innovation Analysts 2thinknow, Barcelona occupies 13th place in the world on Innovation Cities™ Global Index.
Barcelona has a long-standing mercantile tradition. Less well known is that the region was one of the earliest to begin industrialization in continental Europe, beginning with textile-related works from the mid-1780s but really gathering momentum in the mid-19th century, when it became a major center for the production of textiles and machinery. Since then, manufacturing has played a large role in its history.
Borsa de Barcelona (Barcelona Stock Exchange) is the main stock exchange in the northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula.
Barcelona was recognised as the Southern European City of the Future for 2014/15, based on its economic potential, by FDi Magazine in their bi-annual rankings.
Trade fair and exhibitions
Drawing upon its tradition of creative art and craftsmanship, Barcelona is known for its award-winning industrial design. It also has several congress halls, notably Fira de Barcelona – the second largest trade fair and exhibition center in Europe, that host a quickly growing number of national and international events each year (at present above 50). The total exhibition floor space of Fira de Barcelona venues is , not counting Gran Via center on the Plaza de Europa. However, the Eurozone crisis and deep cuts in business travel affected the Council's positioning of the city as a convention center.
An important business center, the World Trade Center Barcelona, is located in Barcelona's Port Vell harbour.
The city is known for hosting well as world-class conferences and expositions, including the 1888 Exposición Universal de Barcelona, the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition (Expo 1929), the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures and the 2004 World Urban Forum.
Tourism
Barcelona is the 10th-most-visited city in the world and the third most visited in Europe after London and Paris, with 8 million tourists every year since 2012. With its Rambles, Barcelona is ranked the most popular city to visit in Spain.
Barcelona as internationally renowned a tourist destination, with numerous recreational areas, one of the best beaches in the world, mild and warm climate, historical monuments, including eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, many good-quality hotels, and developed tourist infrastructure.
Manufacturing sector
Industry generates 21% of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the region, with the energy, chemical and metallurgy industries accounting for 47% of industrial production. The Barcelona metropolitan area had 67% of the total number of industrial establishments in Catalonia as of 1997.
Barcelona has long been an important European automobile manufacturing center. Formerly there were automobile factories of AFA, Abadal, Actividades Industriales, Alvarez, America, Artés de Arcos, Balandrás, Baradat-Esteve, Biscúter, J. Castro, Clúa, David, Delfín, Díaz y Grilló, Ebro trucks, Edis, Elizalde, Automóviles España, Eucort, Fenix, Fábrica Hispano, Auto Academia Garriga, Fábrica Española de Automóviles Hebe, Hispano-Suiza, Huracán Motors, Talleres Hereter, Junior SL, Kapi, La Cuadra, M.A., Automóviles Matas, Motores y Motos, Nacional Custals, National Pescara, Nacional RG, Nacional Rubi, Nacional Sitjes, Automóviles Nike, Orix, Otro Ford, Partia, Pegaso, PTV, Ricart, Ricart-España, Industrias Salvador, Siata Española, Stevenson, Romagosa y Compañía, Garaje Storm, Talleres Hereter, Trimak, Automóviles Victoria, Manufacturas Mecánicas Aleu.
Today, the headquarters and a large factory of SEAT (the largest Spanish automobile manufacturer) are in one of its suburbs. There is also a Nissan factory in the logistics and industrial area of the city. The factory of Derbi, a large manufacturer of motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, also lies near the city.
As in other modern cities, the manufacturing sector has long since been overtaken by the services sector, though it remains very important. The region's leading industries are textiles, chemical, pharmaceutical, motor, electronic, printing, logistics, publishing, telecommunications and information technology services.
Fashion
The traditional importance of textiles is reflected in Barcelona's drive to become a major fashion center. There have been many attempts to launch Barcelona as a fashion capital, notably Gaudi Home.
Beginning in the summer of 2000, the city hosted the prestigious Bread & Butter urban fashion fair until 2009, when its organisers announced that it would be returning to Berlin. This was a hard blow for the city as the fair brought €100 m to the city in just three days.
Since 2009, The Brandery, an urban fashion show, has been held in Barcelona twice a year. In 2012, Barcelona was named as the third most important fashion capital according to the Global Language Monitor’s annual ranking of the world's top fifty fashion capitals.
Government and administrative divisions
As the capital of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Barcelona is the seat of the Catalan government, known as the Generalitat de Catalunya; of particular note are the executive branch, the parliament, and the Supreme Court of Catalonia. The city is also the capital of the Province of Barcelona and the Barcelonès comarca (district).
Barcelona is governed by a city council formed by 41 city councillors, elected for a four-year term by universal suffrage. As one of the two biggest cities in Spain, Barcelona is subject to a special law articulated through the Carta Municipal (Municipal Law). A first version of this law was passed in 1960 and amended later, but the current version was approved in March 2006. According to this law, Barcelona's city council is organized in two levels: a political one, with elected city councillors, and one executive, which administrates the programs and executes the decisions taken on the political level. This law also gives the local government a special relationship with the central government and it also gives the mayor wider prerogatives by the means of municipal executive commissions. It expands the powers of the city council in areas like telecommunications, city traffic, road safety and public safety. It also gives a special economic regime to the city's treasury and it gives the council a veto in matters that will be decided by the central government, but that will need a favourable report from the council.
The Comissió de Govern (Government Commission) is the executive branch, formed by 24 councillors, led by the Mayor, with 5 lieutenant-mayors and 17 city councillors, each in charge of an area of government, and 5 non-elected councillors. The plenary, formed by the 41 city councillors, has advisory, planning, regulatory, and fiscal executive functions. The six Commissions del Consell Municipal (City council commissions) have executive and controlling functions in the field of their jurisdiction. They are composed by a number of councillors proportional to the number of councillors each political party has in the plenary. The city council has jurisdiction in the fields of city planning, transportation, municipal taxes, public highways security through the Guàrdia Urbana (the municipal police), city maintenance, gardens, parks and environment, facilities (like schools, nurseries, sports centers, libraries, and so on), culture, sports, youth and social welfare. Some of these competencies are not exclusive, but shared with the Generalitat de Catalunya or the central Spanish government. In some fields with shared responsibility (such as public health, education or social services), there is a shared Agency or Consortium between the city and the Generalitat to plan and manage services.
The executive branch is led by a Chief Municipal Executive Officer which answers to the Mayor. It is made up of departments which are legally part of the city council and by separate legal entities of two types: autonomous public departments and public enterprises.
The seat of the city council is on the Plaça de Sant Jaume, opposite the seat of Generalitat de Catalunya. Since the coming of the Spanish democracy, Barcelona had been governed by the PSC, first with an absolute majority and later in coalition with ERC and ICV. After the May 2007 election, the ERC did not renew the coalition agreement and the PSC governed in a minority coalition with ICV as the junior partner.
After 32 years, on 22 May 2011, CiU gained a plurality of seats at the municipal election, gaining 15 seats to the PSC's 11. The PP hold 8 seats, ICV 5 and ERC 2.
Districts
Since 1987, the city has been divided into 10 administrative districts (districtes in Catalan, distritos in Spanish):
Ciutat Vella
Eixample
Sants-Montjuïc
Les Corts
Sarrià-Sant Gervasi
Gràcia
Horta-Guinardó
Nou Barris
Sant Andreu
Sant Martí
The districts are based mostly on historical divisions, and several are former towns annexed by the city of Barcelona in the 18th and 19th centuries that still maintain their own distinct character. Each district has its own council led by a city councillor. The composition of each district council depends on the number of votes each political party had in that district, so a district can be led by a councillor from a different party than the executive council.
Education
Barcelona has a well-developed higher education system of public universities. Most prominent among these is the University of Barcelona (established in 1450), a world-renowned research and teaching institution with campuses around the city. Barcelona is also home to the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and the newer Pompeu Fabra University, and, in the private sector the EADA Business School founded in 1957, became the first Barcelona institution to run manager training programmes for the business community. IESE Business School, as well as the largest private educational institution, the Ramon Llull University, which encompasses internationally prestigious schools and institutes such as the ESADE Business School. The Autonomous University of Barcelona, another public university, is located in Bellaterra, a town in the Metropolitan Area. Toulouse Business School and the Open University of Catalonia (a private Internet-centered open university) are also based in Barcelona.
The city has a network of public schools, from nurseries to high schools, under the responsibility of a consortium led by city council (though the curriculum is the responsibility of the Generalitat de Catalunya). There are also many private schools, some of them Roman Catholic. Most such schools receive a public subsidy on a per-student basis, are subject to inspection by the public authorities, and are required to follow the same curricular guidelines as public schools, though they charge tuition. Known as escoles concertades, they are distinct from schools whose funding is entirely private (escoles privades).
The language of instruction at public schools and escoles concertades is Catalan, as stipulated by the 2009 Catalan Education Act (in court for discrimination). Spanish may be used as a language of instruction by teachers of Spanish literature or language, and foreign languages by teachers of those languages. An experimental partial immersion programme adopted by some schools allows for the teaching of a foreign language (English, generally) across the curriculum, though this is limited to a maximum of 30% of the school day. No public school or escola concertada in Barcelona may offer 50% or full immersion programmes in a foreign language, nor does any public school or escola concertada offer International Baccalaureate programmes.
Culture
Barcelona's cultural roots go back 2000 years. Since the arrival of democracy, the Catalan language (very much repressed during the dictatorship of Franco) has been promoted, both by recovering works from the past and by stimulating the creation of new works. Barcelona is designated as a world-class city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network.
Entertainment and performing arts
Barcelona has many venues for live music and theatre, including the world-renowned Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, the Teatre Lliure and the Palau de la Música Catalana concert hall. Barcelona also is home to the Barcelona and Catalonia National Symphonic Orchestra (Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, usually known as OBC), the largest symphonic orchestra in Catalonia. In 1999, the OBC inaugurated its new venue in the brand-new Auditorium (l'Auditori). It performs around 75 concerts per season and its current director is Eiji Oue.
The major thoroughfare of Las Ramblas is home to mime artists and street performers.
Yearly two major pop music festivals take place in the city, the Sónar Festival and the Primavera Sound Festival. The city also has a thriving alternative music scene, with groups such as The Pinker Tones receiving international attention.
Media
El Periódico de Catalunya, La Vanguardia and Ara are Barcelona's three major daily newspapers (the first two with Catalan and Spanish editions, Ara only in Catalan) while Sport and El Mundo Deportivo (both in Spanish) are the city's two major sports daily newspapers, published by the same companies. The city is also served by a number of smaller publications such as Ara and El Punt Avui (in Catalan), by nationwide newspapers with special Barcelona editions like El Pais (in Spanish, with an online version in Catalan) and El Mundo (in Spanish), and by several free newspapers like 20 minutos and Què (all bilingual).
Barcelona oldest and main online newspaper VilaWeb is the oldest one also in Europe (with Catalan and English editions)
Several major FM stations include Catalunya Ràdio, RAC 1, RAC 105 and Cadena SER. Barcelona also has a local TV stations, BTV, owned by city council. The headquarters of Televisió de Catalunya, Catalonia's public network, are located in Sant Joan Despí, in Barcelona's metropolitan area.
Sports
Barcelona has a long sporting tradition and hosted the highly successful 1992 Summer Olympics as well as several matches during the 1982 FIFA World Cup (at the two stadiums). It has also hosted, among others, about 30 sports events of international significance.
FC Barcelona is a sports club best known worldwide for its football team, one of the largest in the world and second richest football club in the world. It has 64 of national (likewise 41 runners-up) and 16 continental (likewise 10 runners-up) trophies, including five of the UEFA Champions League (likewise 3 runners-up) and three of the FIFA Club World Cup (likewise 1 runners-up). Also, it is the only men's club in the world to accomplish a sextuple. FC Barcelona also has teams in FC Barcelona Regal (basketball), FC Barcelona Handbol (the handball), FC Barcelona Hoquei (roller hockey), FC Barcelona Ice Hockey (ice hockey), FC Barcelona Futsal (futsal) and FC Barcelona Rugby (rugby union), all of them winners of the highest country or/and European competitions. The club's museum is the second most visited in Catalonia. Twice a season, FC Barcelona and cross-town rivals RCD Espanyol contest in the local derby in La Liga, while its basketball section has its own local derby in Liga ACB with nearby Joventut Badalona. Barcelona also has other clubs in lower categories, like CE Europa and UE Sant Andreu.
Barcelona has two UEFA elite stadiums: FC Barcelona's Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe with a capacity of 100,000 and the publicly owned Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, with a capacity of 55,000; used for the 1992 Olympics. Also, the city has several smaller stadiums such as Mini Estadi, with a capacity of 15,000 and Camp Municipal Narcís Sala, Nou Sardenya with a capacity of 7,000. In the suburbs of Barcelona there is a third UEFA elite stadium – Estadi Cornellà-El Prat, with a capacity of 40,000. Also, except Palau Sant Jordi (St. George's sporting arena), with a capacity of 12,000–24,000 (depending on use), city has two other larger sporting and concert arena: Palau Blaugrana, with a capacity of 7,500 and Palau dels Esports de Barcelona.
Barcelona was also the host city for the 2013 World Aquatics Championships, which were held at the Palau San Jordi.
Several road running competitions are organized year-round in Barcelona: the Barcelona Marathon every March with over 10,000 participants in 2010, the Cursa de Bombers in April, the Cursa de El Corte Inglés in May (with about 60,000 participants each year), the Cursa de la Mercè, the Cursa Jean Bouin, the Milla Sagrada Família and the San Silvestre. The Open Seat Godó, a 50-year-old ATP World Tour 500 Series tennis tournament, is held annually in the facilities of the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona (Barcelona Royal Tennis Club). Also, each Christmas, a swimming race across the port is organized. Near Barcelona, in Montmeló, the 107,000 capacity Circuit de Catalunya / Circuit de Barcelona racetrack hosts the Formula One World Championship, Formula One Spanish Grand Prix, Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix, Spanish GT Championship and GP2 Series. Skateboarding and bicycling are also very popular in Barcelona. In the city and the metropolitan area, there are tens of km of bicycle paths.
Transport
Airports
Barcelona is served by Barcelona-El Prat Airport, about from the center of Barcelona. It is the second-largest airport in Spain, and the largest on the Mediterranean coast, which handles more than 37.5 million passengers a year, showing an annual upward trend. It is a main hub for Vueling Airlines and Ryanair, and also a focus for Iberia and Air Europa. The airport mainly serves domestic and European destinations, although some airlines offer destinations in Latin America, Asia and the United States. The airport is connected to the city by highway, commuter train (Barcelona Airport railway station) and scheduled bus service. A new terminal (T1) has been built, and entered service on 17 June 2009.
Some low-cost airlines, such as Transavia.com and Ryanair, also use Girona-Costa Brava Airport, about to the north, Reus Airport, to the south, or Lleida-Alguaire Airport, about to the west, of the city. Sabadell Airport is a smaller airport in the nearby town of Sabadell, devoted to pilot training, aerotaxi and private flights.
Seaport
The Port of Barcelona has a 2000-year-old history and a great contemporary commercial importance. It is Europe's ninth largest container port, with a trade volume of 1.72 million TEU's in 2013. The port is managed by the Port Authority of Barcelona. Its are divided into three zones: Port Vell (the old port), the commercial port and the logistics port (Barcelona Free Port). The port is undergoing an enlargement that will double its size thanks to diverting the mouth of the Llobregat river (1¼ mi) to the south.
The Barcelona harbour is the leading European cruiser port and a most important Mediterranean turnaround base. In 2013, 3,6 million of pleasure cruises passengers used services of the Port of Barcelona.
The Port Vell area also houses the Maremagnum (a commercial mall), a multiplex cinema, the IMAX Port Vell and one of Europe's largest aquariums – Aquarium Barcelona, containing 8,000 fish and 11 sharks contained in 22 basins filled with 4 million litres of sea water. The Maremagnum, being situated within the confines of the port, is the only commercial mall in the city that can open on Sundays and public holidays.
Railway
Barcelona is a major hub for RENFE, the Spanish state railway network. The city's main Inter-city rail station is Barcelona-Sants station, whilst Estació de França terminus serves a secondary role handling suburban, regional and medium distance services. Freight services operate to local industries and to the Port of Barcelona.
RENFE's AVE high-speed rail system, which is designed for speeds of , was extended from Madrid to Barcelona in 2008 in the form of the Madrid–Barcelona high-speed rail line. A shared RENFE-SNCF high-speed rail connecting Barcelona and France (Paris, Marseilles and Toulouse, through Perpignan–Barcelona high-speed rail line) was launched in 2013. Both these lines serve Barcelona Sants terminal station.
Besides RENFE's services, other rail services in the Barcelona area are operated by the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), owned by the Catalonian government. The FGC operates largely commuter rail services, but also carries freight to the Port of Barcelona, as well as a number of rack railways and funiculars, and three of the lines of the Barcelona Metro (see local public transport below). Other suburban services are operated by Rodalies de Catalunya over RENFE tracks.
Roads and highways
Barcelona lies on three international routes, including European route E15 that follows the Mediterranean coast, European route E90 to Madrid and Lisbon, and European route E09 to Paris. It is also served by a comprehensive network of motorways and highways throughout the metropolitan area, including A-2, A-7/AP-7, C-16, C-17, C-31, C-32, C-33, C-60.
The city is circled by three half ring roads or bypasses, Ronda de Dalt (B-20) (on the mountain side), Ronda del Litoral (B-10) (along the coast) and Ronda del Mig (separated into two parts: Travessera de Dalt in the north and the Gran Via de Carles III), two partially covered fast highways with several exits that bypass the city.
The city's main arteries include Diagonal Avenue, which crosses it diagonally, Meridiana Avenue which leads to Glòries and connects with Diagonal Avenue and Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, which crosses the city from east to west, passing through its center. The famous boulevard of La Rambla, whilst no longer an important vehicular route, remains an important pedestrian route.
The Estació del Nord (Northern Station), a former railway station which was renovated for the 1992 Olympic Games, now serves as the terminus for long-distance and regional bus services.
Local public transport
Barcelona is served by a comprehensive local public transport network that includes a metro, a bus network, two separate modern tram networks, a separate historic tram line, and several funiculars and aerial cable cars. Most of these networks and lines form a coordinated fare system, administered by the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità (ATM), although they are operated by a number of different bodies.
The largely underground Barcelona Metro network comprises eleven lines, identified by an "L" followed by the line number as well as by individual colours. Eight of these lines are operated on dedicated track by the Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), whilst three lines are operated by the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) and share tracks with that company's commuter lines.
Another company, TRAMMET, operates the city's two modern tram networks, known as Trambaix and Trambesòs. The historic tram line, the Tramvia Blau, connects the metro (L7, operated by FGC) to the Funicular del Tibidabo (operated by TMB). The Funicular de Tibidabo climbs the Tibidabo hill, as does the Funicular de Vallvidrera (FGC). The Funicular de Montjuïc (TMB) climbs the Montjuïc hill. The city has two aerial cable cars: the Montjuïc Cable Car (to the Montjuïc castle) and the Port Vell Aerial Tramway that runs via Torre Jaume I and Torre Sant Sebastià over the port.
Buses in Barcelona are a major form of public transport, with extensive local, interurban and night bus networks. Most local services are operated by the TMB, although some other services are operated by a number of private companies, albeit still within the ATM fare structure. A separate private bus line, known as Aerobús, links the airport with the city center, with its own fare structure.
Barcelona has a metered taxi fleet governed by the Institut Metropolità del Taxi (Metropolitan Taxi Institute), composed of more than 10,000 cars. Most of the licences are in the hands of self-employed drivers. With their black and yellow livery, Barcelona's taxis are easily spotted, and can be caught from one of many taxi ranks, hailed on street, or called by telephone.
On 22 March 2007, Barcelona's City Council started the Bicing service, a bicycle service understood as a public transport. Once the user has their user card, they can take a bicycle from any of the more than 400 stations spread around the city and use it anywhere the urban area of the city, and then leave it at another station. The service has been a success, with 50,000 subscribed users in three months.
International relations
Twin towns and sister cities
Barcelona is twinned with the following cities:(in chronological order)
Montpellier, France, 1963
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1972
Monterrey, Mexico, 1977
Boston, USA, 1983
Busan, South Korea, 1983
Cologne, Germany, 1984
São Paulo, Brazil, 1985
Montevideo, Uruguay, 1985
Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1985
Gdańsk, Poland, 1990
Havana, Cuba, 1993
Kobe, Japan, 1993
Antwerp, Belgium, 1997
Istanbul, Turkey, 1997
Gaza, Palestinian Territories, 1998
Tel Aviv, Israel, 1998
Dublin, Ireland, 1998
Athens, Greece, 1999
Isfahan, Iran, 2000
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2000
Valparaíso, Chile, 2001
Shanghai, China, 2001
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2006
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 2008
Cebu City, Philippines, 2009
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2009
San Francisco, USA, 2010
Partnerships and cooperations
Other forms of cooperation and city friendship similar to the twin city programmes exist to many cities worldwide.
Turin, Italy
Shenzhen, China
Other sights
See also
List of markets in Barcelona
List of tallest buildings in Barcelona
Plans for Winter Olympics held in Barcelona
References
Notes
Bibliography
Busquets, Joan. Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City (Harvard UP, 2006) 468 pp.
Marshall, Tim, ed. Transforming Barcelona (Routledge, 2004), 267 pp.
Ramon Resina, Joan. Barcelona's Vocation of Modernity: Rise and Decline of an Urban Image (Stanford UP, 2008). 272 pp.
External links
Official website of Barcelona
Official website of Barcelona in the Spain's national tourism portal
Category:10s BC establishments in Spain
Category:Historic Jewish communities
Category:Mediterranean port cities and towns in Spain
Category:Municipalities in Barcelonès
Category:Phoenician colonies in Spain
Category:Populated places in Barcelonès
Category:Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal
Category:Roman sites in Spain
Category:University towns in Spain |
2016-01 | Smosh-697229775 | Smosh | Smosh
Smosh is an American web-based sketch comedy duo consisting of Ian Andrew Hecox (born November 30, 1987) and Anthony Padilla (born September 16, 1987).
Padilla began posting flash animations on Newgrounds in 2003, under the name Smosh. He was later joined by his friend Ian Hecox. Soon afterward, they began to post videos on YouTube in the autumn of 2005 and became one of the most popular channels on that site. , the Smosh channel has more than 21 million subscribers and 5.0 billion video views. The Smosh team has expanded to include others to handle animated, other language, and video gaming content videos, and the sketches have included more actors.
The Smosh channel has experienced three different spans as the most subscribed YouTube channel. The first period spanned from May to June 2006, the second spanned from April 2007 to September 2008, and the third span lasted from January to August 2013.
History
Formation and Pokémon Theme Music Video: 2002–2006
The franchise began when Anthony Padilla built a website in 2002, smosh.com, and made several different Flash animations. He has stated that the name Smosh came from an incident where he mistook a friend explaining a mosh pit, as a "smosh pit". Later, his friend, Ian Hecox, joined the venture. Padilla and Hecox first met in their sixth grade science class. They became friends, and quickly discovered their knack for comedy. In 2005, they joined YouTube and made several videos together, lip syncing the theme songs to Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At first, these videos were not intended to be posted online, but after they sent them to their friends, they started a YouTube channel.
One of Smosh's earliest videos, "Pokémon Theme Music Video," was released in November 2005. It followed the same style as their other earlier videos, featuring the duo lip-synching the original English theme song for the Pokémon anime. However, the video instantly became much more popular than any of their other videos; over the course of its lifetime, it gained 24.7 million views, becoming the most-viewed video on all of YouTube at that time. It held that title for about six months until it was removed.
The success of their Pokémon video and other videos led Smosh to be featured in the "Person of the Year: You" issue of Time Magazine, published December 13, 2006 and on Time.com. In March 2007, a user named Andii2000 re-uploaded the original Pokémon video; it has over 15.7 million views . Due to the channel's continued success, and Smosh's partnership with YouTube, the two recreated the video in November 2010, this time changing the words to be critical of The Pokémon Company taking down the Pokémon theme video.
YouTube success: 2006–2012
Over the course of the next few years, Smosh began to diversify. They started making short YouTube skits, such as their annual video series Food Battle and That Damn Neighbor. Smosh continued to grow in popularity and became one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. In 2009, Smosh prepared a massive redesign of Smosh.com, added a games section, and put extras in the video section. In January 2010, Smosh launched the "Smosh Pit" feature, a blog that consists of various pieces of pop-culture trivia, and written comedy. In addition, 2010 saw the channel launch 3 different Smosh-based web series: Ian Is Bored, which started as a collection of comedic videos by Hecox, but then turned into both Hecox and Padilla making vlog like videos, and renamed Smosh Is Bored; Ask Charlie, where people ask Charlie, from their January 2010 Charlie the Drunk Guinea Pig video, random questions; and Lunchtime with Smosh, a comedy series featuring Smosh getting and eating food from various places, and answering Twitter questions from their fans on Twitter. Some of Smosh's most popular video series include Pokémon in Real Life and If ____ Was Real. Also in early 2010, Smosh created the "iShut Up App" for Android phones as part of a Google sponsorship; it eventually made its way to the iTunes app store. In 2011, Smosh was acquired by Alloy Digital.
Expansion: 2012–present
In 2012, the duo started three new YouTube channels, ElSmosh, with Smosh videos dubbed in Spanish, Shut Up! Cartoons, with various animated videos, and Smosh Games, with gaming related content hosted alongside Mari Takahashi, David "Lasercorn" Moss, Matthew Sohinki, and Joshua "Jovenshire" Ovenshire. Some of Smosh's most popular videos are video-game themed music videos. These songs (along with other original songs) have been released in 4 albums to date – Sexy Album (2010), If Music Were Real (2011), Smoshtastic (2012), and The Sweet Sound of Smosh (2013). In January 2013, the Smosh channel surpassed Ray William Johnson in subscribers. Smosh released Super Head Esploder X, a video game for iPads, iPhones, and iPods, in February 2013, and in July 2013 started an Indiegogo campaign for an iOS and PC game, Food Battle: The Game. Hecox and Padilla raised $258,777 to hire video game producers to create a game based on their characters and the foods used in their annual Food Battle series. Smosh donated 10% of the funds to three charities in November 2014, as well as releasing the game.
In February 2014, Smosh released a mobile app to access Smosh videos and other content from their website, and in late 2014 an Xbox One app. Also in late 2014, fan run channel Smosh France became an official Smosh channel. In March 2015, Smosh re-launched the Smosh Games Alliance, a multi-channel network where fans join to enjoy network benefits in exchange for a percentage of the ad revenue. In 2015 the duo announced Noah Grossman, Keith Leak II, Olivia Sui, Courtney Miller, and Shayne Topp, as new regular cast members for Smosh videos.
Film
On September 18, 2014, Lionsgate announced that a feature-length movie was in development, Smosh: The Movie was released on July 23, 2015. It is directed by Alex Winter, written by Eric Falconer, and aside from Hecox and Padilla, stars Jenna Marbles, Grace Helbig, Harley Morenstein, Michael Ian Black, Mark Fischbach (Markiplier), and Steve Austin. Smosh is also giving their voices to the animated feature film The Angry Birds Movie, scheduled to premiere in 2016.
Channels
Ten Smosh-related channels exist on YouTube, though only seven have scheduled content.
Smosh (youtube.com/smosh)
The base "Smosh" channel, where the team post skits and other videos starring Noah Grossman, Ian Hecox, Keith Leak II, Courtney Miller, Anthony Padilla, Olivia Sui, and Shayne Topp. Videos are uploaded every Friday and every other Tuesday, and behind the scenes (BTS) are released in the following days. It has over 21 million subscribers and over 5.0 billion views. Grossman, Miller, Sui, and Topp also have their own channels, which are not considered part of the Smosh roster.
Smosh Games (youtube.com/SmoshGames)
"Smosh Games" uploads numerous videos a week, consisting of Let's Plays and video game commentary shows. Padilla and Hecox appear less regularly on this channel, with fellow Smosh Games members Mari Takahashi, David "Lasercorn" Moss, Matthew Sohinki, Joshua "Jovenshire" Ovenshire, Amra "Flitz" Ricketts, and Wesley "Wes The Editor" Johnson handling most hosting duties. It has over 6.5 million subscribers, and over 1.8 billion video views as of December 2015. Takahashi, Moss, Sohinki, Ovenshire, Ricketts, and Johnson also have their own channels, which are not considered part of the Smosh roster.
Smosh 2nd Channel (youtube.com/IanH)
From "Smosh 2nd Channel" (originally named "IanH", and was used at first for vlogs and other non-scripted videos), Hecox and Padilla upload their side series Smosh is Bored and Lunchtime with Smosh on Mondays, while the rest of the team uploads vlogs on Thursdays, and Put It In My Mouth and Smosh's Seriously Super Stupid Sleepover on Saturdays. It has over 5.0 million subscribers and over 1.1 billion views. Smosh Pit Weekly was a series on the channel hosted by Mari Takahashi from April 2011 to August 2015, posted on Saturdays.
ElSmosh (youtube.com/ElSmosh)
On "ElSmosh", the team uploads ElSmosh Pit de la Semana (Smosh Pit Weekly), Honest Game Trailers, a series from Smosh Games narrated in Spanish, and new Smosh episodes that have been dubbed over in Spanish. It has over 2.2 million subscribers.
Shut Up! Cartoons (youtube.com/ShutUpCartoons)
"Shut Up! Cartoons" uploads a number of ten episode animated series, created by different animators. It has over 1.8 million subscribers.
Kalel (youtube.com/WatchUsLiveAndStuff)
Active as a Smosh channel from June 2013 to October 2014, and titled "WatchUsLiveAndStuff", it hosted vlogs uploaded by Padilla and his then fiancée Kalel. Kalel continues to upload videos and it has over 1.8 million subscribers.
AnthonyPadilla (youtube.com/AnthonyPadilla)
"AnthonyPadilla" hosts vlog-like videos uploaded by Padilla.
New AskCharlie EVERY WEDNESDAY (youtube.com/askcharlie)
"AskCharlie", active from May 2010 to December 2011, hosts videos from the Ask Charlie series, where an anthropomorphic guinea pig, named Charlie the Drunk Guinea Pig, answers viewer submitted questions.
Smosh Games Alliance (youtube.com/SmoshGamesAlliance)
The Smosh Games Alliance (SGA) is a channel which utilises fan-submitted gaming content and spotlights it on the channel. The channel also includes "Smosh University" which offers tutorials to viewers, live gaming between SGA members and the Smosh Games crew, and vlogs with the Smosh Games crew. It has over 120 thousand subscribers.
Smosh France (youtube.com/TheFrenchSmosh)
"Smosh France" is a fan-run channel which re-uploads videos from the Smosh channel with French subtitles. It has over 110 thousand subscribers.
Schedule
Discography
Studio albums
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Category:2002 establishments in California
Category:American comedy duos
Category:American musical duos
Category:Performing groups established in 2002
Category:YouTube channels |
2016-01 | Silver-697108121 | Silver | Silver
Silver is a chemical element with symbol Ag ( árguros, , both from the Indo-European root *h₂erǵ- for "grey" or "shining") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it possesses the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and reflectivity of any metal. The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. More abundant than gold, silver metal has in many premodern monetary systems functioned as coinable specie, sometimes even alongside gold. In addition, silver has numerous applications beyond currency, such as in solar panels, water filtration, jewelry and ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils (hence the term silverware), and also as an investment in the forms of coins and bullion. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides (oligodynamic effect), added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters and other medical instruments.
Characteristics
Silver is produced during certain types of supernova explosions by nucleosynthesis from lighter elements through the r-process, a form of nuclear fusion that produces many elements heavier than iron, of which silver is one.
Silver is a very ductile, malleable (slightly less so than gold), univalent coinage metal, with a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a high degree of polish. Protected silver has higher optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm. At wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silver's reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm.
The electrical conductivity of silver is the highest of all metals, even higher than copper, but it is not widely used for electrical purposes due to its much higher cost. An exception to this is in radio-frequency engineering, particularly at VHF and higher frequencies, where silver plating is employed to improve electrical conductivity of parts and wires (at high frequencies current tends to flow on the surface of conductors, not their interior, hence silver plating greatly improves overall conductivity). Silver also has the lowest contact resistance of any metal. During World War II in the US, 13,540 tons were used in the electromagnets used for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper.
Pure silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal, although those of the nonmetal carbon in the form of diamond and Superfluid helium-4 are higher.
Silver halides are photosensitive and are remarkable for their ability to record a latent image that can later be developed chemically. Silver is stable in pure air and water, but tarnishes when it is exposed to air or water containing ozone or hydrogen sulfide, the latter forming a black layer of silver sulfide, which can be cleaned off with dilute hydrochloric acid. The most common oxidation state of silver is +1 (for example, silver nitrate, AgNO3); the less common +2 compounds (for example, silver(II) fluoride, AgF2), and the even less common +3 (for example, potassium tetrafluoroargentate(III), KAgF4) and even +4 compounds (for example, potassium hexafluoroargentate(IV), K2AgF6) are also known.
Isotopes
Naturally occurring silver is composed of two stable isotopes, 107Ag and 109Ag, with 107Ag being slightly more abundant (51.839% natural abundance). Their almost equal abundance is rare in the periodic table. Silver's atomic weight is 107.8682(2) g/mol.
Twenty-eight radioisotopes have been characterized, the most stable being 105Ag with a half-life of 41.29 days, 111Ag with a half-life of 7.45 days, and 112Ag with a half-life of 3.13 hours. This element has numerous meta states, the most stable being 108mAg (t1/2 = 418 years), 110mAg (t1/2 = 249.79 days) and 106mAg (t1/2 = 8.28 days). All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives of less than an hour, and the majority of these have half-lives of less than three minutes.
Isotopes of silver range in relative atomic mass from 93.943 (94Ag) to 126.936 (127Ag); the primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, 107Ag, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay. The primary decay products before 107Ag are palladium (element 46) isotopes, and the primary products after are cadmium (element 48) isotopes.
The palladium isotope 107Pd decays by beta emission to 107Ag with a half-life of 6.5 million years. Iron meteorites are the only objects with a high-enough palladium-to-silver ratio to yield measurable variations in 107Ag abundance. Radiogenic 107Ag was first discovered in the Santa Clara meteorite in 1978. The discoverers suggest the coalescence and differentiation of iron-cored small planets may have occurred 10 million years after a nucleosynthetic event. 107Pd–107Ag correlations observed in bodies that have clearly been melted since the accretion of the solar system must reflect the presence of unstable nuclides in the early solar system.
Compounds
Silver metal dissolves readily in nitric acid () to produce silver nitrate (), a transparent crystalline solid that is photosensitive and readily soluble in water. Silver nitrate is used as the starting point for the synthesis of many other silver compounds, as an antiseptic, and as a yellow stain for glass in stained glass. Silver metal does not react with sulfuric acid, which is used in jewelry-making to clean and remove copper oxide firescale from silver articles after silver soldering or annealing. Silver reacts readily with sulfur or hydrogen sulfide to produce silver sulfide, a dark-colored compound familiar as the tarnish on silver coins and other objects. Silver sulfide also forms silver whiskers when silver electrical contacts are used in an atmosphere rich in hydrogen sulfide.
4 Ag + O2 + 2 H2S → 2 Ag2S + 2 H2O
Silver chloride () is precipitated from solutions of silver nitrate in the presence of chloride ions, and the other silver halides used in the manufacture of photographic emulsions are made in the same way, using bromide or iodide salts. Silver chloride is used in glass electrodes for pH testing and potentiometric measurement, and as a transparent cement for glass. Silver iodide has been used in attempts to seed clouds to produce rain. Silver halides are highly insoluble in aqueous solutions and are used in gravimetric analytical methods.
Silver oxide (), produced when silver nitrate solutions are treated with a base, is used as a positive electrode (anode) in watch batteries. Silver carbonate () is precipitated when silver nitrate is treated with sodium carbonate ().
2 AgNO3 + 2 OH− → Ag2O + H2O + 2 NO3−
2 AgNO3 + Na2CO3 → Ag2CO3 + 2 NaNO3
Silver fulminate (), a powerful, touch-sensitive explosive used in percussion caps, is made by reaction of silver metal with nitric acid in the presence of ethanol (). Other dangerously explosive silver compounds are silver azide (), formed by reaction of silver nitrate with sodium azide (), and silver acetylide, formed when silver reacts with acetylene gas.
Latent images formed in silver halide crystals are developed by treatment with alkaline solutions of reducing agents such as hydroquinone, metol (4-(methylamino)phenol sulfate) or ascorbate, which reduce the exposed halide to silver metal. Alkaline solutions of silver nitrate can be reduced to silver metal by reducing sugars such as glucose, and this reaction is used to silver glass mirrors and the interior of glass Christmas ornaments. Silver halides are soluble in solutions of sodium thiosulfate (), which is used as a photographic fixer, to remove excess silver halide from photographic emulsions after image development.
Silver metal is attacked by strong oxidizers such as potassium permanganate () and potassium dichromate (), and in the presence of potassium bromide (); these compounds are used in photography to bleach silver images, converting them to silver halides that can either be fixed with thiosulfate or redeveloped to intensify the original image. Silver forms cyanide complexes (silver cyanide) that are soluble in water in the presence of an excess of cyanide ions. Silver cyanide solutions are used in electroplating of silver.
Although silver normally has oxidation state +1 in compounds, other oxidation states are known, such as +3 in , produced by the reaction of elemental silver or silver fluoride with krypton difluoride.
Silver artifacts primarily undergo three forms of deterioration. Silver sulfide tarnish is the most common form of silver degradation. Fresh silver chloride is pale yellow colored, becoming purplish on exposure to light and projects slightly from the surface of the artifact or coin. The precipitation of copper in ancient silver can be used to date artifacts.
Applications
Many well-known uses of silver involve its precious metal properties, including currency, decorative items, and mirrors. The contrast between its bright white color and other media makes it very useful to the visual arts. By contrast, fine silver particles form the dense black in photographs and in silverpoint drawings. It has also long been used to confer high monetary value as objects (such as silver coins and investment bars) or make objects symbolic of high social or political rank. Silver salts have been used since the Middle Ages to produce a yellow or orange color in stained glass, and more complex decorative color reactions can be produced by incorporating silver metal in blown, kilnformed or torchworked glass.
Currency
Silver, in the form of electrum (a gold–silver alloy), was coined to produce money around 700 BC by the Lydians. Later, silver was refined and coined in its pure form. Many nations used silver as the basic unit of monetary value. In the modern world, silver bullion has the ISO currency code XAG. The name of the pound sterling (£) reflects the fact it originally represented the value of one pound Tower weight of sterling silver; other historical currencies, such as the French livre, have similar etymologies. During the 19th century, the bimetallism that prevailed in most countries was undermined by the discovery of large deposits of silver in the Americas; fearing a sharp decrease in the value of silver and thus the currency, most states had switched to a gold standard by 1900. In some languages, including Sanskrit, Spanish, French, and Hebrew, the word for silver may be used to mean money.
The 20th century saw a gradual movement to fiat currency, with most of the world monetary system losing its link to precious metals after the United States dollar came off the gold standard in 1971; the last currency backed by gold was the Swiss franc, which became a pure fiat currency on 1 May 2000. During this same period, silver gradually ceased to be used in circulating coins. In the UK the silver standard was reduced from .925 to .500 in 1920. Coins that had been made of silver started to be made of cupro-nickel in 1947; existing coins were not withdrawn, but ceased circulating as the silver content came to exceed the face value. In 1964 the United States stopped minting the silver dime and quarter; the last circulating silver coin was the 1970 40% half-dollar. In 1968 Canada minted their last circulating silver coins, the 50% dime and quarter.
For most of the century after the Civil War in the United States, the silver price was considerably less than the face value of circulating silver coins, reaching its nadir of about $.25 per ounce in 1932. By this measure, the silver coins of the United States were effectively fiat coins for much of their history. Not until 1963 did the silver price rise above the threshold of $1.29 per ounce, at which point the silver content of pre-1965 United States coins was equal to in value to the face values of the coins themselves.
Silver coins are still minted by several countries as commemorative or collectible items, but they are not in general circulation.
Silver is used as a currency by many individuals, and is legal tender in the US state of Utah. Silver coins and bullion are also used as an investment to guard against inflation and devaluation.
Jewelry and silverware
Jewelry and silverware are traditionally made from sterling silver (standard silver), an alloy of 92.5% silver with 7.5% copper. In the US, only an alloy consisting of at least 90.0% fine silver can be sold as "silver" (thus frequently stamped 900). Sterling silver (stamped 925) is harder than pure silver, and has a lower melting point (893 °C) than either pure silver or pure copper. Britannia silver is an alternative, hallmark-quality standard containing 95.8% silver, often used to make silver tableware and wrought plate. With the addition of germanium, the patented modified alloy Argentium sterling silver is formed, with improved properties, including resistance to firescale.
Sterling silver jewelry is often plated with a thin coat of .999 fine silver to give the item a shiny finish. This process is called "flashing". Silver jewelry can also be plated with rhodium (for a bright, shiny look) or gold (to produce silver gilt).
Silver is a constituent of almost all colored carat gold alloys and carat gold solders, giving the alloys paler color and greater hardness. White 9 carat gold contains 62.5% silver and 37.5% gold, while 22 carat gold contains a minimum of 91.7% gold and 8.3% silver or copper or other metals.
Historically, the training and guild organization of goldsmiths included silversmiths, and the two crafts remain largely overlapping. Unlike blacksmiths, silversmiths do not shape the metal while it is red-hot, but work it at room temperature with gentle and carefully placed hammer blows. The essence of silversmithing is to take a flat piece of metal and to transform it into a useful object using different hammers, stakes and other simple tools.
While silversmiths specialize in, and principally work silver, they also work with other metals, such as gold, copper, steel, and brass. They make jewelry, silverware, armor, vases, and other artistic items. Because silver is such a malleable metal, silversmiths have a large range of choices with how they prefer to work the metal. Historically, silversmiths are mostly referred to as goldsmiths, which was usually the same guild. In the western Canadian silversmith tradition, guilds do not exist; however, mentoring through colleagues becomes a method of professional learning within a community of craftspeople.
Traditionally, silversmiths mostly made "silverware" (cutlery, tableware, bowls, candlesticks and such). Much less solid silver tableware is handmade now than in the past.
Solar energy
Silver is used in the manufacture of crystalline solar photovoltaic panels. Silver is also used in plasmonic solar cells. 100 million ounces of silver are projected for use by solar energy in 2015.
Silver is the reflective coating of choice for concentrated solar power reflectors. In 2009, scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and SkyFuel teamed to develop large curved sheets of metal that have the potential to be 30% less expensive than today's best collectors of concentrated solar power by replacing glass-based models with a silver polymer sheet that has the same performance as the heavy glass mirrors, but at much lower cost and weight. It also is much easier to deploy and install. The glossy film uses several layers of polymers, with an inner layer of pure silver.
Air conditioning
In 2014 researchers invented a mirror-like panel that, when mounted on a building, acts like an air conditioner. The mirror is built from several layers of wafer-thin materials. The first layer is silver, the most reflective substance on Earth. On top of this are alternating layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide. These layers improve the reflectivity, but also turn the mirror into a thermal radiator.
Water purification
Silver is used in water purifiers. It prevents bacteria and algae from building up in filters. The catalytic action of silver, in concert with oxygen, sanitizes water and eliminates the need for chlorine. Silver ions are also added to water purification systems in hospitals, community water systems, pools and spas, displacing chlorine.
Dentistry
Silver can be alloyed with mercury at room temperature to make amalgams that are widely used for dental fillings. To make dental amalgam, a mixture of powdered silver and other metals such as tin and gold is mixed with mercury to make a stiff paste that can be adapted to the shape of a cavity. The dental amalgam achieves initial hardness within minutes, and sets hard in a few hours.
Photography and electronics
The use of silver in photography, in the form of silver nitrate and silver halides, has rapidly declined due to the lower demand for consumer color film from the advent of digital technology. From the peak global demand for photographic silver in 1999 (267,000,000 troy ounces or 8304.6 metric tonnes) the market had contracted almost 70% by 2013.
Some electrical and electronic products use silver for its superior conductivity, even when tarnished. The primary example of this is in high quality RF connectors. The increase in conductivity is also taken advantage of in RF engineering at VHF and higher frequencies, where conductors often cannot be scaled by 6%, due to tuning requirements, e.g. cavity filters. As an additional example, printed circuits and RFID antennas can be made using silver paints, and computer keyboards use silver electrical contacts. Silver cadmium oxide is used in high-voltage contacts because it can withstand arcing.
Some manufacturers produce audio connector cables, speaker wires, and power cables using silver conductors, which have a 6% higher conductivity than ordinary copper ones of identical dimensions, but cost much more. Though debatable, many hi-fi enthusiasts believe silver wires improve sound quality.
Small devices, such as hearing aids and watches, commonly use silver oxide batteries due to their long life and high energy-to-weight ratio. Another usage is high-capacity silver-zinc and silver-cadmium batteries.
In World War II, there was a shortage of copper and silver was borrowed from the United States Treasury for electrical windings for several production facilities including those of the Manhattan Project; see below under History, WWII.
Glass coatings
Telescopic mirrors
Mirrors in almost all reflective telescopes use vacuum aluminium coatings. However thermal or infrared telescopes use silver coated mirrors because of silver's ability to reflect some types of infrared radiation more effectively than aluminium, as well as silver's ability to reduce the amount of radiation actually emitted from the mirror (its thermal emissivity).
Silver, in protected or enhanced coatings, is seen as the next generation metal coating for reflective telescope mirrors.
Windows
Using a process called sputtering, silver, along with other optically transparent layers, is applied to glass, creating low emissivity coatings used in high-performance insulated glazing. The amount of silver used per window is small because the silver layer is only 10–15 nanometers thick. However, the amount of silver-coated glass worldwide is hundreds of millions of square meters per year, leading to silver consumption on the order of 10 cubic meters or 100 metric tons/year. Silver color seen in architectural glass and tinted windows on vehicles is produced by sputtered chrome, stainless steel or other alloys.
Silver-coated polyester sheets, used to retrofit windows, are another popular method for reducing light transmission.
Other industrial and commercial applications
Silver and silver alloys are used in the construction of high-quality musical wind instruments of many types. Flutes, in particular, are commonly constructed of silver alloy or silver plated, both for appearance and for the frictional surface properties of silver. Brass instruments, such as Trumpets and Baritones, are also commonly plated in silver.
Silver's catalytic properties make it ideal for use as a catalyst in oxidation reactions, for example, the production of formaldehyde from methanol and air by means of silver screens or crystallites containing a minimum 99.95 weight-percent silver. Silver (upon some suitable support) is probably the only catalyst available today to convert ethylene to ethylene oxide (later hydrolyzed to ethylene glycol, used for making polyesters)— an important industrial reaction. It is also used in the Oddy test to detect reduced sulfur compounds and carbonyl sulfides.
Because silver readily absorbs free neutrons, it is commonly used to make control rods to regulate the fission chain reaction in pressurized water nuclear reactors, generally in the form of an alloy containing 80% silver, 15% indium, and 5% cadmium.
Silver is used to make solder and brazing alloys, and as a thin layer on bearing surfaces can provide a significant increase in galling resistance and reduce wear under heavy load, particularly against steel.
Biology
Silver stains are used in biology to increase the contrast and visibility of cells and organelles in microscopy. Camillo Golgi used silver stains to study cells of the nervous system and the Golgi apparatus. Silver stains are used to stain proteins in gel electrophoresis and polyacrylamide gels, either as primary stains or to enhance the visibility and contrast of colloidal gold stain. Different yeasts from Brazilian gold mines, bioaccumulate free and complexed silver ions. A sample of the fungus Aspergillus niger was found growing from gold mining solution; and was found to contain cyano metal complexes; such as gold, silver, copper iron and zinc. The fungus also plays a role in the solubilization of heavy metal sulfides.
Medicine
The medical uses of silver include its incorporation into wound dressings, and its use as an antibiotic coating in medical devices. Wound dressings containing silver sulfadiazine or silver nanomaterials may be used to treat external infections. Silver is also used in some medical applications, such as urinary catheters and endotracheal breathing tubes, where there is tentative evidence that it is effective in reducing catheter-related urinary tract infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia respectively. The silver ion () is bioactive and in sufficient concentration readily kills bacteria in vitro. Silver and silver nanoparticles are used as an antimicrobial in a variety of industrial, healthcare and domestic applications.
Investing
Silver coins and bullion are used for investing. Various types of silver investments can be made on the stock markets, including mining or silver streaming stocks, or silver-backed exchange-traded funds.
Clothing
Silver inhibits the growth of bacteria and fungi on clothing, such as socks, so is sometimes added to reduce odors and the risk of bacterial and fungal infections. It is incorporated into clothing or shoes either by integrating silver nanoparticles into the polymer from which yarns are made or by coating yarns with silver. The loss of silver during washing varies between textile technologies, and the resultant effect on the environment is not yet fully known.
History
Silver has been used for thousands of years for ornaments and utensils, trade, and as the basis for many monetary systems. Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold. The word "silver" appears in Anglo-Saxon in various spellings, such as seolfor and siolfor. A similar form is seen throughout the Germanic languages (compare Old High German silabar and silbir). The chemical symbol Ag is from the Latin word for "silver", argentum (compare Greek άργυρος, árgyros), from the Indo-European root *arg-, meaning "white" or "shining". Silver has been known since ancient times; it is mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate silver was being separated from lead as early as the 4th millennium BC using surface mining. One of the earliest silver extraction centres in Europe was Sardinia in early Chalcolithic.
The stability of the Roman currency relied to a high degree on the supply of silver bullion, which Roman miners produced on a scale unparalleled before the discovery of the New World. Reaching a peak production of 200 t per year, an estimated silver stock of 10,000 t circulated in the Roman economy in the middle of the second century AD, five to ten times larger than the combined amount of silver available to medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD. Financial officials of the Roman Empire worried about the loss of silver to pay for highly demanded silk from Sinica (China).
Mines were made in Laureion during 483 BC.
In the Gospels, Jesus' disciple Judas Iscariot is infamous for having taken a bribe of 30 coins of silver from religious leaders in Jerusalem to turn Jesus of Nazareth over to soldiers of the High Priest Caiaphas.
The Chinese Empire during most of its history primarily used silver as a means of exchange. In the 19th century, the threat to the balance of payments of the United Kingdom from Chinese merchants demanding payment in silver in exchange for tea, silk, and porcelain led to the Opium War because Britain had to find a way to address the imbalance in payments, and they decided to do so by selling opium produced in their colony of British India to China.
Islam permits Muslim men to wear silver rings on the little finger of either hand. Muhammad himself wore a silver signet ring.
In the Americas, high temperature silver-lead cupellation technology was developed by pre-Inca civilizations as early as AD 60–120.
World War II
During World War II, the shortage of copper led to the substitution of silver in many industrial applications. The United States government loaned out silver from its massive reserve located in the West Point vaults to a wide range of industrial users. One very important use was for bus bars for new aluminium plants needed to make aircraft. During the war, many electrical connectors and switches were silver plated. Another use was aircraft master rod bearings and other types of bearings. Since silver can replace tin in solder at a lower volume, a large amount of tin was freed up for other uses by substituting government silver. Silver was also used as the reflector in searchlights and other types of lights. Silver was used in nickels during the war to save that metal for use in steel alloys.
The Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb used about 14,700 tons of silver borrowed from the United States Treasury for calutron windings for the electromagnetic separation process in the Y-12 National Security Complex at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The oval "racetracks" had silver bus bars with a cross-section of one square foot.
After the war ended, the silver was returned to the vaults.
Occurrence and extraction
Silver is found in native form, as an alloy with gold (electrum), and in ores containing sulfur, arsenic, antimony or chlorine. Ores include argentite (Ag2S), chlorargyrite (AgCl), which includes horn silver, and pyrargyrite (Ag3SbS3). The principal sources of silver are the ores of copper, copper-nickel, lead, and lead-zinc obtained from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, China, Australia, Chile, Poland and Serbia. Peru, Bolivia and Mexico have been mining silver since 1546, and are still major world producers. Top silver-producing mines are Cannington (Australia), Fresnillo (Mexico), San Cristobal (Bolivia), Antamina (Peru), Rudna (Poland), and Penasquito (Mexico). Top near-term mine development projects through 2015 are Pascua Lama (Chile), Navidad (Argentina), Jaunicipio (Mexico), Malku Khota (Bolivia), and Hackett River (Canada). In Central Asia, Tajikistan is known to have some of the largest silver deposits in the world.
The metal is primarily produced as a byproduct of electrolytic copper refining, gold, nickel, and zinc refining, and by application of the Parkes process on lead metal obtained from lead ores that contain small amounts of silver. Commercial-grade fine silver is at least 99.9% pure, and purities greater than 99.999% are available. In 2012, Mexico was the top producer of silver (5,360 tonnes or 21% of the world's total), closely followed by China (3,900 t) and Peru (3,480 t).
Price
As of 5 August 2014, the price of silver is US$649.28 per kilogram (US$20.1950 per troy ounce). This equates to approximately the price of gold. The ratio has varied from to in the past 100 years. Physical silver bullion prices are higher than the paper prices, with premiums increasing when demand is high and local shortages occur.
In 1980, the silver price rose to a peak for modern times of US$49.45 per troy ounce (ozt) due to market manipulation of Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt (). Some time after Silver Thursday, the price was back to $10/ozt. From 2001 to 2010, the price moved from $4.37 to $20.19 (average London US$/oz). According to the Silver Institute, silver's recent gains have greatly stemmed from a rise in investor interest and an increase in fabrication demand. In late April 2011, silver reached an all-time high of $49.76/ozt.
In earlier times, silver has commanded much higher prices. In the early 15th century, the price of silver is estimated to have surpassed $1,200 per ounce, based on 2011 dollars. The discovery of massive silver deposits in the New World during the succeeding centuries has been stated as a cause for its price to have diminished greatly.
The price of silver is important in Judaic law. The lowest fiscal amount a Jewish court, or Beth Din, can convene to adjudicate a case over is a shova pruta (value of a Babylonian pruta coin). This is fixed at of pure, unrefined silver, at market price. In a Jewish tradition, still continuing today, on the first birthday of a first-born son, the parents pay the price of five pure-silver coins to a Kohen (priest). Today, the Israel mint fixes the coins at of silver. The Kohen will often give those silver coins back as a gift for the child to inherit.
Human exposure and consumption
Silver plays no known natural biological role in humans, and possible health effects of silver are a disputed subject. Silver itself is not toxic to humans, but most silver salts are. In large doses, silver and compounds containing it can be absorbed into the circulatory system and become deposited in various body tissues, leading to argyria, which results in a blue-grayish pigmentation of the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes. Argyria is rare, and although, so far as known, this condition does not otherwise harm a person's health, it is disfiguring and usually permanent. Mild forms of argyria are sometimes mistaken for cyanosis.
Monitoring exposure
Overexposure to silver can occur in workers in the metallurgical industry, persons taking silver-containing dietary supplements, patients who have received silver sulfadiazine treatment, and individuals who accidentally or intentionally ingest silver salts. Silver concentrations in whole blood, plasma, serum, or urine may be measured to monitor for safety in exposed workers, to confirm the diagnosis in potential poisoning victims, or to assist in the forensic investigation in a case of fatal overdosage.
Use in food
Silver is used in food coloring; it has the E174 designation and is approved in the European Union.
Traditional Indian dishes sometimes include the use of decorative silver foil known as vark, and in various cultures, silver dragée are used to decorate cakes, cookies, and other dessert items. The use of silver as a food additive is not approved in the United States.
Occupational safety and health
People can be exposed to silver in the workplace by breathing it in, swallowing it, skin contact, and eye contact. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (Permissible exposure limit) for silver exposure in the workplace as 0.01 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a Recommended exposure limit (REL) of 0.01 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday. At levels of 10 mg/m3, silver is immediately dangerous to life and health.
See also
List of silver compounds
Silverpoint drawing
Free silver
List of elements
Hardnesses of the elements (data page)
References
External links
Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Silver
Silver at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
Society of American Silversmiths
The Silver Institute A silver industry website
A collection of silver items Samples of silver
Transport, Fate and Effects of Silver in the Environment
CDC – NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards – Silver
Picture in the Element collection from Heinrich Pniok
Category:Chemical elements
Category:Cubic minerals
Category:Electrical conductors
Category:Native element minerals
Category:Noble metals
Category:Precious metals
Category:Transition metals
Category:Warrants issued in Hong Kong Stock Exchange |
2016-01 | The_Nexus_professional_wrestling-697490211 | The_Nexus_professional_wrestling | The Nexus (professional wrestling)
The Nexus (later renamed The New Nexus in January 2011) was a villainous stable in WWE that competed on Raw from June 7, 2010 to August 22, 2011, originally consisting of eight rookies of NXT season one and shifted their roster several times throughout their existence, with David Otunga being the longest-tenured member. Their initial goal was to obtain WWE contracts for all members, with the exception of original leader Wade Barrett (now known as King Barrett), already guaranteed a WWE contract for having won NXT. After NXT, the group went on to antagonize the Raw roster (and, on two occasions, the SmackDown roster), with then-WWE Champion John Cena as their main focus, who forcibly became a member of The Nexus after losing in a match at Hell in a Cell, but was eventually removed from the group by being fired at Survivor Series after Barrett lost his WWE Championship match to Randy Orton only to be rehired by Barrett. On January 3, 2011, Barrett was exiled from the group anyway after losing a steel cage match against Orton and Sheamus and Punk became the group's new leader, at which point the group was renamed The New Nexus in an attempt to distance itself from The Nexus, becoming a tight-knit group dedicated to one another by faith. Throughout its existence, the group won the WWE Tag Team Championship three times, while Punk won the WWE Championship in his final match with the stable at Money in the Bank.
Concept
On the January 26, 2010 edition of ECW, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon announced that NXT would replace ECW on Syfy when the latter ends its run on February 16, describing NXT as "the next evolution of WWE; the next evolution of television history." The concept of the stable was each original member of Nexus was a contestant (or "rookie") on the first season of the NXT program, which, at the time, composed of the talent from WWE's developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) in a competition to become WWE's next breakout star with the help of mentors from WWE's Raw and SmackDown brands. On June 1, 2010, Barrett was declared the winner and, as a result, was awarded a WWE contract and a championship match at a pay-per-view of his choosing, while the others were left without a job. Its most noticeable trait was that all members wore a black armband bearing the group's trademark black and yellow "N" logo (in the Wide Latin typeface).
History
Formation and attacks on WWE personnel
On the June 7, 2010 "Viewer's Choice" edition of Raw, after WWE backstage reporter Savannah asked Barrett how he felt winning NXT, Barrett told her that "he didn't need to explain anything because he knew he would win the entire time" and "to ask him the same question next week, when he does something that has never been done before in the history of Raw." Later in the night, during the main event which saw Cena face Punk after the leader of the Straight Edge Society won with 45% of the vote to Rey Mysterio's 32% and then-World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger's 23%, as Cena was looking to put Punk away with the Attitude Adjustment, the group debuted sporting matching armbands with the letter N. Barrett, who entered from the ramp, led the group, who entered through the crowd and jumped the barricades in a move similar to that of The Shield, in an attack on Cena, Punk, Luke Gallows, Hall of Famer Jerry Lawler, NXT host Matt Striker (who had joined Lawler and Michael Cole at ringside to commentate the main event), Justin Roberts (who was the Raw ring announcer at the time), WWE timekeeper Mark Yeaton and other WWE personnel around the ring, not to mention tearing the safety mats off the ground, flipping over the announce table, taking apart the barricades and dismantling the ring itself by having Barrett and Michael Tarver unscrew the turnbuckles. During the attack, which ended with Cena being taken out of the American Airlines Arena on a stretcher, Daniel Bryan strangled Roberts with his necktie and, in a sign of disrespect, spit in Cena's face and told him, "You are not better than me!" the latter of which led to Bryan being released from his contract on June 11, 2010 as WWE reportedly felt those acts were too violent for their TV-PG programming. His absence was explained by Barrett on the June 14, 2010 edition of Raw by stating that Bryan had felt remorse for his actions and, as a result, was kicked out of the group, rather than reveal that Bryan had actually been released from his contract. However, the group did explain their actions as retribution for the poor treatment they received from WWE management during their time on NXT, saying that the attack was to threaten WWE into giving the remaining members WWE contracts, but Hall of Famer Bret Hart, who was named Raw general manager three weeks earlier, rejected the demand and not only fired Barrett, but took away both his WWE contract and his WWE championship opportunity, then ordered the NXT rookies to leave the Time Warner Cable Arena or they would be arrested. Later that night, Hart ordered the whole Raw roster (excluding the Divas) to stand guard at the ringside and stage areas during the main event, which saw Cena and Orton team up to take on Edge and Sheamus in a Fatal 4-Way preview, to prevent what happened in Miami from happening in Charlotte, leaving The Nexus, who were presumably standing outside Hart's office when the order was given, to wait until the coast was clear to not only trash the arena, but storm Hart's office and accost and attack him backstage by having Barrett and Sheffield drag him down the hallway into the parking lot and Otunga rip his shirt open before the group forced him into a limousine and ordered the driver to floor it, which the driver did, in reverse down the ramp and crashing into four other vehicles, causing significant rear-end damage to the limo in the process. During the attack, which ended with Barrett demanding an answer by Sunday as to whether or not the NXT rookies would get their contracts, the group verbally assaulted Hart from outside the limo. On June 20, 2010 at the Fatal 4-Way pay-per-view, The Nexus interfered in the main event for the WWE Championship, attacking all the wrestlers involved (their motive was in retaliation for what happened in Charlotte when members of the Raw roster thwarted a second attempted attack by the NXT rookies). Sheamus used the interference to win the title from Cena for a second time, having defeated the Cenation leader in a Tables match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs (2009) after winning an interpromotional Breakthrough Battle Royal, which guest host, storyline matchmaker and Hall of Famer Jesse Ventura arranged, on the November 23, 2009 edition of Raw that determined the number one contender to the WWE Championship.
After Fatal 4-Way, The Nexus continued their hostile attacks on various WWE figures, including one on Lawler and Hall of Famers Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat on the June 21, 2010 edition of Raw as they were celebrating Steamboat's DVD release following an edict that the NXT rookies and the rest of the Raw roster could not engage in physical confrontation that week. McMahon removed Hart as general manager "due to his injuries" and subsequently appointed a new General Manager, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of being attacked like Hart was in Charlotte, communicating only through e-mails quoted by Cole, the "official spokesman" (and the only one other than Serena of The Straight Edge Society not attacked by The Nexus in Miami), who immediately gave the other members their WWE contracts and reinstated Barrett's WWE championship opportunity that was stripped from him the previous week by Hart. Barrett revealed that this group was going to form no matter who wound up winning NXT, stating that the seven of them had formed a "Nexus" and had a common goal they all fought to have accomplished. However, despite finally apologizing for their actions, the NXT rookies still continued their hostile attacks, including one on McMahon on the June 28, 2010 edition of Raw, the same night the anonymous Raw General Manager proclaimed an edict that if any member of The Nexus put their hands on a WWE superstar, they would be terminated, but if any WWE superstar put their hands on any member of The Nexus, they would be suspended, after he tried to take credit for The Nexus' actions in a move similar to that of Scar from The Lion King after Banzai, Shenzi and Ed ate him alive after blaming them for Mufasa's death.
Feud with John Cena
On the July 5, 2010 edition of Raw, the same night the NXT rookies became known as The Nexus, the anonymous Raw General Manager demanded Cena and Barrett call a truce later in the night, which Cena refused and attempted to attack Barrett, subsequently beginning a brawl between The Nexus and most, if not all, of the Raw locker room. After Cena didn't stop assaulting Young, the GM announced that Cena would face The Nexus in a 7-on-1 handicap match the following week, causing Cena to further attack Young, subsequently removing him from the following week's scheduled match. On the July 12, 2010 edition of Raw, due to being injured after being attacked the previous week by Cena, Young was removed from the match, turning it into a 6-on-1 handicap match, which, despite being down a member, The Nexus still won after the 450° splash of Gabriel, who then pinned Cena. Before the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, Nexus appeared on the July 13, 2010 edition of NXT and competed in a battle royal featuring the second season pros and rookies. The storyline started when Percy Watson invited his partners (the other rookies) to attack MVP (in retaliation for the pros attacking the rookies in the aftermath of The Nexus forming to "keep them in line"), but in reply to this, MVP called the other pros and came ready for a fight, at which point Striker, who was the co-host of NXT at the time, intervened and arranged a battle royal, also including The Nexus, who were making a scheduled appearance on the show anyway. All seven Nexus members were declared co-winners after being the last men in the ring. On July 18, 2010 at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, The Nexus attempted to get involved in the WWE Championship match involving Sheamus and Cena in a steel cage by breaking the door. However, the referee on the outside of the cage threw the key into the crowd and took the tool that Tarver tried to use to break in. They then tried to climb up and get involved. However, Sheamus and Cena were able to hold them off and escape, with Sheamus winning. Afterwards, Cena began beating up Tarver and Young and then took Tarver's Nexus armband. The following night, on the July 19, 2010 edition of Raw, The Nexus continued their attacks on the Raw roster by first attacking Edge and then Chris Jericho after the two longtime rivals attempted to manipulate the group against each other. Later that same night, Barrett defeated Mark Henry in a singles match. After that, Barrett and Nexus asked Cena to join them. Cena refused and said that he would take them all down at SummerSlam and that he had found some help to do it before revealing his team one-by-one; Edge, John Morrison, R-Truth, The Great Khali, Jericho and Hart. On the July 26, 2010 edition of Raw, Team Nexus defeated Team Raw (Mark Henry, The Hart Dynasty, Lawler, Evan Bourne, Goldust and Yoshi Tatsu) in a 7-on-7 elimination tag team match with The Nexus getting the clean sweep, later mocking Cena's team, who were arguing amongst themselves, claiming an easy victory at SummerSlam. On August 15, 2010 at the SummerSlam pay-per-view, The Nexus' claim of an easy victory three weeks earlier was denied when they were defeated by Team WWE, featuring a returning Bryan (who joined Team WWE as a surprise member after The Nexus had injured Khali on the August 2, 2010 edition of Raw), who eliminated both Young and Slater by submission before Bryan's former NXT Pro, The Miz, hit him with the Money in the Bank briefcase, leaving Barrett to eliminate Bryan. In the end, however, Cena ended up being the sole survivor, eliminating Gabriel and Barrett by pinfall and submission, respectively. The following night, on the August 16, 2010 edition of Raw, The Nexus evoked their SummerSlam rematch clause and competed in seven one-on-one matches Team WWE (except Hart, who was replaced by Orton), with the stipulation that whichever Nexus member lost their match would be exiled from the group, a stipulation Otunga reminded Barrett of before Cena accepted on behalf of Team WWE. While The Nexus won the first six matches, Young, looking to help The Nexus repeat their clean sweep performance from three weeks earlier, was the only Nexus member who unfortunately failed to defeat Cena in the main event, leading the rest of The Nexus to storm the ring. Cena, anticipating another beatdown similar to the one he suffered at the conclusion of "Viewer's Choice Raw," waited to see what The Nexus would do next, but what he didn't anticipate was The Nexus letting him leave the ring on his own, as they turned their attention to Young, first attacking him with their respective finishing moves and, to add insult to injury, officially exiling him from The Nexus.
At a live WWE event in Hawaii on August 18, 2010, Sheffield broke his ankle during a tag match where he teamed with Otunga against The Hart Dynasty, putting him out of action for the next two years. With Young having been exiled from the group two nights earlier for losing to Cena, The Nexus went from seven active members remaining to only five entering September-- Barrett, Otunga, Slater, Gabriel and Tarver. On the August 30, 2010 edition of Raw, which celebrated its 900th episode, The Nexus defeated Cena, Edge, Jericho, Sheamus and Orton in a 5-on-5 elimination match, after Gabriel hit Cena with the 450° splash for a third time, pinning him for a second time, while Barrett pinned Orton. Earlier that same night, with help from Kane, The Nexus attacked The Undertaker. On the September 6, 2010 edition of Raw, thanks to a distraction from a returning Young, Barrett lost to Orton. On September 19, 2010 at the Night of Champions pay-per-view, Barrett used his guaranteed championship match that he won for winning NXT in the Six-Pack Elimination Challenge for the WWE Championship, but was eliminated by Orton, who later won the match and the title. The Nexus made an appearance on the October 1, 2010 edition of SmackDown (taped September 28) to mark the show's move to Syfy. Throughout the night, The Nexus attacked Dolph Ziggler, MVP, Big Show and Cena and then served as lumberjacks for the night's main event between Cena and Kane.
On October 3, 2010 at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, Barrett and Cena faced each other in a match with the stipulation that if Barrett won, Cena would have to join The Nexus, but if Cena won or any other Nexus member got involved, the group would be permanently disbanded. Thanks to interference from Husky Harris and Michael McGillicutty, who would join The Nexus on the October 25, 2010 edition of Raw, Barrett managed to win the match and keep the group going and Cena was forced to join the very group he defeated at SummerSlam. The following night, on the October 4, 2010 edition of Raw, Tarver was paired with Cena who brutally attacked him after the match. Later, Barrett said that he was planning on getting rid of Tarver anyway, but that Cena did him a favor by attacking Tarver, as he implied that Tarver was no longer a member; like with Bryan, Barrett did not reveal the real reason why Tarver was kicked out of the group; it was actually because Tarver had a nagging groin injury and was later released from his contract in June 2011 (see below). After Cena openly declared that he would destroy The Nexus from within by fighting them even though he was now a member, the anonymous Raw General Manager stated that Cena had to honor the stipulations of the pay-per-view match and since he is now a member of The Nexus, he must take orders from Barrett or be fired. Later that same night, Barrett ordered Cena to help him win the number one contendership in a battle royal for the WWE Championship. The match came down to Cena and Barrett, where Barrett ordered Cena to eliminate himself. On October 24, 2010 at the Bragging Rights pay-per-view, The Nexus won their first titles in WWE when Otunga and Cena defeated Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre to win the WWE Tag Team Championship. Later that same night, the group helped Kane defeat The Undertaker in his Buried Alive match for reasons never explained. In the main event, Barrett defeated Orton via disqualification, this time caused by Cena, who was then as a result chosen by Barrett as his own special guest referee for his WWE Championship match against Orton at the Survivor Series pay-per-view. Barrett chose Cena and declared that unless he won the title at the pay-per-view, Cena would be fired, but if Barrett defeated Orton, Cena would be relieved of all responsibilities to The Nexus.
On the November 5, 2010 edition of SmackDown (taped November 2), Otunga, who had been questioning Barrett's leadership over the past several weeks, led Gabriel, Harris, McGillicutty and Slater to an invasion of SmackDown, interrupting a match between Edge and Alberto Del Rio. The Nexus was then defeated in the main event in a 5-on-5 tag team match by Edge, Del Rio, Big Show, Kane and Kofi Kingston. Barrett didn't approve Otunga's decision to lead The Nexus on SmackDown and as a result forced him to defend his spot in the group a week later. On the November 12, 2010 edition of SmackDown (taped November 9), thanks to an interference from Kane, Otunga defeated Edge in a lumberjack match to keep his spot in The Nexus. On November 21, 2010 at the Survivor Series pay-per-view, Orton retained the WWE Championship against Barrett via pinfall and Cena was fired (kayfabe) from WWE and subsequently exiled from The Nexus. Despite being fired by The Nexus, Cena continued to show up on Raw in the subsequent weeks, causing interference in The Nexus' matches and attacking them backstage, in the ring and in the arena parking lots. On the December 6, 2010 edition of Raw, thanks to interference from Cena, Slater and Gabriel lost the WWE Tag Team Championship to Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov in a Fatal 4-Way Tag Team Elimination match. Later that same night, Cena informed The Nexus that his attacks on them may stop, but only on the condition that Barrett rehires him. Wanting the attacks to stop, The Nexus, with the exception of McGillicutty, who was (kayfabe) injured after being attacked the previous week by Cena, threatened to exile Barrett from the group unless he got Cena rehired the following week. The following week, on the December 13, 2010 Slammy Awards edition of Raw, Barrett, for fear of being exiled by The Nexus, rehired Cena on the condition that they settle the score in a Chairs match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. On December 19, 2010 at the TLC pay-per-view, Cena defeated Barrett in the main event, after attacking all the other members of The Nexus throughout the event, by dropping 23 steel chairs on Barrett. Cena faced the new leader of the Nexus CM Punk (who exiled Barrett from the group at some point after TLC) on the January 17, 2011 edition of Raw; the match ended in a no-contest after the debuting Mason Ryan attacked Cena, signaling him as a new member of The Nexus. At the Royal Rumble main event, Cena eliminated the majority of the Nexus during the match, officially ending his longtime feud with the stable.
The New Nexus
On the January 3, 2011 edition of Raw, The Nexus ambiguously announced that it was under "new management," with Punk being revealed to be the new leader, having acquired the position after Barrett lost a steel cage match against Orton and Sheamus (see above) and was subsequently exiled from The Nexus. With this move, the group was renamed The New Nexus to distance itself from The Nexus. The following week, on the January 10, 2011 edition of Raw, after refusing to follow Punk's orders of initiation by hitting each other with kendo sticks, Gabriel and Slater left the group, opting to join Barrett and former ECW Champion Ezekiel Jackson on SmackDown as The Corre, while Harris, McGillicutty and Otunga successfully completed the initiation and, thus, stayed in The New Nexus. On the January 17, 2011 edition of Raw, Ryan joined the Nexus after interfering in Punk's match against Cena and attacking both men before Punk handed Ryan a Nexus armband. The group participated in the 2011 Royal Rumble pay-per-view, but were eliminated by Cena (aside from Harris, who was eliminated by The Great Khali); later that night, The New Nexus also cost Orton the WWE Championship. The following night, on the January 31, 2011 edition of Raw, McGillicutty and Harris teamed up against Marella and Kozlov for the WWE Tag Team Championship, which they lost. After the match, Orton entered the ring and punted Harris in the skull, injuring him. Orton, over the ongoing weeks, punted all members of The New Nexus, despite interference by Punk, removing each, one-by-one, from active competition. On April 3, 2011 at the WrestleMania XXVII pay-per-view, Orton defeated Punk, but was unable to punt him in the skull, leaving Punk as the only active member of The New Nexus. On the April 11, 2011 edition of Raw, McGillicutty, Otunga and Ryan returned, once again costing Orton another shot at Miz's WWE Championship and, for the first time since January 31, bringing The New Nexus back to full strength. On the April 25, 2011 edition of Raw, during the WWE draft (the last under the brand extension), Orton was drafted to SmackDown and, on May 1, 2011 at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, defeated Punk, thus officially ending his four-month feud with The New Nexus. On the May 23, 2011 episode of Raw, thanks to a distraction from Del Rio, McGillicutty and Otunga defeated Big Show and Kane for the WWE Tag Team Championship, giving Otunga his first WWE Tag Team Title since Bragging Rights.
Tag team and dissolution
On the June 20, 2011 "Power to the People" edition of Raw, Punk was originally going to be named the number one contender for the WWE Championship, but instead, he was forced to compete in a triple threat match with Del Rio and Rey Mysterio with a falls count anywhere stipulation voted for by fans, which Punk won and, after the match, revealed that his WWE contract would expire at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, where he would face Cena for the WWE Championship, meaning that if he wins, he will leave with the WWE Championship. Ryan was voted to face Evan Bourne in a singles match and won, but it was later revealed that, due to a technical error, Sin Cara was the actual winner. The following week, on the June 27, 2011 edition of Raw, it was announced that Ryan had suffered an injury over the weekend, thus leaving the group. That same night, a brash Punk disrespectfully interrupted and threatened the returning Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, reminding him and the entire WWE Universe that once his contract expires at WWE Money in the Bank, that would have been the last time WWE would ever seen him and the WWE Championship. It was at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view that The New Nexus' quiet dissolution was confirmed, when Punk shunned his Nexus T-shirt and armband in favor of a new T-shirt. Despite this, Punk was labeled as part of Nexus in his entrance graphics. With his victory over Cena, the WWE Championship was finally held by the stable on their last night of existence. The group's final members then functioned as a tag team with the Nexus banner until August 1, 2011 and continued without the banner until August 22, 2011 when the group permanently disbanded.
Members
Timeline
In wrestling
Entrance themes
"We Are One" by 12 Stones (June 7, 2010–August 22, 2011)
"This Fire Burns" by Killswitch Engage (December 27, 2010–August 22, 2011)
"Death Blow" from VideoHelper Production Library (July 21, 2011-August 22, 2011; Otunga and McGillicutty)
"All About the Power" by S–Preme (July 28, 2011–August 22, 2011; Otunga and McGillicutty)
Championships and accomplishments
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Feud of the Year (2010) vs. WWE
Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (2010)
Rookie of the Year (2010) David Otunga
World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE
WWE Championship (1 time) – CM Punk
WWE Tag Team Championship (3 times) – John Cena and David Otunga (1), Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel (1), David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty (1)
NXT (Season one) – Wade Barrett
Slammy Award for the Shocker of the Year (2010) –
See also
NXT
The Corre
Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel
References
Category:WWE teams and stables |
2016-01 | Legality_of_cannabis-697104065 | Legality_of_cannabis | Legality of cannabis
The legality of cannabis varies from country to country. Possession of cannabis is illegal in most countries and has been since the beginning of widespread cannabis prohibition in the late 1930s. However, possession of the drug in small quantities has been decriminalized in many countries and sub-national entities in several parts of the world. Furthermore, possession is legal or effectively legal in the Netherlands, Uruguay, and in the US states of Colorado (Colorado Amendment 64), Oregon (Oregon Ballot Measure 91 (2014)), Alaska and Washington (Washington Initiative 502) as the federal government has indicated that it will not attempt to block enactment of legalization in those states. The federal district of Washington D.C. legalized cannabis for possession and use in 2015, but was blocked by a Congressional rider from instituting commercial sales and taxation. Cannabis is also legal in some U.S cities such as Portland and South Portland, both of which are in Maine. The United States Department of Justice is allowing all recognized Native American Reservations to regulate the legalization of cannabis, and the laws are allowed to be different from Federal and state law. On 10 December 2013, Uruguay became the first nation in the world to legalize the sale, cultivation, and distribution of cannabis.
The medicinal use of cannabis is legal in a number of countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic and Israel. The federal law in the United States no longer has a ban on the use of medical marijuana. States that allow medical marijuana and the sale of it can now do so without having to deal with the federal government.
Some countries have laws which are not as vigorously prosecuted as others, but apart from the countries which offer access to medical marijuana, most countries have various penalties ranging from lenient to very severe. Some infractions are taken more seriously in some countries than others in regard to the cultivation, use, possession or transfer of cannabis for recreational use. A few jurisdictions have lessened penalties for possession of small quantities of cannabis, making it punishable by confiscation and a fine, rather than imprisonment. Some jurisdictions/drug courts use mandatory treatment programs for young or frequent users, with freedom from narcotic drugs as the goal and a few jurisdictions permit cannabis use for medicinal purposes. Drug tests to detect cannabis are increasingly common in many countries and have resulted in jail sentences and loss of employment. However, simple possession can carry long jail sentences in some countries, particularly in parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia, where the sale of cannabis may lead to life imprisonment or even execution.
As of 2015, Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Jamaica, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, Germany, the Netherlands, North Korea, some U.S. states and cities as well as some territories of Australia and some Canadian cities have the least restrictive cannabis laws while China, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam have the strictest cannabis laws.
History
Cannabis has been in use for thousands of years. In India and Nepal cannabis has long been used in religious rituals.
Under the name cannabis, nineteenth century medical practitioners sold the drug (usually as a tincture), popularizing the word among English-speakers. In 1894, the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, commissioned by the UK Secretary of State and the government of India, was instrumental in a decision not to criminalize the drug in those countries (See Shamir and Hacker (2001) in 'further readings' below. From the year 1860, different states in the US started to implement regulations for sales of Cannabis sativa. A 1905 Bulletin from the US Department of Agriculture lists twenty-nine states with laws mentioning cannabis. In 1925, a change of the International Opium Convention banned exportation of Indian hemp to countries that have prohibited its use. Importing countries were required to issue certificates approving the importation, stating that the shipment was to be used "exclusively for medical or scientific purposes".
Around 1840, doctors had realized that marijuana had a medical value, therefore it was freely sold for over a century in pharmacies. Marijuana used to be freely grown, sold, bought, and smoked in the United States up until it was criminalized in 1937.
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was the first US national law making cannabis possession illegal, with the exception of industrial or medical purposes. Growers of hemp products were required to purchase an annual tax stamp, priced at $24, and retailers were required to purchase stamps priced at $1 per annum.
The name marijuana (Mexican Spanish marihuana, mariguana) is associated almost exclusively with the plant's psychoactive use. The term is now well known in English largely due to the efforts of American drug prohibitionists during the 1920s and 1930s. Mexico officially adopted prohibition in 1925, following the International Opium Convention.
The use of cannabis became widespread in the Western world due to the rise and influence of the counterculture that began in the late 1960s. In the late 1990s in California, Dennis Peron started a movement to legalize medical cannabis by opening the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club in 1992. The club became the headquarters for an activist movement that drafted the Compassionate Use Act, which was transformed into Proposition 215—the coalition managed to secure the passage of Proposition 215 with the support of billionaire and philanthropist George Soros in November 1996.
A BBC article, published in October 2011, reported on the actions of local authorities in the border town of Maastricht in the Netherlands. According to the article, the authorities were primarily concerned with those cannabis customers who had traveled from other European countries, such as Belgium and Germany. At the time, broader restrictions, which would apply to the entire nation, were being discussed in the Dutch parliament. From October 1, 2011, only Dutch, Belgian and German residents would be prohibited from purchasing cannabis from venues in Maastricht.
On November 6, 2012, Colorado Amendment 64 and Washington Initiative 502 were passed by popular initiative, thereby becoming the first American states to legalize the recreational use of cannabis under state law. However cannabis is still classified as a schedule I controlled substance under federal law and is subject to federal prosecution under the doctrine of dual sovereignty and Supremacy Clause.
On January 1, 2013, an amendment to the Netherlands' cannabis policy was introduced to "combat drug-related crime and nuisance." The new rule requires cannabis coffee shop owners to monitor the identities of their customers to ensure that only residents of the Netherlands purchase cannabis. Owners are expected to maintain adherence through procedures such as asking customers to produce valid documents to prove their status.
In a historical event with global significance, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed two bills on May 28, 2013 that made Colorado the world's first fully regulated recreational cannabis market for adults. Hickenlooper said to the media: "Certainly, this industry will create jobs. Whether it’s good for the brand of our state is still up in the air. But the voters passed Amendment 64 by a clear majority. That’s why we’re going to implement it as effectively as we possibly can." In its independent analysis, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy found that the state could expect a to see "$60 million in total combined savings and additional revenue for Colorado’s budget with a potential for this number to double after 2017."
Uruguay then became the world's first nation to legalize the production, sale, and consumption of cannabis in December 2013 after a 16–13 vote in the Senate. Julio Calzada, Secretary-General of Uruguay’s National Drug Council, said in a December 2013 interview that the government will be responsible for regulating the production side of the process: "Companies can get a license to cultivate if they meet all the criteria. However, this won’t be a free market. The government will control the entire production and determine the price, quality, and maximum production volume."
Under the new law, people are allowed to buy up to of cannabis from the Uruguayan government each month. Users have to be 18 or older and be registered in a national database to track their consumption. Cultivators are allowed to grow up to 6 crops at their homes each year and shall not surpass . Registered smoking clubs are allowed to grow 99 plants annually. Buying cannabis is prohibited to foreigners and it is illegal to move it across international borders.
In July 2014, president Calzada announced that the implementation of the law is postponed to 2015, as "there are practical difficulties," and explained that authorities will grow all the cannabis that can be sold legally. The concentration of THC shall be 15% or lower. An opposition presidential candidate claimed that the new law is never going to be applied, because of a perception that it is not practicable.
As of October 2014, the Government of Netherlands website explains that coffee shops are permitted to sell cannabis under certain strict conditions: venues cannot sell alcoholic drinks; the consumption of alcohol on the premises is not permitted; the venues must not create any form of public nuisance; "hard drugs" cannot be sold; cannabis cannot be sold to minors; drugs cannot be advertised; and "large quantities" of cannabis (more than five grams) cannot be sold in a single transaction. Individual municipalities are responsible for permitting the establishment of cannabis coffee shops within their boundaries, and are also allowed to introduce additional rules.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service does not prosecute members of the public for "possession of small quantities of soft drugs," which are defined as: "no more than 5 grams of cannabis (marijuana or hash); no more than 5 cannabis plants." It is illegal to grow cannabis plants in the Netherlands, but in cases in which a maximum of five plants is grown for "personal consumption," the authorities will most likely seize the plants, without taking any further action. If more than five plants are seized, the police may also seek prosecution.
Possession of marijuana for recreational use will be legalized by the Government of Canada, possibly as early as 2016, according to newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The plan is to remove marijuana consumption and incidental possession from the Criminal Code; however, new laws will be enacted for greater punishment of providing it to minors and impairment while driving a motor vehicle. In late November 2015, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that she and the ministers of Health and Public Safety were working on specifics as to the legislation.
Alcohol and marijuana prohibition correlation
Franklin D. Roosevelt promised in the 1932 presidential election to end the prohibition for alcohol and fulfilled that promise in 1933. However, Roosevelt supported more restrictive laws from 1935 for cannabis. The U.S Treasury Department created a new department in 1930 named the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Harry J. Anslinger - who previously held the position of Assistant Prohibition Commissioner - became the Commissioner of Narcotics in 1930. Commissioner Anslinger's report in 1935 noted: "In the absence of Federal legislation on the subject, the States and cities should rightfully assume the responsibility for providing vigorous measures for the extinction of this lethal weed, and it is therefore hoped that all public-spirited citizens will earnestly enlist in the movement urged by the Treasury Department to adjure intensified enforcement of marijuana laws." By 1937, 46 out of 48 states had officially classified cannabis as a narcotic along the lines of morphine, heroin, and cocaine. Anslinger’s campaign supported the passing of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The bill originated in the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, but that law didn’t actually ban marijuana outright.
Attitudes regarding legalization
Many advocate legalization of cannabis, believing that it will eliminate the illegal trade and associated crime, yield a valuable tax-source and reduce policing costs. Cannabis is now available as a palliative agent, in Canada, with a medical prescription. In 1969, only 16% percent of voters in the USA supported legalization, according to a poll by Gallup. According to the same source, that number had risen to 36% by 2005. More recent polling indicates that the number has risen even further; in 2009, between 46% and 56% of US voters would support legalization. According to press reports, supporters of the California initiative estimate that about $15 billion worth of marijuana is sold every year in the state. Thus, an excise tax on the retail sales of marijuana could raise at least $1.3 billion a year in revenue.
Attitudes regarding marijuana regulation have also changed as some states (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) have passed their own laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use. According to a Gallup Poll published in December 2012, 64% of Americans believe the federal government should not intervene in these states. The survey also found a difference in age groups for those that think marijuana should be legal and those that still support prohibition: 60% of 18- to 29-year-olds favor legalization while only 48% of those age 30-64 and 36% of those older than 65 feel this way.
The marijuana industry has grown significantly since 2000 and federal officials maintain that the legalization of marijuana will contribute to the increase of youth and adolescent use because it will be easier to obtain, the perception of risk would be reduced and more adult role models will be using. However, studies in Colorado have shown that there has been no connection between legalized marijuana laws and youth marijuana use because Colorado teen use is lower than the national average, fewer teens are reporting they use marijuana than compared to reported use prior to legalization laws and underage use will continue to decrease with strict age limits and implementation of risk awareness programs.
In 2014, Colorado invested $2 million generated from marijuana sales tax revenue on campaigns aimed at anti-marijuana education of minors and the state has plans to spend double that amount, $4 million in 2015 (out of a total projected marijuana sales tax revenue of $125 million). The current campaigns provide information on the laws of marijuana and impacts on youth use, the dangers of driving under the influence of all drugs and the harmful side effects of using marijuana. With strict laws on possession and use, the state is working to deter underage and unsafe use. By redirecting Colorado’s tax revenues to educational programs for youth and adults the state is showing a commitment to fully inform the public and that may be making strides in keeping youth pot use to a minimum, or at least helping to keep teen uses from increasing.
In the Pew Research Center poll released on April 4, 2013, 52 percent of Americans support legalizing the drug and only 45 percent oppose legalization. While support has generally tracked upward over time, it has spiked 11 percentage points since 2010. Research conducted by the Pew Research Center in February 2014 shows an increase in the percentage of legalization supporters, from 52% to 54%,
Islamic view
In the medieval Arab world, hashish use was associated with Sufism, a counterculture within the Arab community in the same way that the hippies of the 1960s represented a counterculture within American society. Their religious stance and non-conformist attitudes to conservative Islamic rules combined to make the Sufis pariahs in the Arab world. Islamic leaders used the Sufi's hashish culture as a pretext for oppressing dissent within the societies they controlled. While the efforts to eliminate hashish were often quite dramatic, all attempts ultimately proved futile.
Human rights
It has been put forth that drug prohibition laws are incompatible with the protections afforded by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The scope for the ECHR to be co-opted to evolve drug policy is far from exhausted. Involved are article 8 (right to private and family life), article 9 (freedom of thought), and article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).
Advertising
In 2012, Denver City Council voted unanimously to ban all outdoor medical marijuana ads in the state of Colorado, where marijuana is legal to purchase for people 21 years of age or older. This ban includes billboards, posters, bus benches, and sign twirlers. Marijuana businesses are still able to advertise on television, radio, online, and on print but must use a disclaimer indicating the products being advertised are for registered Colorado medical marijuana patients only. The council's Debbie Ortega and Christopher Herndon are behind the proposal which is an expansion of a May plan by Ortega that called for a ban on medical marijuana ads within 1,000 feet of schools, daycares and parks after she received complaints from constituents, Westword reports.
The medical marijuana community in Denver remains divided on this issue. The Cannabis Business Alliance, one advocacy group that fought against the full ad ban, was disappointed by the outcome. They claim that although they supported the original proposal to ban ads within 1,000 feet of schools and parks, the terms of this full ban are not clear enough in regards to outside marketing that falls outside of billboards, bus benches, and sign twirlers like festivals and merchandise. Kush Magazine went as far as saying that the ban is a violation of the First Amendment.
Kush Magazine reported in June that the often loud, over-the-top advertising by medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver has to do with trying to stand out in an overcrowded marketplace—there are approximately 200 dispensaries in Denver alone competing for more than 50,000 valid patients. Pot industry magazine The Medical Marijuana Business Daily says that the ban could force dispensaries to market themselves in more traditional ways making it harder to stand out and much harder to attract local passersby with a showy billboard or sign twirler. But perhaps that's not all bad when the signage the proposed ban addresses has created some backlash.
On the other side of the debate is the Medical Marijuana Industry Group (MMIG), a trade association that advocates for responsible medical marijuana regulation at the local, state, and national level, who actively pushed for the ad ban that passed, and says the ban is ultimately positive for the industry. Michael Elliott, the executive director of MMIG explained in a Huffington Post article why he and his group supported the article:
"The Denver City Council recently passed an ordinance which will eliminate certain troublesome advertising practices utilized by some participants in the medical marijuana industry. My organization, the Medical Marijuana Industry Group (MMIG), supported this ordinance because we believe it finds the right balance between protecting the interests of the medical marijuana community and the citizens of Denver [...] Under the new ordinance, medical marijuana businesses will still have access to a comprehensive range of affordable venues in which to advertise. These include but are not limited to: the print media, merchandising, and web-based solutions including social media. In addition, business signage will still be allowed. But most importantly, patients can be assured that they will have the necessary tools to easily locate and procure their medication. Put simply, this ordinance addresses those concerns most often voiced by Denver’s citizenry, while maintaining the rights of industry participants to market their businesses in an efficient, fair, and cost-effective manner."
The Associated Press reports that Colorado attorney Lenny Frieling, an outspoken marijuana legalization advocate, didn't want marijuana singled out like this saying, "I don't think any medicines should be advertised, period, end of story. Whether it's medical marijuana or something that will give me an erection for eight hours, I find it all inappropriate," Frieling said. "Ban it all or don't ban any of it."
However most of Denver's city council members disagreed with Frieling and do want to give medical marijuana businesses the ability to advertise—just not in the over-the-top way that some have been. "We are still allowing advertising," Councilman Herndon, one of the backers of the ad ban said. "We just don't want it in your face."
Despite the rules against allowing dispensaries to advertise in the public space, the magazine High Times has sued the state of Colorado in order to gain advertising in print press. The law states that stores providing recreational marijuana can advertise in publications that have "reliable evidence that no more than 30 percent of the publication's readership is reasonably expected to be under the age of 21". This lawsuit argues that the inability to advertise in magazines, as well as any kind of medium, is as restriction on the freedom of speech article in the Constitution. However, none of these policies apply to the medical marijuana business. Also accompanying the High Times magazine in this lawsuit is a local publication called Westwood. David Lane, the attorney representing High Times, states that these rules "irrationally single out Retail Marijuana Establishments for more stringent advertising restrictions than those regulating the alcohol industry, although the Colorado Constitution calls for the regulation of marijuana ‘in a manner similar to alcohol.’" This lawsuit, commencing in February, still has not come to any conclusion.
In August of 2014, Colorado public health officials started an advertising campaign targeted at teenagers warning them of the dangers of smoking marijuana during adolescence. The campaign, which is called "Don't Be a Lab Rat", is displaying human-sized cages across Colorado that display provocative messages about harm the drug can cause while the teenage body is maturing. This campaign, which also includes television commercials, has been criticized by Colorado's legal pot industry and has been called a scare tactic. The campaign has been funded with $2 million from the state attorney generals office, as well as the city of Denver, and foundations across the state. Mike Sukle's advertising agency was hired by the state and designed the campaign and has called the job "a monumental task".
Later that August in 2014, the city of Boulder, Colorado’s superintendent, Bruce Messinger, announced that the "Don’t Be a Lab Rat" campaign would not be appropriate for the community. Messinger stated that his objection to the campaign was the fact that inviting pre-teen to teenage students into massive rat cages was not the most effective way to get their message across. Messinger was quoted saying "scare tactics don’t work". He then went on in the interview to question the validity of some of the studies referred to in the "Don’t Be a Lab Rat" campaign.
On the other hand, Dr. Larry Wolk, the executive director and chief medical officer at the state health department and one of the driving forces behind "Don’t Be a Lab Rat", stated that the entire intent of the campaign was to get kids to start talking amongst themselves and with adults about the possible effects of marijuana. Although the campaign was shut down in the schools within Boulder, it has been, according to Dr. Wolk, very successful in other locations. For example, the campaigns that were in Denver’s public library and downtown skate park had received much positive feedback.
In response to this campaign, U.S. Representative Jared Polis (D-Colo.) has been quoting saying: "It's a bizarre, ill-fated campaign...I think they need to go back to the drawing board on that one." Polis went on to say that "Most people who saw [the advertisements] thought they had something to do with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), like they are trying to free laboratory rats from the University of Colorado...And also, kids are playing in the cages." While Rep. Polis has been critical, Dr. Wolk says "We are pleased that the Don't Be a Lab Rat campaign has served as a catalyst to start a much-needed conversation among teens, parents and influencers about the potential negative effects of marijuana on developing brains...Critique and criticism of the creative elements of the campaign were to be expected and have helped further the conversation."
Use of capital punishment against the cannabis trade
Several countries have either carried out or legislated capital punishment for cannabis trafficking.
Non-drug purposes
Hemp is the common name for cannabis and is the English term used when this annual herb is grown for non-drug purposes. These include industrial purposes for which cultivation licenses may be issued in the European Union (EU). When grown for industrial purposes hemp is often called industrial hemp, and a common product is fibre for use in a variety of different ways. Fuel is often a by-product of hemp cultivation.
Hemp seed may be used as food. Though the UK's Defra (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) will not issue cultivation licenses for this purpose, treating it as a non-food crop, the seed appears on the UK market as a food product.
In the UK hemp seed and fibre have always been perfectly legal products. Cultivation for non drug purposes was, however, completely prohibited from 1928 until circa 1998, when Home Office industrial-purpose licenses became available under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
Industrial strains intended for legal use within the EU are bred to comply with regulations limiting THC content to 0.2%. (THC content is a measure of the herb's drug potential and can reach 25% or more in drug strains).
International reform
Cannabis reform at the international level refers to efforts to ease restrictions on cannabis use under international treaties. Internationally, the drug is in Schedule IV, the most restrictive category, of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. As of January 1, 2005, 180 nations belonged to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs makes a distinction between recreational, medical and scientific uses of drugs; nations are allowed to permit medical use of drugs, but recreational use is prohibited by Article 4:
The parties shall take such legislative and administrative measures as may be necessary . . . Subject to the provisions of this Convention, to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs.
The Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances requires its Parties to establish criminal penalties for possession of drugs prohibited under the Single Convention for recreational use. A nation wanting to legalize marijuana would have to withdraw from the treaties; every signatory has a right to do this.
As of January 2009, "cannabis, cannabis resin, cannabinol and its derivatives" are categorized as Class B drugs, in accordance with "(Amendment) Order 2008" of the United Kingdom's Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Following a proposal by UK politician David Blunkett "to seek the reclassification of cannabis from a Class B drug to a Class C drug" in 2001, the classification was moved to the less stringent Class C in January 2004, but was returned to Class B in January 2009.
Barriers
Some barriers to cannabis reform are the result of the international drug control structure, while others are related to political circumstances. A number of non-government organizations support the prohibition of cannabis as a recreational drug. In 2013, 97 NGOs in 37 countries joined the World Federation Against Drugs.
Bureaucratic
The international drug control system is overseen by the United Nations General Assembly and UN Economic and Social Council. The Single Convention grants the Commission on Narcotic Drugs the power to reschedule controlled substances. Cindy Fazey, the former Chief of Demand Reduction for the United Nations Drug Control Programme, said:
"Theoretically, the conventions can be changed by modification, such as moving a drug from one schedule to another or simply by removing it from the schedules. However, this cannot be done with cannabis because it is embedded in the text of the 1961 Convention. Also, modification would need a majority of the Commissions’ 53 members to vote for it. Amendment to the conventions, that is changing an article or part of an article, does not offer a more promising route for the same reason. Even if a majority were gained, then only one state need ask for the decision to go to the Economic and Social Council for further consideration, and demand a vote. The 1971 and 1988 Conventions need a two-thirds majority for change, not just a simple majority."
To modify cannabis regulations at the international level, a conference to adopt amendments in accordance with Article 47 of the Single Convention would be needed. This has been done once, with the 1972 Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; as Fazey notes, this process is fraught with bureaucratic obstacles.
Political
In reference to situations where the Commission on Narcotic Drugs proposes changing the scheduling of any drug, (d)(2)(B) of The U.S. Controlled Substances Act gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to issue recommendations that are binding on the U.S. representative in international discussions and negotiations:
"Whenever the Secretary of State receives information that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations proposes to decide whether to add a drug or other substance to one of the schedules of the Convention, transfer a drug or substance from one schedule to another, or delete it from the schedules, the Secretary of State shall transmit timely notice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services of such information who shall publish a summary of such information in the Federal Register and provide opportunity to interested persons to submit to him comments respecting the recommendation which he is to furnish, pursuant to this subparagraph, respecting such proposal. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall evaluate the proposal and furnish a recommendation to the Secretary of State which shall be binding on the representative of the United States in discussions and negotiations relating to the proposal."
The U.S Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) denied in June 2011 a petition that proposed rescheduling of cannabis and enclosed a long explanation for the denial.
On March 5, 2013, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) urged the United States government to challenge the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington. INCB President, Raymond Yans stated that these state laws violate international drug treaties, namely the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. The Office of the US Attorney General said in December 2012 that regardless of any changes in state law, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remained illegal under federal law. Raymond Yans called the statement "good but insufficient" and said he hoped that the issue would soon be addressed by the US Government in line with the international drug control treaties.
See also
Adult lifetime cannabis use by country
Annual cannabis use by country
Cannabis and lobbying efforts
Effects of cannabis
Legal and medical status of cannabis
Legal history of cannabis in the United States
Legality of cannabis by country
Cannabis Social Club
1946 Lake Success Protocol
Illegal drug trade
Latin American drug legalization
References
Further reading
Reefer Madness, a 2003 book by Eric Schlosser, detailing the history of marijuana laws in the United States.
The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a 1985 book by Jack Herer, the Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and the Conspiracy Against Marijuana.
Fazey, Cindy: The UN Drug Policies and the Prospect for Change, April 2003.
Feeney, Susan: Bush backs states' rights on marijuana, The Dallas Morning News, October 20, 1999.
Monthly Status of Treaty Adherence, January 1, 2005.
Shamir, Ronen and Hacker Daphna: (2001 article on legalization debate in late 19th century colonial India) Colonialism's Civilizing Mission: The Case of the Indian Hemp Drug Commission, in: Law & Social Inquiry 26, 2, 435-461 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2001.tb00184.x/abstract;jsessionid=E245E9A3601C114657253DE43A283B37.f02t01)
Wolfe, Daniel: Condemned to Death, Agence Global, April 8, 2004.
Bush, Bill: An anniversary to regret: 40 years of failure of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
External links
European laws on possession of cannabis for personal use from EMCDDA
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
Australian laws on possession of cannabis for personal use |
2016-01 | Beer_pong-695176647 | Beer_pong | Beer pong
Beer pong, also known as Beirut, is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of opposing teams of two or more players per side with 6 or 10 cups set up in a triangle formation on each side. Each team then takes turns attempting to shoot ping pong balls into the opponent's cups. If a ball lands in a cup (known as a 'make'), the contents of that cup are consumed by the other team and the cup is removed from the table. The first team to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.
Venues
Beer pong is played at parties, bars, colleges/universities and other venues such as tailgating at sporting events.
Origin and name
The game was originally believed to have evolved from the original beer pong played with paddles which is generally regarded to have had its origins within the fraternities of Dartmouth College in the 1950s and 1960s, where it has since become part of the social culture of the campus. The original version resembled an actual ping pong game with a net and one or more cups of beer on each side of the table. Eventually, a version without paddles was created and the names Beer Pong and Beirut were adopted in some areas of the United States sometime in the 1980s.
Bucknell University's student-run newspaper, The Bucknellian, claims Delta Upsilon fraternity members at Bucknell created "Throw Pong", a game very similar to beer pong, during the 1970s. "Throw Pong" was then brought to Lehigh University by fraternity brothers who visited Bucknell and this led to the creation of the version of beer pong that is played today.
In some places, Beer Pong refers to the version of the game with paddles, and Beirut to the version without. However, according to a CollegeHumor survey, beer pong is the more common term than Beirut for the paddle-less game.
The origin of the name "Beirut" is disputed. A 2004 op-ed article in the Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper at Princeton University, suggested that the name was possibly coined at Bucknell or Lehigh University around the time of the Lebanese Civil War. Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, was the scene of much fighting during the war, particularly mortar fire.
Setup
Teams
Beer pong is usually played with two teams of two to four players each. Each team begins the game by standing at either end of the table behind their rack of cups.
Playing field
Although the game is typically played on either a ping pong table or a folding banquet table, enthusiasts may create a personalized table for use by friends and visitors. In general, this will be a plywood board cut to proper size, sometimes painted with sports, school, or fraternity symbols and given a liquid-proof coating. Some companies sell tables, including portable and inflatable tables. However, the game can be played on any flat surface.
Equipment
The most common cups used are disposable plastic cups (such as Solo cups) with ridge-lines which can be used precisely to measure the amount of beer to be poured into the cup. On each side of the table, teams assemble equilateral triangles with a convergence point focusing on the other team. Games typically use ten cups. Each team usually also has a separate cup of water used to rinse off the ball.
Alcohol
An inexpensive pale lager or light beer of 3.2–5% ABV is sometimes preferred because of the large quantities consumed during the course of several games. Sometimes under house rules, there might be cups of other liquors used during the game. For non-drinkers, the game may be played without beer, as is done at Utah State University, where alcohol is not allowed on campus; root beer is used instead. For sanitary reasons, the game may also be played with cups of water that players do not drink from, instead drinking from a separate cup of beer or alcohol.
Game play
Traditionally, the game of beer pong has been played by countless variations of rule sets. In recent years, organizations such as The World Series of Beer Pong have put forth "official" rules. Typically, players abide by a uniform set of "house rules" which are often consistent within one university or region of the country (e.g. "West Coast rules") or may vary on a "house-by-house" basis. Number of cups, bouncing, re-racking, amount of alcohol, distance shots must be taken from, etc. may all vary. All house rules should be posted or verbally stated and understood by both teams before the game starts.
The order of play varies - both players on one team can shoot, followed by both players on the other team, or players on opposite teams can alternate back and forth. A cup that is made must immediately have its contents drunk and be removed from play. Some rule sets allow for "re-racking" (also known as "reforming", "rearranging", "consolidation", and other names), which is a rearrangement of a team's remaining cups after some have been removed. The formations, number of cups, when to rearrange and so on, depend on the rule set. For example, a team with three remaining cups may ask the other team to "re-rack" the cups into a single triangle formation.
Common house rules allow players to 'finger' or blow the ball out of the cup if the ball spins around the inner rim. Another common house rule states that if a team makes both shots during their turn, a 'rollback' occurs allowing each player to shoot again. In the World Series of Beer Pong rules, only a single-ball 'rollback' occurs resulting in a three cup maximum that can be made per turn.
Before shooting, teams may dunk the ping pong balls into cups of water in order to wash off the balls. However, research has shown that the wash cups can still hold bacteria such as E. coli. To avoid any illness, many players put water in the cups instead of beer, keeping a separate beer on the side to drink from. In doing so, it removes the possibility of getting sick or drinking any dirt that may transfer from the ball into the cup.
Shot techniques
There are three common ways to shoot in beer pong: the arc, the fastball (or "laser, snipe"), and the bounce shot. The most common throwing technique is the arc shot, where one grasps the ping pong ball with the tips of the thumb and forefinger, holds the arm at an angle with the ball upwards, then throws using a gentle elbow motion holding the upper arm parallel with the table.
Some players throw "fastball" style which uses more of a hard chopping motion to send the ball in a more direct line toward the intended target cup. A fastball shot may be favorable if house rules dictate that a cup knocked over is removed from the table, in which case a fastball can eliminate multiple cups if thrown hard enough.
A bounce shot is performed by bouncing the ball towards the cups. Depending on house rules, if the other team has the opportunity to swat away a bounced ball, a bounce shot may be worth more than one cup.
Winning the game
If a team makes their last cup, the other team loses unless they can make all of their remaining cups; this is called a rebuttal or redemption. If the losing team can hit their redemption shots, then the game is forced into overtime where three cups are used instead of the normal ten cups.
Another 'house rule' can be stated before or during the game in the midst of a shutout. A shutout in beer pong occurs if one team makes all ten of their cups and the opposite team makes none of their cups. If the shutout does occur, the losing team must do whatever the two teams decided on, such as going streaking (naked lap) or drinking a large quantity of beer.
Also depending on 'house rules', there are other ways to end the game. Cups that were accidentally left in the rack after being made are known as death/kill cups. These cups will immediately end the game if made again.
Health effects
The game may have several associated health risks. As with any activity involving alcohol, beer pong may cause players to become drunken or even intoxicated enough to suffer alcohol poisoning. Also, the supposed cleaning effects of the water "dunk" cup may be offset by bacteria in the cups.
Some writers have mentioned beer pong as contributing to "out of control" college drinking.
Legal restrictions
Some municipalities and states have attempted to ban beer pong, either from bars or in general, due to the belief that it encourages binge drinking (see Health Effects above). In Oxford, Ohio, where Miami University is located, the city council tried to ban the game from being played outdoors. In Arlington, Virginia and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, bar owners were told to stop allowing the game to be played in their establishments. In the fall of 2007, Georgetown University officially banned all beer pong paraphernalia such as custom-built tables and the possession of many ping-pong balls.
Time magazine ran an article on July 31, 2008 called "The War Against Beer Pong", noting legal restrictions and bans on the game in college and elsewhere.
In many states, players have taken to placing water in cups in order to hold organized beer pong tournaments legally in bars. Some examples of this can be found in Michigan, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
Tournaments and leagues
Beer pong tournaments are held in the United States at the local, regional, and national levels.
The World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP), hosted by bpong.com, is the largest beer pong tournament in the world. WSOBP IV, held in January 2009 at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, had a $50,000 grand prize and attracted over 800 participants from the US and Canada. WSOBP V, held in January 2010, attracted over 1,000 participants, and attracted teams from Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Japan, each of which voiced their aspirations to further the sport in their home countries. The World Beer Pong Tour has stops in various cities and cash prizes as well.
A more common organization of beer pong games are leagues which operate on a local or regional level. Ordinarily, a group of pong enthusiasts will create teams (partnerships) and play weekly against each other. Sometimes, the leagues have websites, rankings and statistics, while others have been started by college students with the goal of intramural competition such as at University of California, Santa Barbara with the "Isla Vista Beer Pong League", and at New York University.
Media
The Wall Street Journal, Time and other media outlets have reported on the increase in businesses selling beer pong paraphernalia, such as tables, mats, cups, or clothes. Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong is a documentary which follows some competitive players as they prepare for the WSOBP II and ultimately compete against one another for the $20,000 grand prize. This documentary, directed by Dan Lindsay, premiered at the CineVegas film festival on June 13, 2008. WSOBP V attracted further media attention, with writers from Maxim magazine and ESPN The Magazine attending, and it was featured on The Jay Leno Show on January 8, 2010, and also on G4's Attack of the Show! on January 11, 2010. Rick Reilly wrote an entire column about The World Series of Beer Pong IV for ESPN The Magazine.
The Associated Press cited the game and other drinking games as a factor in deaths of college students.
Time magazine recently had an article on the popularity of beer pong and posted a video on their website. In both, players claimed beer pong was a sport, rather than a game—similar to billiards and darts.
The game has been a recurring segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, with host Fallon playing against female celebrity guests such as Betty White, Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova, Charlize Theron and Jessica Alba.
The Colbert Report featured a segment on the CDC study hoax.
Road Trip: Beer Pong, a sequel to the 2000 comedy Road Trip, featured the game prominently. Agnes Scott College, where most of the movie was filmed, did not want to be listed in the credits after complaints from students.
Publishing
On August 29, 2009, Chronicle Books published The Book of Beer Pong, a 200-page fully illustrated guide to the game.
Bud pong
Bud pong was the branded version of beer pong that brewer Anheuser-Busch said involved the drinking of water, not Budweiser or any other beer. In the summer of 2005, the company began marketing "bud pong" kits to its distributors. Francine I. Katz, vice president for communications and consumer affairs, was reported in The New York Times as saying that bud pong was not intended for underage drinkers because promotions were held in bars, not on campuses. And it did not promote binge drinking, she said, because official rules call for water to be used, not beer.
The New York Times quoted a bartender at a club near Clemson University as saying she had worked at several bud pong events and had "never seen anyone playing with water. It's always beer. It's just like any other beer pong."
Some expressed incredulity at Anheuser-Busch's public statements. Henry Wechsler, director of the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health, said: "Why would alcohol companies promote games that involve drinking water? It's preposterous," while advertising news site Adjab opined that "someone playing bud pong with water is about as likely as a teenage kid using the rolling paper he bought at the convenience store to smoke tobacco."
However, the practice of playing with water has become increasingly common on college campuses, due to the cost saving effects. Instead of drinking the beer from a glass each time a player sinks a shot, the player simply takes a shot of liquor or a sip from their own drink each time the opposing team scores. This is usually done when there isn't enough beer to accommodate a large number of games during the party.
Video games
In July 2008, JV Games Inc. released a downloadable video game for the Wii console called Frat Party Games: Beer Pong. After much outrage by parent and university groups, the game was renamed Frat Party Games: Pong Toss and all references to alcohol were removed.
References
External links
Category:Drinking culture
Category:Drinking games
Category:Sports entertainment
Category:Beer culture |
2016-01 | Serial_killer-697151493 | Serial_killer | Serial killer
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, usually due to abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break (a "cooling off period") between them. Some sources, such as the FBI, disregard the "three or more" criterion and define serial killing as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone".
Although psychological gratification is the usual motive for serial killing, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim, the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking. The murders may be attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have something in common: race, appearance, sex, or age group, for example.
Serial killing is not the same as mass murdering, nor is it spree killing, in which murders are committed in two or more locations in a short time. However, cases of extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent "cooling off period" or "return to normalcy" have caused some experts to suggest a hybrid category of "spree-serial killer".
Etymology
The English term and concept of "serial killer" is commonly attributed to former FBI Special agent Robert Ressler in the 1970s. Author Ann Rule postulates in her 2004 book Kiss Me, Kill Me that the English-language credit for coining the term serial killer goes to LAPD detective Pierce Brooks, creator of the ViCAP system. In his book Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky argues that while Ressler might have coined the term serial homicide within law in 1974 at Bramshill Police Academy in Britain, the terms serial murder and serial murderer appear in 1966 in John Brophy's book The Meaning of Murder. Moreover, Vronsky reports that the term serial killer does not appear in Ann Rule's book on Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, published in 1980, when the term was not yet in popular use. In his more recent study, Vronsky states that the construct "serial killing" first enters into American popular usage with the appearance of the term in the New York Times in the spring of 1981 to describe Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams. Subsequently throughout the 1980s the term was used in the pages of the New York Times on 233 occasions, but by the end of the 1990s in its second decade the use of the term escalated to 2,514 times in the nation's 'newspaper of record'. The German term and concept was coined by the influential Ernst Gennat, who described Peter Kürten as a "Serienmörder" (literally "serial murderer") in his article "Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen" in 1930.
Characteristics
General
Some commonly found characteristics of serial killers include the following:
They may exhibit varying degrees of mental illness and/or psychopathy, which may contribute to their homicidal behavior.
For example, someone who is mentally ill may have psychotic breaks that cause them to believe they are another person or are compelled to murder by other entities.
Psychopathic behavior that is consistent with traits common to some serial killers include sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control, and predatory behavior. Unlike people with major mental disorders such as schizophrenia, psychopaths can seem normal and often quite charming, a state of adaptation that psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley called the "mask of sanity".
They were often abused—emotionally, physically and/or sexually—by a family member.
Serial killers may be more likely to engage in fetishism, partialism or necrophilia, which are paraphilias that involve a strong tendency to experience the object of erotic interest almost as if it were a physical representation of the symbolized body. Individuals engage in paraphilias which are organized along a continuum; participating in varying levels of fantasy perhaps by focusing on body parts (partialism), symbolic objects which serve as physical extensions of the body (fetishism), or the anatomical physicality of the human body; specifically regarding its inner parts and sexual organs (one example being necrophilia).
A disproportionate number exhibit one, two, or all three of the Macdonald triad of predictors of future violent behavior:
Many are fascinated with fire setting.
They are involved in sadistic activity; especially in children who have not reached sexual maturity, this activity may take the form of torturing animals.
More than 60 percent, or simply a large proportion, wet their beds beyond the age of 12. However, recent authorities (see citations in the Enuresis section of the Macdonald triad article) question or deny the statistical significance of this figure; subsequent research suggests that bed-wetting may not be relevant.
They were frequently bullied or socially isolated as children or adolescents. Henry Lee Lucas was ridiculed as a child and later cited the mass rejection by his peers as a cause for his hatred of everyone. Kenneth Bianchi was teased as a child because he urinated in his pants and suffered twitching, and as a teenager was ignored by his peers.
Some were involved in petty crimes, such as theft, fraud, vandalism, dishonesty or similar offenses.
Often, they have trouble staying employed and tend to work in menial jobs. The FBI, however, states, "Serial murderers often seem normal; have families and/or a steady job." Other sources state they often come from unstable families.
Studies have suggested that serial killers generally have an average or low-average IQ, although they are often described, and perceived, as possessing IQs in the above-average range. A sample of 174 IQs of serial killers had a median IQ of 93; only serial killers who used bombs had an average IQ above the population mean.
There are exceptions to these criteria, however. For example, Harold Shipman was a successful professional (a General Practitioner working for the NHS). He was considered a pillar of the local community, even winning a professional award for a children's Asthma clinic and was interviewed by Granada Television's World in Action. Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no previous criminal record when arrested. Neither were known to have exhibited many of these signs. Vlado Taneski was a career journalist who was caught after a series of articles he wrote gave clues that he had murdered people; Taneski was a crime reporter. Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Officer who was convicted of the murder of two women, along with fetish burglaries and rapes.
Development
Many serial killers have faced similar problems in their childhood development. Hickey's Trauma Control Model explains how early childhood trauma can set the child up for deviant behavior in adulthood; the child's environment (either their parents or society) is the dominant factor in whether or not the child's behavior escalates into homicidal activity.
Family, or lack thereof, is the most prominent part of a child's development because it is what the child can identify with on a regular basis. "The serial killer is no different from any other individual who is instigated to seek approval from parents, sexual partners, or others." This need for approval is what influences children to attempt to develop social relationships with their family and peers, but if they are rejected or neglected, they are unable to do so. This results in the lowering of their self-esteem and helps develop their fantasy world in which they are in control. According to the Hickey's Trauma Control Model the development of a serial killer is based on an early trauma followed by facilitators (this can be pornography, drugs, alcohol, or any number of things as what constitutes as a facilitator is dependent on individual circumstances) and disposition (an inability to attach being one common factor).
Family interaction also plays an important role in a child's growth and development. "The quality of their attachments to parents and other members of the family is critical to how these children relate to and value other members of society." Wilson and Seaman (1990) conducted a study on incarcerated serial killers and what they felt was the most influential factor that contributed to their homicidal activity. Almost all of the serial killers in the study had experienced some sort of environmental problems during their childhood, such as a broken home caused by divorce, or a lack of discipline in the home. It was common for the serial killers to come from a family that had experienced divorce, separation, or the lack of a parent. Furthermore, nearly half of the serial killers had experienced some type of physical and sexual abuse and even more had experienced emotional neglect. When a parent has a drug or alcohol problem, the attention in the household is on the parents rather than the child. This neglect of the child leads to the lowering of their self-esteem and helps develop a fantasy world in which they are in control. Hickey's Trauma Control Model supports how the neglect from parents can facilitate deviant behavior especially if the child sees substance abuse in action. This then leads to disposition (the inability to attach), which can further lead to homicidal behavior unless the child finds a way to develop substantial relationships and fight the label they receive. If a child receives no support from those around him or her, then he or she is unlikely to recover from the traumatic event in a positive way. As stated by E. E. Maccoby, "the family has continued to be seen as a major—perhaps the major—arena for socialization".
Chromosomal make up
There have been recent studies looking into the possibility that an abnormality with one's chromosomes could be the trigger for serial killers. Two serial killers, Bobby Joe Long and Richard Speck, came to attention for reported chromosomal abnormalities. Long had an extra X chromosome. Speck was erroneously reported to have an extra Y chromosome; in fact, his karyotype was performed twice and was normal each time. Hellen Morrison, an American forensic psychiatrist, said in an interview that while researchers do not have an exact gene identity, the fact that the majority of serial killers are men leads researchers to believe there is "a change associated with the male chromosome make up."
Fantasy
Children who do not have the power to control the mistreatment they suffer sometimes create a new reality to which they can escape. This new reality becomes their fantasy that they have total control of and becomes part of their daily existence. In this fantasy world, their emotional development is guided and maintained. According to Garrison (1996), "the child becomes sociopathic because the normal development of the concepts of right and wrong and empathy towards others is retarded because the child's emotional and social development occurs within his self-centered fantasies. A person can do no wrong in his own world and the pain of others is of no consequence when the purpose of the fantasy world is to satisfy the needs of one person" (Garrison, 1996). Boundaries between fantasy and reality are lost and fantasies turn to dominance, control, sexual conquest, and violence, eventually leading to murder. Fantasy can lead to the first step in the process of a dissociative state, which, in the words of Stephen Giannangelo, "allows the serial killer to leave the stream of consciousness for what is, to him, a better place".
Criminologist Jose Sanchez reports, "the young criminal you see today is more detached from his victim, more ready to hurt or kill ... The lack of empathy for their victims among young criminals is just one symptom of a problem that afflicts the whole society." Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Gangster (2001), explains how potential criminals are labeled by society, which can then lead to their offspring also developing in the same way through the cycle of violence. The ability for serial killers to appreciate the mental life of others is severely compromised, presumably leading to their dehumanization of others. This process may be considered an expression of the intersubjectivity associated with a cognitive deficit regarding the capability to make sharp distinctions between other people and inanimate objects. For these individuals, objects can appear to possess animistic or humanistic power while people are perceived as objects. Before he was executed, serial killer Ted Bundy stated media violence and pornography had stimulated and increased his need to commit homicide, although this statement was made during last-ditch efforts to appeal his death sentence. However, correlation is not causation (a disturbed physiological disposition, psychosis, lack of socialization, or aggressiveness may contribute to both fantasy creation and serial killing without fantasy creation generally contributing to serial killing for instance). There are exceptions to the typical fantasy patterns of serial killers, as in the case of Dennis Rader, who was a loving family man and the leader of his church.
Organized, disorganized, and mixed
The FBI's Crime Classification Manual places serial killers into three categories: organized, disorganized, and mixed (i.e., offenders who exhibit organized and disorganized characteristics). Some killers descend from being organized into disorganized as their killings continue, as in the case of psychological decompensation, or vice versa, as when a previously disorganized killer identifies one or more specific aspects of the act of killing as his/her source of gratification and develops a modus operandi structured around that aspect / those aspects.
Organized serial killers often plan their crimes methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to go voluntarily with a stranger. These killers maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene and usually have a solid knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as burying the body or weighing it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the news media carefully and often take pride in their actions, as if it were all a grand project. Often, organized killers have social and other interpersonal skills sufficient to enable them to develop both personal and romantic relationships, friends and lovers and sometimes even attract and maintain a spouse and sustain a family including children. Among serial killers, those of this type are in the event of their capture most likely to be described by acquaintances as kind and unlikely to hurt anyone. Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are examples of organized serial killers. In general, the IQs of organized serial killers tend to be near normal range, with a mean of 94.7. Organized nonsocial offenders tend to be on the higher end of the average, with a mean IQ of 99.2.
Disorganized serial killers are usually far more impulsive, often committing their murders with a random weapon available at the time, and usually do not attempt to hide the body. They are likely to be unemployed, a loner, or both, with very few friends. They often turn out to have a history of mental illness, and their modus operandi (M.O.) or lack thereof is often marked by excessive violence and sometimes necrophilia and/or sexual violence. Disorganized serial killers have been found to have a slightly lower mean IQ than organized serial killers, at 92.8.
Medical professionals
Some people with a pathological interest in the power of life and death tend to be attracted to medical professions or acquiring such a job. These kinds of killers are sometimes referred to as "angels of death" or angels of mercy. Medical professionals will kill their patients for money, for a sense of sadistic pleasure, for a belief that they are "easing" the patient's pain, or simply "because they can". One such killer was nurse Jane Toppan, who admitted during her murder trial that she was sexually aroused by death. She would administer a drug mixture to patients she chose as her victims, lie in bed with them and hold them close to her body as they died.
Another medical profession serial killer is Genene Jones. It is believed she killed 11 to 46 infants and children while working at Bexar County Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. She is currently serving a 99 year sentence for the murder of Chelsea McClellan and the attempted murder of Rolando Santos, and is eligible for parole in 2017 due to a law in Texas at the time of her sentencing to reduce prison overcrowding.
Female serial killers
Female serial killers are rare compared to their male counterparts. Sources suggest that female serial killers represented less than one in every six known serial murderers in the U.S. between 1800 and 2004 (64 females from a total of 416 known offenders), or that around 15% of U.S. serial killers have been women, with a collective number of victims between 427 and 612. Lethal Ladies''' authors, Amanda L. Farrell, Robert D. Keppel, and Victoria B. Titterington state that "the Justice Department indicated 36 female serial killers have been active over the course of the last century." According to The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, there is evidence that 16 % of all serial killers are women.
Kelleher and Kelleher (1998) created several categories to describe female serial killers. They used the classifications of black widow, angel of death, sexual predator, revenge, profit or crime, team killer, question of sanity, unexplained, and unsolved. In using these categories, they observed that most women fell into the categories of black widow or team killer. Although motivations for female serial killers can include attention seeking, addiction, or the result of psychopathological behavioral factors, female serial killers are commonly categorized as murdering men for material gain, usually being emotionally close to their victims, and generally needing to have a relationship with the victim, hence the traditional cultural image of the "black widow." In describing murderer Stacey Castor, forensic psychiatrist James Knoll offered a psychological perspective on what defines a "black widow" type. In simple terms, he described it as a woman who kills two or more husbands or lovers for material gain. Though Castor was not officially defined as a serial killer, it is likely that she would have killed again.
One "analysis of 86 female serial killers from the U.S. found that the victims tended to be spouses, children or the elderly". Other studies indicate that since 1975, increasingly strangers are marginally the most preferred victim of female serial killers, or that only 26% of female serial killers kill for material gain only. Sources state that "[e]ach killer will have her own proclivities, needs and triggers." A review of the published literature on female serial murder stated that "sexual or sadistic motives are believed to be extremely rare in female serial murderers, and psychopathic traits and histories of childhood abuse have been consistently reported in these women." A study by Eric W. Hickey (2010) of 64 female serial killers in the U.S. indicated that sexual activity was one of several motives in 10% of the cases, enjoyment in 11% and control in 14%, and that 51% of all U.S. female serial killers murdered at least one woman and 31% murdered at least one child. In other cases, women have been involved as an accomplice with a male serial killer as a part of a serial killing team. A 2015 study published in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology found that the most common motive for female serial killers was for financial gain and almost 40 percent of them had experienced some sort of mental illness.
Peter Vronsky in Female Serial Killers (2007) maintains that female serial killers today often kill for the same reason males do: as a means of expressing rage and control. He suggests that sometimes the theft of the victims' property by the female "black widow" type serial killer appears to be for material gain, but really is akin to a male serial killer's collecting of totems (souvenirs) from the victim as a way of exerting continued control over the victim and reliving it. By contrast, Hickey states that although popular perception sees "black widow" female serial killers as something of the Victorian past, in his statistical study of female serial killer cases reported in the U.S. since 1826, approximately 75% occurred since 1950.
The methods that female serial killers use for murder are frequently covert or low-profile, such as murder by poison (the preferred choice for killing). Other methods used by female serial killers include shootings (used by 20%), suffocation (16%), stabbing (11%), and drowning (5%). They commit killings in specific places, such as their home or a health-care facility, or at different locations within the same city or state. A notable exception to the typical characteristics of female serial killers is Aileen Wuornos, who killed outdoors instead of at home, used a gun instead of poison, killed strangers instead of friends or family, and killed for personal gratification. The most prolific female serial killer in all of history is allegedly Elizabeth Báthory. Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, August 17, 1560 – August 21, 1614) was a countess from the renowned Báthory family. After her husband's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness attributing to them over 600 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80. Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted. In 1610, however, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.
A 2010 article by Perri and Lichtenwald addressed some of the misperceptions concerning female criminality. In the article, Perri and Lichtenwald analyze the current research regarding female psychopathy, including case studies of female psychopathic killers featuring Münchausen syndrome by proxy, cesarean section homicide, fraud detection homicide, female kill teams, and a female serial killer.
Ethnicity and serial killer demographics in the U.S.
The racial demographics regarding serial killers are often subject to debate. In the United States, the majority of reported and investigated serial killers are white males, from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in their late twenties to early thirties. However, there are African American, Asian, and Hispanic (of any race) serial killers as well, and, according to the FBI, based on percentages of the U.S. population, whites are not more likely than other races to be serial killers. Criminal profiler Pat Brown says serial killers are usually reported as white because the media typically focuses on "All-American" white and pretty female victims who were the targets of white male offenders, that crimes among minority offenders in urban communities, where crime rates are higher, are under-investigated, and that minority serial killers likely exist at the same ratios as white serial killers for the population. She believes that the myth that serial killers are always white might have become "truth" in some research fields due to the over-reporting of white serial killers in the media.
According to some sources, the percentage of serial killers who are African American is estimated to be between 13 and 22 percent. Another study has shown that 16 percent of serial killers are African American, what author Maurice Godwin describes as a "sizeable portion". A 2014 Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database annual statistics report showed that for the decades 1900–2010, the percentage of White serial killers was 52.1% while the percentage of African American serial killers was 40.3%. Popular racial stereotypes about the lower intelligence of African-Americans, and the stereotype that serial killers are white males, may explain the media focus on serial killers that are white and the failure to adequately report on those that are black. Similarly, in a 2005 article Anthony Walsh, professor of criminal justice at Boise State University, argued a review of post-WWII serial killings in America finds that the prevalence of African-American serial killers has typically been drastically underestimated in both professional research literature and the mass media. As a paradigmatic case of this media double-standard, Walsh cites news reporting on white killer Gary Heidnik and African-American killer Harrison Graham. Both men were residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; both imprisoned, tortured and killed several women; and both were arrested only months apart in 1987. "Heidnik received widespread national attention, became the subject of books and television shows, and served as a model for the fictitious Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs", writes Walsh, while "Graham received virtually no media attention outside of Philadelphia, despite having been convicted of four more murders than Heidnik".
Motives
The motives of serial killers are generally placed into four categories: visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic and power or control; however, the motives of any given killer may display considerable overlap among these categories.
Visionary
Visionary serial killers suffer from psychotic breaks with reality, sometimes believing they are another person or are compelled to murder by entities such as the Devil or God. The two most common subgroups are "demon mandated" and "God mandated".
Herbert Mullin believed the American casualties in the Vietnam War were preventing California from experiencing the Big One. As the war wound down, Mullin claimed his father instructed him via telepathy to raise the number of "human sacrifices to nature" in order to delay a catastrophic earthquake that would plunge California into the ocean. David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") is also an example of a visionary killer. He claimed a demon transmitted orders through his neighbor's dog and instructed him to commit murder.
Mission-oriented
Mission-oriented killers typically justify their acts as "ridding the world" of a certain type of person perceived as undesirable, such as homosexuals, prostitutes, or people of different ethnicity or religion; however, they are generally not psychotic. For example, the Zebra killers in the San Francisco Bay Area specifically targeted Caucasians. Some see themselves as attempting to change society, often to cure a societal ill.
Hedonistic
This type of serial killer seeks thrills and derives pleasure from killing, seeing people as expendable means to this goal. Forensic psychologists have identified three subtypes of the hedonistic killer: "lust", "thrill" and "comfort".
Lust
Sex is the primary motive of lust killers, whether or not the victims are dead, and fantasy plays a large role in their killings. Their sexual gratification depends on the amount of torture and mutilation they perform on their victims. The sexual serial murderer has a psychological need to have absolute control, dominance, and power over their victims, and the infliction of torture, pain, and ultimately death is used in an attempt to fulfill their need. They usually use weapons that require close contact with the victims, such as knives or hands. As lust killers continue with their murders, the time between killings decreases or the required level of stimulation increases, sometimes both.
Kenneth Bianchi, one of the "Hillside Stranglers", murdered women and girls of different ages, races and appearance because his sexual urges required different types of stimulation and increasing intensity. Jeffrey Dahmer, who was repeatedly diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, searched for his perfect fantasy lover—beautiful, submissive and eternal. As his desire increased, he experimented with drugs, alcohol, and exotic sex. His increasing need for stimulation was demonstrated by the dismemberment of victims, whose heads and genitals he preserved, and by his attempts to create a "living zombie" under his control (by pouring acid into a hole drilled into the victim's skull). Dahmer once said, "Lust played a big part of it. Control and lust. Once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. The killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with … acid and the drill." He further elaborated on this, also saying, "I wanted to see if it was possible to make—again, it sounds really gross—uh, zombies, people that would not have a will of their own, but would follow my instructions without resistance. So after that, I started using the drilling technique." He experimented with cannibalism to "ensure his victims would always be a part of him".
Thrill
The primary motive of a thrill killer is to induce pain or terror in their victims, which provides stimulation and excitement for the killer. They seek the adrenaline rush provided by hunting and killing victims. Thrill killers murder only for the kill; usually the attack is not prolonged, and there is no sexual aspect. Usually the victims are strangers, although the killer may have followed them for a period of time. Thrill killers can abstain from killing for long periods of time and become more successful at killing as they refine their murder methods. Many attempt to commit the perfect crime and believe they will not be caught. Robert Hansen took his victims to a secluded area, where he would let them loose and then hunt and kill them. In one of his letters to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, the Zodiac Killer wrote "[killing] gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl". Coral Watts was described by a surviving victim as "excited and hyper and clappin' and just making noises like he was excited, that this was gonna be fun" during the 1982 attack. Slashing, stabbing, hanging, drowning, asphyxiating, and strangling were among the ways Watts killed.
Comfort (profit)
Material gain and a comfortable lifestyle are the primary motives of comfort killers. Usually, the victims are family members and close acquaintances. After a murder, a comfort killer will usually wait for a period of time before killing again to allow any suspicions by family or authorities to subside. They often use poison, most notably arsenic, to kill their victims. Female serial killers are often comfort killers, although not all comfort killers are female. Dorothea Puente killed her tenants for their Social Security checks and buried them in the backyard of her home. H. H. Holmes killed for insurance and business profits. Professional killers ("hitmen") may also be considered comfort serial killers. Richard Kuklinski charged tens of thousands of dollars for a "hit", earning enough money to support his family in a middle-class lifestyle (Bruno, 1993).
Some, like Puente and Holmes, may be involved in and/or have previous convictions for theft, fraud, non payment of debts, embezzlement and other crimes of a similar nature. Dorothea Puente was finally arrested on a parole violation, having been on parole for a previous fraud conviction.
Power/control
The main objective for this type of serial killer is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers are sometimes abused as children, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy as adults. Many power- or control-motivated killers sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic killers in that rape is not motivated by lust (as it would be with a lust murder) but as simply another form of dominating the victim. (See article Causes of sexual violence for the differences regarding anger rape, power rape, and sadistic rape.) Ted Bundy is an example of a power/control-oriented serial killer. He traveled around the United States seeking women to control.
Media
Many serial killers claim that a violent culture influenced them to commit murders. Ted Bundy stated that hardcore pornography was responsible for his actions. Others idolise figures for their deeds or perceived vigilante justice, such as Peter Kürten, who idolised Jack the Ripper, or John Wayne Gacy and Ed Kemper, who both idolised the actor John Wayne.
Theories
Biological and sociological
Theories for why certain people commit serial murder have been advanced. Some theorists believe the reasons are biological, suggesting serial killers are born, not made, and that their violent behavior is a result of abnormal brain activity. Holmes and Holmes believe that "until a reliable sample can be obtained and tested, there is no scientific statement that can be made concerning the exact role of biology as a determining factor of a serial killer personality." The "Fractured Identity Syndrome" (FIS) is a merging of Charles Cooley's "looking glass self" and Erving Goffman's "virtual" and "actual social identity" theories. The FIS suggests a social event, or series of events, during one's childhood or adolescence results in a fracturing of the personality of the serial killer. The term "fracture" is defined as a small breakage of the personality which is often not visible to the outside world and is only felt by the killer.
"Social Process Theory" has also been suggested as an explanation for serial murder. Social process theory states that offenders may turn to crime due to peer pressure, family, and friends. Criminal behavior is a process of interaction with social institutions, in which everyone has the potential for criminal behavior. A lack of family structure and identity could also be a cause leading to serial murder traits. A child used as a scapegoat will be deprived of their capacity to feel guilt. Displaced anger could result in animal torture, as identified in the Macdonald triad, and a further lack of basic identity.
Military
The "military theory" has been proposed as an explanation for why serial murderers kill, as some serial murderers have served in the military or related fields. According to Castle and Hensley, 7% of the serial killers studied had military experience. This figure may be a proportional under-representation when compared to the number of military veterans in a nation's total population. For example, according to the United States census for the year 2000, military veterans comprised 12.7% of the U.S. population; in England, it was estimated in 2007 that military veterans comprised 9.1% of the population. Though by contrast, about 2.5% of the population of Canada in 2006 consisted of military veterans.
There are two theories that can be used to study the correlation between serial killing and military training: Applied learning theory states that serial killing can be learned. The military is training for higher kill rates from servicemen while training the soldiers to be desensitized to taking a human life. Social learning theory can be used when soldiers get praised and accommodated for killing. They learn, or believe that they learn, that it is acceptable to kill because they were praised for it in the military. Serial killers want accreditation for the work that they have done.
In both military and serial killing, the offender or the soldier may become desensitized to killing as well as compartmentalized; the soldiers do not see enemy personnel as "human" and neither do serial killers see their victims as humans. The theories do not imply that military institutions make a deliberate effort to produce serial killers; to the contrary, all military personnel are trained to recognize when, where, and against whom it is appropriate to use deadly force, which starts with the basic Law of Land Warfare, taught during the initial training phase, and may include more stringent policies for military personnel in law enforcement or security. They are also taught ethics in basic training.
Investigation
FBI: Issues and practices
In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a handbook entitled Serial Murder which was the product of a symposium held in 2005 to bring together the many issues surrounding serial murder, including its investigation.
Identification
According to the FBI, identifying one, or multiple, murders as being the work of a serial killer is the first challenge an investigation faces, especially if the victim(s) come from a marginalized or high risk population and is normally linked through forensic or behavioral evidence (FBI 2008). Should the cases cross multiple jurisdictions, the law enforcement system in the United States is fragmented and thus not configured to detect multiple similar murders across a large geographic area (Egger 1998). The FBI suggests utilizing databases and increasing interdepartmental communication. Keppel (1989) suggests holding multi-jurisdictional conferences regularly to compare cases giving departments a greater chance to detect linked cases and overcome linkage blindness. One such collaboration, the Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database Project was proposed at the 2012 FDIAI Annual Conference. Utilizing Radford's Serial Killer Database as a starting point, the new collaboration, hosted by FGCU Justice Studies, has invited and is working in conjunction with other Universities to maintain and expand the scope of the database to also include spree and mass murders. Utilizing over 170 data points, multiple-murderer methodology and victimology; researchers and Law Enforcement Agencies can build case studies and statistical profiles to further research the Who, What, Why and How of these types of crimes.
Leadership
Leadership, or administration, should play a small or virtually non-existent role in the actual investigation past assigning knowledgeable or experienced homicide investigators to lead positions. The administration's role is not to run the investigation but to establish and reaffirm the primary goal of catching the serial killer, as well as provide support for the investigators. The FBI (2008) suggests completing Memorandums of Understanding to facilitate support and commitment of resources from different jurisdictions to an investigation. Egger (1998) takes this one step further and suggests completing mutual aid pacts, which are written agreements to provide support to each other in a time of need, with surrounding jurisdictions. Doing this in advance would save time and resources that could be used on the investigation.
Organization
Organization of the structure of an investigation is key to its success, as demonstrated by the investigation of the Green River Killer. Once a serial murder case was established, a task force was created to track down and arrest the offender. Over the course of the investigation, for various reasons, the task force's organization was radically changed and reorganized multiple times – at one point including more than 50 full-time personnel, and at another, only a single investigator. Eventually, what led to the end of the investigation was a conference of 25 detectives organized to share ideas to solve the case.
The FBI handbook provides a description of how a task force should be organized but offers no additional options on how to structure the investigation. While it appears advantageous to have a full-time staff assigned to a serial murder investigation, it can become prohibitively expensive. For example, the Green River Task Force cost upwards of two million dollars a year, and as was witnessed with the Green River Killer investigation, other strategies can prevail where a task force fails.
A common strategy, already employed by many departments for other reasons, is the conference, in which departments get together and focus on a specific set of topics. With serial murders, the focus is typically on unsolved cases, with evidence thought to be related to the case at hand.
Similar to a conference is an information clearing-house in which a jurisdiction with a suspected serial murder case collects all of its evidence and actively seeks data which may be related from other jurisdictions. By collecting all of the related information into one place, they provide a central point in which it can be organized and easily accessed by other jurisdictions working toward the goal of arresting an offender and ending the murders.
Already mentioned was the task force, FBI 2008, Keppel 1989 which provides for a flexible, organized, framework for jurisdictions depending on the needs of the investigation. Unfortunately due to the need to commit resources (manpower, money, equipment, etc.) for long periods of time it can be an unsustainable option.
In the case of the investigation of Aileen Wournos, the Marion County Sheriff coordinated multiple agencies without any written or formal agreement. While not a specific strategy for a serial murder investigation, this is certainly a best practice in so far as the agencies were able to work easily together toward a common goal.
Finally, once a serial murder investigation has been identified, utilization of an FBI Rapid Response Team can assist both experienced and inexperienced jurisdictions in setting up a task force. This is completed by organizing and delegating jobs, by compiling and analyzing clues, and by establishing communication between the parties involved.
Resource augmentation
During the course of a serial murder investigation it may become necessary to call in additional resources; the FBI defines this as Resource Augmentation. Within the structure of a task force the addition of a resource should be thought of as either long term, or short term. If the task force's framework is expanded to include the new resource, then it should be permanent and not removed. For short term needs, such as setting up road blocks or canvassing a neighborhood, additional resources should be called in on a short term basis. The decision of whether resources are needed short or long term should be left to the lead investigator and facilitated by the administration (FBI 2008). The confusion and counter productiveness created by changing the structure of a task force mid investigation is illustrated by the way the Green River Task Force's staffing and structure was changed multiple times throughout the investigation. This made an already complicated situation more difficult, resulting in the delay or loss of information, which allowed Ridgeway to continue killing (Guillen 2007). The FBI model does not take into account that permanently expanding a task force, or investigative structure, may not be possible due to cost or personnel availability. Egger (1998) offers several alternative strategies including; using investigative consultants, or experienced staff to augment an investigative team. Not all departments have investigators experienced in serial murder and by temporarily bringing in consultants, they can educate a department to a level of competence then step out. This would reduce the initially established framework of the investigation team and save the department the cost of retaining the consultants until the conclusion of the investigation.
Communication
The FBI handbook (2008) and Keppel (1989) both stress communication as paramount. The difference is that the FBI handbook (2008) concentrates primarily on communication within a task force while Keppel (1989) makes getting information out to, and allowing information to be passed back from patrol officers a priority. The FBI handbook (2008) suggest having daily e-mail or in person briefings for all staff involved in the investigation and providing periodic summary briefings to patrol officer and managers. Looking back on a majority of serial murderer arrests, most are exercised by patrol officers in the course of their every day duties and unrelated to the ongoing serial murder investigation (Egger 1998, Keppel 1989). Keppel (1989) provides examples of Larry Eyler, who was arrested during a traffic stop for a parking violation, and Ted Bundy, who was arrested during a traffic stop for operating a stolen vehicle. In each case it was uniformed officers, not directly involved in the investigation, who knew what to look for and took the direct action that stopped the killer. By providing up to date (as opposed to periodic) briefings and information to officers on the street the chances of catching a serial killer, or finding solid leads, are increased.
Data management
A serial murder investigation generates staggering amounts of data, all of which needs to be reviewed and analyzed. A standardized method of documenting and distributing information must be established and investigators must be allowed time to complete reports while investigating leads and at the end of a shift (FBI 2008). When the mechanism for data management is insufficient, leads are not only lost or buried but the investigation can be hindered and new information can become difficult to obtain or become corrupted. During the Green River Killer investigation, reporters would often find and interview possible victims or witnesses ahead of investigators. The understaffed investigation was unable to keep up the information flow, which prevented them from promptly responding to leads. To make matters worse, investigators believed that the journalists, untrained in interviewing victims or witnesses of crimes, would corrupt the information and result in unreliable leads (Guillen 2007).
History
Historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murders throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. Some sources suggest that legends such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers. In Africa, there have been periodic outbreaks of murder by Lion and Leopard men.
Liu Pengli of China, cousin of the Han Emperor Jing, was made Prince of Jidong in the sixth year of the middle period of Jing's reign (144 BC). According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian, he would "go out on marauding expeditions with 20 or 30 slaves or with young men who were in hiding from the law, murdering people and seizing their belongings for sheer sport". Although many of his subjects knew about these murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the son of one of his victims finally sent a report to the Emperor. Eventually, it was discovered that he had murdered at least 100 people. The officials of the court requested that Liu Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not bear to have his own cousin killed, so Liu Pengli was made a commoner and banished.
In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a former companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, sexually assaulted and killed peasant children, mainly boys, whom he had abducted from the surrounding villages and had taken to his castle. It is estimated that his victims numbered between 140 and 800. The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory, born into one of the wealthiest families in Transylvania, allegedly tortured and killed as many as 650 girls and young women before her arrest in 1610.
Members of the Thuggee cult in India may have murdered a million people between 1740 and 1840. Thug Behram, a member of the cult, may have murdered as many as 931 victims.
In his 1886 book Psychopathia Sexualis, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing noted a case of a serial murderer in the 1870s, a Frenchman named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a sexual obsession with blood and confessed to murdering six people.
Serial killing in modern times
The unidentified killer Jack the Ripper, who has been called the first modern serial killer, killed at least five prostitutes, and possibly more, in London in 1888. He was the subject of a massive manhunt and investigation by the Metropolitan Police, during which many modern criminal investigation techniques were pioneered. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries, forensic material was collected and suspects were identified and traced. Police surgeon Thomas Bond assembled one of the earliest character profiles of the offender.
The Ripper murders also marked an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists. While not the first serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy.Woods and Baddeley, pp. 20, 52 The dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of the wealth of London, focused the media's attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. Jack the Ripper has also been called the most famous serial killer of all time, and his legend has spawned hundreds of theories on his real identity and multiple works of fiction.
H. H. Holmes was one of the first documented modern serial killers in America, responsible for the death of at least 27 victims at his hotel in Chicago in the early 1890s. Here as well, the case gained notoriety and wide publicity through William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. At the same time in France, Joseph Vacher became known as the "The French Ripper" after killing and mutilating 11 women and children. He was executed in 1898 after confessing to his crimes.
Infamous serial killers of the 20th century include Harold Shipman, Luis Garavito, Javed Iqbal, Anatoly Onopriyenko, Dean Corll, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe, Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kürten and Peter Tobin.
76% of all known serial killers in the 20th century were from the United States.
In media and popular culture
Art
Collecting art created by convicted serial killers has become a special pastime for some. John Wayne Gacy drew and painted art from prison, much of which he gave away. Some people took the work just to trash or burn it, especially after discovering that many of his images depicted his own victims.
In 2005, serial killer Alfred Gaynor's art was offered on an online auction. One of his more popular works, titled "A Righteous Man's Reward", was a drawing depicting the figure of Jesus.
Books
There is a huge market for "true crime" and mystery murder novels, some of the more successful authors being Truman Capote, Philip Carlo, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson, Ann Rule, Harold Schechter, and Peter Vronsky. The novella titled Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, can be seen as a metaphor for the complex personality of the organized serial killer type that later disintegrates into the disorganized version. One of the greatest themes of this book, however, is the possibility that the dualistic conflict seen in Jekyll/Hyde could happen to anyone. Tod Robbins' 1912 novel Mysterious Martin is an early example of a horror novel focused on a serial killer. Dorothy B. Hughes' In a Lonely Place offers a striking, insightful portrait of a serial killer in 1947. Other notable literature with a serial killer theme includes Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, Davis Grubb's The Night of the Hunter, Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Thomas Harris' books Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, all featuring Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a cannibalistic serial killer. In the book To Kill a Predator Adir Rondack combines technology with a serial killer by using a UAV to target his victims.
Film
The already vast and continually growing production of serial killer-based works shows that the serial killer persona fascinates portions of western culture. For example, one of Thomas Edison's first phonograph recordings dealt with the confessions of serial killer H. H. Holmes. The creation of a monster helps society cope with the darker side of humanity but may lead to desensitization of media violence.
Serial killers are featured as stock characters in many types of media, not only in films, but in including printed works, songs, television programs, and video games as well. Films featuring serial killers include The Terror (1928), M (1931), Psycho (1960), Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Peeping Tom, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Watcher, Mr. Brooks, Dirty Harry, Zodiac, Seven, The Beachcomber, Copycat, Halloween (1978), Scream, Frailty, Man Bites Dog, The Hitcher (1986), Monster (2003), Kalifornia, Felidae, The Killer Inside Me (2010), Child's Play, Plastic, and many others.
Memorabilia
Notorious and infamous serial killers number in the hundreds, and a subculture revolves around their legacies. That subculture includes the collection, sale, and display of serial killer memorabilia, dubbed "murderabilia" by one of the best-known opponents of collectors of serial killer remnants, Andrew Kahan. He is the director of the Mayor's Crime Victims Office in Houston and is backed by the families of murder victims and "Son of Sam" laws existing in some states that prevent murderers from profiting from the publicity generated by their crimes.
Murderabilia includes the paintings, writings, and poems of these killers. Recently, marketing has capitalized even more upon interest in serial killers with the rise of various merchandise such as trading cards, action figures, and books such as The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers by Harold Schechter, and The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Schecter and David Everitt. Some serial killers literally attain celebrity status in the way they acquire fans, and may have previous personal possessions auctioned off on websites like eBay. A few examples of this are Ed Gein's 150-pound stolen gravestone and Bobbie Joe Long's sunglasses.
Music
Modern singers and bands, some more popular than others, have felt the fascination and horror toward certain celebrity serial killers, writing their own songs about them. Chicago based metal band Macabre boast an entire back-catalogue of songs about serial killers, even referring to their own particular style of music as Murder Metal.
Television
The television show Criminal Minds follows the cases of an FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit as it pursues serial killers and mass murderers.
The television series Dexter revolves around Dexter Morgan, a police blood-spatter pattern analyst who moonlights as a vigilante serial killer, attempting to channel his homicidal urges in a "positive" direction by killing other murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the legal system. It is based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter.
Season 3 of the American television series The Killing (2013) focuses largely on identifying and capturing a Seattle-area serial killer of prostitutes and street kids, who may also have killed the wife of an inmate sentenced to death for her murder.
The television series The Mentalist has as its central antagonist a serial killer known as Red John, who until the end of the fifth season has murdered about 28 people, including the wife and daughter of the protagonist, the CBI consultant Patrick Jane. Discovering Red John's identity and avenging his victims' deaths are Jane and the series' main goals.
The first season of the HBO series True Detective'' follows two detectives who are investigating mysterious serial killer known as the Yellow King.
See also
List of horror film antagonists
List of serial killers by country
List of serial killers by number of victims
List of serial killers before 1900
Offender profiling
Serial crime
Son of Sam law
Footnotes
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
Crime Library's Serial Killer page
Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators Official FBI publication
Dr. James Fallon: The Brains of Serial Killers (Talk)
Unknown Serial Killings
Category:Crime
Category:Murder
Category:Psychopathy |
2016-01 | Washington_D.C.-697370082 | Washington_D.C. | Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state.
The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District.
Washington had an estimated population of 672,228 as of July 2015. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the seventh-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country.
The centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to many national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups, and professional associations.
A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973. However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D.C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, but the District has no representation in the U.S. Senate. The District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961.
History
Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people (also known as the Conoy) inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century. One group known as the Nacotchtank (also called the Nacostines by Catholic missionaries) maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland.
In his Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia. Known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security.
Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution permits the establishment of a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In what is now known as the Compromise of 1790, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson came to an agreement that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the Southern United States.
Foundation
On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, who signed the bill into law on July 16. Formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring on each side, totaling .
Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory: the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, and the city of Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1749. During 1791–92, Andrew Ellicott and several assistants, including a free African American astronomer named Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point. Many of the stones are still standing.
A new federal city was then constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The federal district was named Columbia, which was a poetic name for the United States commonly in use at that time. Congress held its first session in Washington on November 17, 1800.
Congress passed the Organic Act of 1801, which officially organized the District and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. Further, the unincorporated area within the District was organized into two counties: the County of Washington to the east of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west. After the passage of this Act, citizens living in the District were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which therefore ended their representation in Congress.
On August 24–25, 1814, in a raid known as the Burning of Washington, British forces invaded the capital during the War of 1812. The Capitol, Treasury, and White House were burned and gutted during the attack. Most government buildings were repaired quickly; however, the Capitol was largely under construction at the time and was not completed in its current form until 1868.
Retrocession and the Civil War
In the 1830s, the District's southern territory of Alexandria went into economic decline partly due to neglect by Congress. The city of Alexandria was a major market in the American slave trade, and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in the District, further depressing the economy. Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to take back the land it had donated to form the District, through a process known as retrocession.
The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846 to accept the return of Alexandria and on July 9, 1846, Congress agreed to return all the territory that had been ceded by Virginia. Therefore, the District's current area consists only of the land originally donated by Maryland. Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the District, although not slavery itself.
The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 led to expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the District's population, including a large influx of freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, which ended slavery in the District of Columbia and freed about 3,100 enslaved persons, nine months prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1868, Congress granted the District's African American male residents the right to vote in municipal elections.
Growth and redevelopment
By 1870, the District's population had grown 75% from the previous census to nearly 132,000 residents. Despite the city's growth, Washington still had dirt roads and lacked basic sanitation. Some members of Congress suggested moving the capital further west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider such a proposal.
Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which repealed the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd to the position of governor in 1873. Shepherd authorized large-scale projects that greatly modernized Washington, but ultimately bankrupted the District government. In 1874, Congress replaced the territorial government with an appointed three-member Board of Commissioners.
The city's first motorized streetcars began service in 1888 and generated growth in areas of the District beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries. Washington's urban plan was expanded throughout the District in the following decades. Georgetown was formally annexed by the City of Washington in 1895. However, the city had poor housing conditions and strained public works. Washington was the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the "City Beautiful movement" in the early 1900s.
Increased federal spending as a result of the New Deal in the 1930s led to the construction of new government buildings, memorials, and museums in Washington. World War II further increased government activity, adding to the number of federal employees in the capital; by 1950, the District's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents.
Civil rights and home rule era
The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the District three votes in the Electoral College for the election of president and vice president, but still no voting representation in Congress.
After the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in the District, primarily in the U Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, centers of black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops stopped the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned; rebuilding was not completed until the late 1990s.
In 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, providing for an elected mayor and 13-member council for the District. In 1975, Walter Washington became the first elected and first black mayor of the District.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and deliberately crashed the plane into the Pentagon in nearby Arlington, Virginia. United Airlines Flight 93, believed to be destined for Washington, D.C., crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers tried to recover control of the plane from hijackers.
Geography
Washington, D.C., is located in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast. Due to the District of Columbia retrocession, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (10.67%) is water. The District is bordered by Montgomery County, Maryland, to the northwest; Prince George's County, Maryland, to the east; and Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia, to the south and west.
The Potomac River forms the District's border with Virginia and has two major tributaries: the Anacostia River and Rock Creek. Tiber Creek, a natural watercourse that once passed through the National Mall, was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s. The creek also formed a portion of the now-filled Washington City Canal, which allowed passage through the city to the Anacostia River from 1815 until the 1850s. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal starts in Georgetown and was used during the 19th century to bypass the Great Falls of the Potomac River, located upstream (northwest) of Washington at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line.
The highest natural elevation in the District is above sea level at Fort Reno Park in upper northwest Washington. The lowest point is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic center of Washington is near the intersection of 4th and L Streets NW. Contrary to the urban legend, Washington was not built on a reclaimed swamp, but wetlands did cover areas along the water.
The District has of parkland, about 19% of the city's total area and the second-highest percentage among high-density U.S. cities. The National Park Service manages most of the of city land owned by the U.S. government. Rock Creek Park is a urban forest in Northwest Washington, which extends through a stream valley that bisects the city. Established in 1890, it is the country's fourth-oldest national park and is home to a variety of plant and animal species including raccoon, deer, owls, and coyotes. Other National Park Service properties include the C&O Canal National Historical Park, the National Mall and Memorial Parks, Theodore Roosevelt Island, Columbia Island, Fort Dupont Park, Meridian Hill Park, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, and Anacostia Park. The D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation maintains the city's of athletic fields and playgrounds, 40 swimming pools, and 68 recreation centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates the U.S. National Arboretum in Northeast Washington.
Climate
Washington is in the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen: Cfa) and exhibits four distinct seasons. The District is in plant hardiness zone 8a near downtown, and zone 7b elsewhere in the city, indicating a temperate climate.
Spring and fall are warm, while winter is chilly with annual snowfall averaging . Winter temperatures average around from mid-December to mid-February. Summers are hot and humid with a July daily average of and average daily relative humidity around 66%, which can cause moderate personal discomfort. The combination of heat and humidity in the summer brings very frequent thunderstorms, some of which occasionally produce tornadoes in the area.
Blizzards affect Washington on average once every four to six years. The most violent storms are called "nor'easters", which often affect large sections of the U.S. East Coast. Hurricanes (or their remnants) occasionally track through the area in late summer and early fall, but are often weak by the time they reach Washington, partly due to the city's inland location. Flooding of the Potomac River, however, caused by a combination of high tide, storm surge, and runoff, has been known to cause extensive property damage in Georgetown.
The highest recorded temperature was on July 20, 1930, and August 6, 1918, while the lowest recorded temperature was on February 11, 1899, during the Great Blizzard of 1899. During a typical year, the city averages about 37 days at or above and 64 nights at or below freezing.
Cityscape
Washington, D.C., is a planned city. In 1791, President Washington commissioned Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant, a French-born architect and city planner, to design the new capital. The L'Enfant Plan featured broad streets and avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping. He based his design on plans of cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Karlsruhe, and Milan brought from Europe by Thomas Jefferson in 1788. L'Enfant's design also envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" approximately in length and wide in the area that is now the National Mall.
President Washington dismissed L'Enfant in March 1792 due to conflicts with the three commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott, who had worked with L'Enfant surveying the city, was then tasked with completing the design. Though Ellicott made revisions to the original plans, including changes to some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the overall design of the city.
By the early 1900s, L'Enfant's vision of a grand national capital had become marred by slums and randomly placed buildings, including a railroad station on the National Mall. Congress formed a special committee charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901 and included re-landscaping the Capitol grounds and the National Mall, clearing slums, and establishing a new city-wide park system. The plan is thought to have largely preserved L'Enfant's intended design.
By law, Washington's skyline is low and sprawling. The federal Heights of Buildings Act of 1910 allows buildings that are no taller than the width of the adjacent street, plus . Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the Washington Monument, which remains the District's tallest structure. City leaders have criticized the height restriction as a primary reason why the District has limited affordable housing and traffic problems caused by urban sprawl.
The District is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), and Southwest (SW). The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building. All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location and house numbers generally correspond with the number of blocks away from the Capitol. Most streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW), north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW), and diagonal avenues, many of which are named after states.
The City of Washington was bordered by Boundary Street to the north (renamed Florida Avenue in 1890), Rock Creek to the west, and the Anacostia River to the east. Washington's street grid was extended, where possible, throughout the District starting in 1888. Georgetown's streets were renamed in 1895. Some streets are particularly noteworthy, such as Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the White House to the U.S. Capitol and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups. Washington hosts 297 foreign embassies and related buildings, many of which are on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row.
Architecture
The architecture of Washington varies greatly. Six of the top 10 buildings in the American Institute of Architects' 2007 ranking of "America's Favorite Architecture" are in the District of Columbia: the White House; the Washington National Cathedral; the Thomas Jefferson Memorial; the United States Capitol; the Lincoln Memorial; and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The neoclassical, Georgian, gothic, and modern architectural styles are all reflected among those six structures and many other prominent edifices in Washington. Notable exceptions include buildings constructed in the French Second Empire style such as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Outside downtown Washington, architectural styles are even more varied. Historic buildings are designed primarily in the Queen Anne, Châteauesque, Richardsonian Romanesque, Georgian revival, Beaux-Arts, and a variety of Victorian styles. Rowhouses are especially prominent in areas developed after the Civil War and typically follow Federalist and late Victorian designs. Georgetown's Old Stone House was built in 1765, making it the oldest-standing original building in the city. Founded in 1789, Georgetown University features a mix of Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture. The Ronald Reagan Building is the largest building in the District with a total area of approximately 3.1 million square feet (288,000 m2).
Demographics
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the District's population was 672,228 on July 1, 2015, a 11.7% increase since the 2010 United States Census. The increase continues a growth trend since 2000, following a half-century of population decline. The city was the 24th most populous place in the United States as of 2010. According to data from 2010, commuters from the suburbs increase the District's daytime population to over one million people. If the District were a state it would rank 49th in population, ahead of Vermont and Wyoming.
The Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes the District and surrounding suburbs, is the seventh-largest metropolitan area in the United States with an estimated 5.7 million residents in 2011. When the Washington area is included with Baltimore and its suburbs, the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area had a population exceeding 8.5 million residents in 2010, the fourth-largest combined statistical area in the country.
According to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau data, the population of Washington, D.C., was 49.5% Black or African American, 43.4% White (35.8% non-Hispanic White), 3.9% Asian, and 0.7% Native American Indian, Alaskan, Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. Individuals from two or more races made up 2.6% of the population. Hispanics of any race made up 10.1% of the District's population.
Washington has had a significant African American population since the city's foundation. African American residents composed about 30% of the District's total population between 1800 and 1940. The black population reached a peak of 70% by 1970, but has since steadily declined due to many African Americans moving to the surrounding suburbs. Partly as a result of gentrification, there was a 31.4% increase in the non-Hispanic white population and an 11.5% decrease in the black population between 2000 and 2010.
About 17% of D.C. residents were age 18 or younger in 2010; lower than the U.S. average of 24%. However, at 34 years old, the District had the lowest median age compared to the 50 states. As of 2010, there were an estimated 81,734 immigrants living in Washington, D.C. Major sources of immigration include El Salvador, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, with a concentration of Salvadorans in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.
Researchers found that there were 4,822 same-sex couples in the District of Columbia in 2010; about 2% of total households. Legislation authorizing same-sex marriage passed in 2009 and the District began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in March 2010.
A 2007 report found that about one-third of District residents were functionally illiterate, compared to a national rate of about one in five. This is attributed in part to immigrants who are not proficient in English. As of 2011, 85% of D.C. residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language. Half of residents had at least a four-year college degree in 2006. D.C. residents had a personal income per capita of $55,755; higher than any of the 50 U.S. states. However, 19% of residents were below the poverty level in 2005; higher than any state except Mississippi.
Of the District's population, 17% is Baptist, 13% is Catholic, 6% is Evangelical Protestant, 4% is Methodist/Pietist, 3% is Episcopalian/Anglican, 3% is Jewish, 2% is Eastern Orthodox, 1% is Pentecostal, 1% is Buddhist, 1% is Adventist, 1% is Lutheran, 1% is Muslim, 1% is Presbyterian, 1% is Mormon, and 1% is Hindu.
Over 90% of D.C. residents have health insurance coverage; the second-highest rate in the nation. This is due in part to city programs that help provide insurance to low-income individuals who do not qualify for other types of coverage. A 2009 report found that at least 3% of District residents have HIV or AIDS, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) characterizes as a "generalized and severe" epidemic.
Crime
Crime in Washington, D.C., is concentrated in areas associated with poverty, drug abuse, and gangs. A 2010 study found that 5% of city blocks contributed to over one-quarter of the District's total crime. The more affluent neighborhoods of Northwest Washington are typically safe, but reports of violent crime increase in poorer neighborhoods generally concentrated in the eastern portion of the city. Approximately 60,000 residents are ex-convicts.
Washington was often described as the "murder capital" of the United States during the early 1990s. The number of murders peaked in 1991 at 479, but the level of violence then began to decline significantly. By 2012, Washington's annual murder count had dropped to 88, the lowest total since 1961. The murder rate has risen since that historic low, and as of December 11, 2015, the District's homicide total for the year stands at 154, a 58.8% increase over the same period in 2014. This is still a murder rate of almost half that of the early 2000s. Many neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights and Logan Circle are becoming safer and vibrant. However, incidents of robberies and thefts have remained higher in these areas due to increased nightlife activity and greater numbers of affluent residents. Even still, citywide reports of both property and violent crimes have declined by nearly half since their most recent highs in the mid-1990s.
On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the city's 1976 handgun ban violated the Second Amendment right to gun ownership. However, the ruling does not prohibit all forms of gun control; laws requiring firearm registration remain in place, as does the city's assault weapon ban. In addition to the District's own Metropolitan Police Department, many federal law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction in the city as well; most visibly the U.S. Park Police, founded in 1791.
Economy
Washington has a growing, diversified economy with an increasing percentage of professional and business service jobs. The gross state product of the District in 2010 was $103.3 billion, which would rank it No. 34 compared to the 50 U.S. states. The gross product of the Washington Metropolitan Area was $425 billion in 2010, making it the fourth-largest metropolitan economy in the United States. As of June 2011, the Washington Metropolitan Area had an unemployment rate of 6.2%; the second-lowest rate among the 49 largest metro areas in the nation. The District of Columbia itself had an unemployment rate of 9.8% during the same time period.
In 2012, the federal government accounted for about 29% of the jobs in Washington, D.C. This is thought to immunize Washington to national economic downturns because the federal government continues operations even during recessions. Many organizations such as law firms, independent contractors (both defense and civilian), non-profit organizations, lobbying firms, trade unions, industry trade groups, and professional associations have their headquarters in or near D.C. to be close to the federal government.
Tourism is Washington's second largest industry. Approximately 18.9 million visitors contributed an estimated $4.8 billion to the local economy in 2012. The District also hosts nearly 200 foreign embassies and international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization. In 2008, the foreign diplomatic corps in Washington employed about 10,000 people and contributed an estimated $400 million annually to the local economy.
The District has growing industries not directly related to government, especially in the areas of education, finance, public policy, and scientific research. Georgetown University, George Washington University, Washington Hospital Center, Children's National Medical Center and Howard University are the top five non-government-related employers in the city as of 2009. According to statistics compiled in 2011, four of the largest 500 companies in the country were headquartered in the District.
Culture
Historic sites and museums
The National Mall is a large, open park in downtown Washington between the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol. Given its prominence, the mall is often the location of political protests, concerts, festivals, and presidential inaugurations. The Washington Monument and the Jefferson Pier are near the center of the mall, south of the White House. Also on the mall are the National World War II Memorial at the east end of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Directly south of the mall, the Tidal Basin features rows of Japanese cherry blossom trees that originated as gifts from the nation of Japan. The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, George Mason Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and the District of Columbia War Memorial are around the Tidal Basin.
The National Archives houses thousands of documents important to American history including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Located in three buildings on Capitol Hill, the Library of Congress is the largest library complex in the world with a collection of over 147 million books, manuscripts, and other materials. The United States Supreme Court Building was completed in 1935; before then, the court held sessions in the Old Senate Chamber of the Capitol.
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational foundation chartered by Congress in 1846 that maintains most of the nation's official museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government partially funds the Smithsonian and its collections open to the public free of charge. The Smithsonian's locations had a combined total of 30 million visits in 2013. The most visited museum is the National Museum of Natural History on the National Mall. Other Smithsonian Institution museums and galleries on the mall are: the National Air and Space Museum; the National Museum of African Art; the National Museum of American History; the National Museum of the American Indian; the Sackler and Freer galleries, which both focus on Asian art and culture; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Arts and Industries Building; the S. Dillon Ripley Center; and the Smithsonian Institution Building (also known as "The Castle"), which serves as the institution's headquarters.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery are housed in the Old Patent Office Building, near Washington's Chinatown. The Renwick Gallery is officially part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum but is in a separate building near the White House. Other Smithsonian museums and galleries include: the Anacostia Community Museum in Southeast Washington; the National Postal Museum near Union Station; and the National Zoo in Woodley Park.
The National Gallery of Art is on the National Mall near the Capitol and features works of American and European art. The gallery and its collections are owned by the U.S. government but are not a part of the Smithsonian Institution. The National Building Museum, which occupies the former Pension Building near Judiciary Square, was chartered by Congress and hosts exhibits on architecture, urban planning, and design.
There are many private art museums in the District of Columbia, which house major collections and exhibits open to the public such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the largest private museum in Washington; and The Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle, the first museum of modern art in the United States. Other private museums in Washington include the Newseum, the O Street Museum Foundation, the International Spy Museum, the National Geographic Society Museum, and the Marian Koshland Science Museum. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum near the National Mall maintains exhibits, documentation, and artifacts related to the Holocaust.
Arts
Washington, D.C., is a national center for the arts. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is home to the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, and the Washington Ballet. The Kennedy Center Honors are awarded each year to those in the performing arts who have contributed greatly to the cultural life of the United States. The historic Ford's Theatre, site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, continues to operate as a functioning performance space as well as museum.
The Marine Barracks near Capitol Hill houses the United States Marine Band; founded in 1798, it is the country's oldest professional musical organization. American march composer and Washington-native John Philip Sousa led the Marine Band from 1880 until 1892. Founded in 1925, the United States Navy Band has its headquarters at the Washington Navy Yard and performs at official events and public concerts around the city.
Washington has a strong local theater tradition. Founded in 1950, Arena Stage achieved national attention and spurred growth in the city's independent theater movement that now includes organizations such as the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and the Studio Theatre. Arena Stage opened its newly renovated home in the city's emerging Southwest waterfront area in 2010. The GALA Hispanic Theatre, now housed in the historic Tivoli Theatre in Columbia Heights, was founded in 1976 and is a National Center for the Latino Performing Arts.
The U Street Corridor in Northwest D.C., known as "Washington's Black Broadway", is home to institutions like the Howard Theatre, Bohemian Caverns, and the Lincoln Theatre, which hosted music legends such as Washington-native Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. Washington has its own native music genre called go-go; a post-funk, percussion-driven flavor of rhythm and blues that was popularized in the late 1970s by D.C. band leader Chuck Brown.
The District is an important center for indie culture and music in the United States. The label Dischord Records, formed by Ian MacKaye, was one of the most crucial independent labels in the genesis of 1980s punk and eventually indie rock in the 1990s. Modern alternative and indie music venues like The Black Cat and the 9:30 Club bring popular acts to the U Street area.
Sports
Washington is one of 12 cities in the United States with teams from all four major professional men's sports and is home to one major professional women's team. The Washington Wizards (National Basketball Association), the Washington Capitals (National Hockey League), and the Washington Mystics (Women's National Basketball Association), play at the Verizon Center in Chinatown. Nationals Park, which opened in Southeast D.C. in 2008, is home to the Washington Nationals (Major League Baseball). D.C. United (Major League Soccer) plays at RFK Stadium. The Washington Redskins (National Football League) play at nearby FedExField in Landover, Maryland.
Current D.C. teams have won a combined ten professional league championships: the Washington Redskins has won five; D.C. United has won four; and the Washington Wizards (then the Washington Bullets) has won a single championship.
Other professional and semi-professional teams in Washington include: the Washington Kastles (World TeamTennis); the Washington D.C. Slayers (American National Rugby League); the Baltimore Washington Eagles (U.S. Australian Football League); the D.C. Divas (Independent Women's Football League); and the Potomac Athletic Club RFC (Rugby Super League). The William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park hosts the Citi Open. Washington is also home to two major annual marathon races: the Marine Corps Marathon, which is held every autumn, and the Rock 'n' Roll USA Marathon held in the spring. The Marine Corps Marathon began in 1976 and is sometimes called "The People's Marathon" because it is the largest marathon that does not offer prize money to participants.
The District's four NCAA Division I teams, American Eagles, George Washington Colonials, Georgetown Hoyas and Howard Bison and Lady Bison, have a broad following. The Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team is the most notable and also plays at the Verizon Center. From 2008 to 2012, the District hosted an annual college football bowl game at RFK Stadium, called the Military Bowl. The D.C. area is home to one regional sports television network, Comcast SportsNet (CSN), based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Media
Washington, D.C. is a prominent center for national and international media. The Washington Post, founded in 1877, is the oldest and most-read local daily newspaper in Washington. It is probably most notable for its coverage of national and international politics and for exposing the Watergate scandal. "The Post", as it is popularly called, had the sixth-highest readership of all news dailies in the country in 2011.
The Washington Post Company has a daily free commuter newspaper called the Express, which summarizes events, sports and entertainment, as well as the Spanish-language paper El Tiempo Latino. Local dailies The Washington Times and The Washington Examiner as well as the alternative weekly Washington City Paper also have substantial readership in the Washington area.
Some community and specialty papers focus on neighborhood and cultural issues, including the weekly Washington Blade and Metro Weekly, which focus on LGBT issues; the Washington Informer and The Washington Afro American, which highlight topics of interest to the black community; and neighborhood newspapers published by The Current Newspapers. Congressional Quarterly, The Hill, Politico and Roll Call newspapers focus exclusively on issues related to Congress and the federal government. Other publications based in Washington include the National Geographic magazine and political publications such as The New Republic and Washington Monthly.
The Washington Metropolitan Area is the ninth-largest television media market in the U.S. with two million homes, approximately 2% of the U.S. population. Several media companies and cable television channels have their headquarters in the area, including C-SPAN; Black Entertainment Television (BET); Radio One; the National Geographic Channel; Smithsonian Networks; National Public Radio (NPR); Travel Channel (in Chevy Chase, Maryland); Discovery Communications (in Silver Spring, Maryland); and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (in Arlington, Virginia). The headquarters of Voice of America, the U.S. government's international news service, is near the Capitol in Southwest Washington.
Government and politics
Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution grants the U.S. Congress "exclusive jurisdiction" over the city. The District did not have an elected local government until the passage of the 1973 Home Rule Act. The Act devolved certain Congressional powers to an elected mayor, currently Muriel Bowser, and the thirteen-member Council of the District of Columbia. However, Congress retains the right to review and overturn laws created by the council and intervene in local affairs.
Each of the city's eight wards elects a single member of the council and residents elect four at-large members to represent the District as a whole. The council chair is also elected at-large. There are 37 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) elected by small neighborhood districts. ANCs can issue recommendations on all issues that affect residents; government agencies take their advice under careful consideration. The Attorney General of the District of Columbia, currently Karl Racine, is elected to a four-year term.
Washington, D.C., observes all federal holidays and also celebrates Emancipation Day on April 16, which commemorates the end of slavery in the District. The flag of Washington, D.C., was adopted in 1938 and is a variation on George Washington's family coat of arms.
Budgetary issues
The mayor and council set local taxes and a budget, which must be approved by the Congress. The Government Accountability Office and other analysts have estimated that the city's high percentage of tax-exempt property and the Congressional prohibition of commuter taxes create a structural deficit in the District's local budget of anywhere between $470 million and over $1 billion per year. Congress typically provides additional grants for federal programs such as Medicaid and the operation of the local justice system; however, analysts claim that the payments do not fully resolve the imbalance.
The city's local government, particularly during the mayoralty of Marion Barry, was criticized for mismanagement and waste. During his administration in 1989, The Washington Monthly magazine claimed that the District had "the worst city government in America." In 1995, at the start of Barry's fourth term, Congress created the District of Columbia Financial Control Board to oversee all municipal spending. Mayor Anthony Williams won election in 1998 and oversaw a period of urban renewal and budget surpluses. The District regained control over its finances in 2001 and the oversight board's operations were suspended.
Voting rights debate
The District is not a U.S. state and therefore has no voting representation in the Congress. D.C. residents elect a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, currently Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C. At-Large), who may sit on committees, participate in debate, and introduce legislation, but cannot vote on the House floor. The District has no official representation in the United States Senate. Neither chamber seats the District's elected "shadow" representative or senators. Unlike residents of U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, which also have non-voting delegates, D.C. residents are subject to all U.S. federal taxes. In the financial year 2012, D.C. residents and businesses paid $20.7 billion in federal taxes; more than the taxes collected from 19 states and the highest federal taxes per capita.
A 2005 poll found that 78% of Americans did not know that residents of the District of Columbia have less representation in Congress than residents of the 50 states. Efforts to raise awareness about the issue have included campaigns by grassroots organizations and featuring the city's unofficial motto, "Taxation Without Representation", on D.C. vehicle license plates. There is evidence of nationwide approval for D.C. voting rights; various polls indicate that 61 to 82% of Americans believe that D.C. should have voting representation in Congress. Despite public support, attempts to grant the District voting representation, including the D.C. statehood movement and the proposed District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, have been unsuccessful.
Opponents of D.C. voting rights propose that the Founding Fathers never intended for District residents to have a vote in Congress since the Constitution makes clear that representation must come from the states. Those opposed to making D.C. a state claim that such a move would destroy the notion of a separate national capital and that statehood would unfairly grant Senate representation to a single city.
Sister cities
Washington, D.C., has fourteen official sister city agreements. Listed in the order each agreement was first established, they are: Bangkok, Thailand (1962, renewed 2002); Dakar, Senegal (1980, renewed 2006); Beijing, China (1984, renewed 2004); Brussels, Belgium (1985, renewed 2002); Athens, Greece (2000); Paris, France (2000, renewed 2005); Pretoria, South Africa (2002, renewed 2008); Seoul, South Korea (2006); Accra, Ghana (2006); Sunderland, United Kingdom (2006); Rome, Italy (2011); Ankara, Turkey (2011); Brasília, Brazil (2013); and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2013). Each of the listed cities is a national capital except for Sunderland, which includes the town of Washington, the ancestral home of George Washington's family. Paris and Rome are each formally recognized as a "partner city" due to their special one sister city policy.
Education
District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) operates the city's 123 public schools. The number of students in DCPS steadily decreased for 39 years until 2009. In the 2010–11 school year, 46,191 students were enrolled in the public school system. DCPS has one of the highest-cost yet lowest-performing school systems in the country, both in terms of infrastructure and student achievement. Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration made sweeping changes to the system by closing schools, replacing teachers, firing principals, and using private education firms to aid curriculum development.
The District of Columbia Public Charter School Board monitors the 52 public charter schools in the city. Due to the perceived problems with the traditional public school system, enrollment in public charter schools has steadily increased. As of fall 2010, D.C. charter schools had a total enrollment of about 32,000, a 9% increase from the prior year. The District is also home to 92 private schools, which enrolled approximately 18,000 students in 2008. The District of Columbia Public Library operates 25 neighborhood locations including the landmark Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.
Private universities include American University (AU), the Catholic University of America (CUA), Gallaudet University, George Washington University (GW), Georgetown University (GU), Howard University, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The Corcoran College of Art and Design provides specialized arts instruction and other higher-education institutions offer continuing, distance and adult education. The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is a public university providing undergraduate and graduate education. D.C. residents may also be eligible for a grant of up to $10,000 per year to offset the cost of tuition at any public university in the country.
The District is known for its medical research institutions such as Washington Hospital Center and the Children's National Medical Center, as well as the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. In addition, the city is home to three medical schools and associated teaching hospitals at George Washington, Georgetown, and Howard universities.
Infrastructure
Transportation
There are of streets, parkways, and avenues in the District. Due to the freeway revolts of the 1960s, much of the proposed interstate highway system through the middle of Washington was never built. Interstate 95 (I-95), the nation's major east coast highway, therefore bends around the District to form the eastern portion of the Capital Beltway. A portion of the proposed highway funding was directed to the region's public transportation infrastructure instead. The interstate highways that continue into Washington, including I-66 and I-395, both terminate shortly after entering the city.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operates the Washington Metro, the city's rapid transit system, as well as Metrobus. Both systems serve the District and its suburbs. Metro opened on March 27, 1976 and, , consists of 91 stations and of track. With an average of about one million trips each weekday, Metro is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the country. Metrobus serves over 400,000 riders each weekday and is the nation's sixth-largest bus system. The city also operates its own DC Circulator bus system, which connects commercial areas within central Washington.
Union Station is the city's main train station and services approximately 70,000 people each day. It is Amtrak's second-busiest station with 4.6 million passengers annually and is the southern terminus for the Northeast Corridor and Acela Express routes. Maryland's MARC and Virginia's VRE commuter trains and the Metrorail Red Line also provide service into Union Station. Following renovations in 2011, Union Station became Washington's primary intercity bus transit center.
Three major airports serve the District. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is across the Potomac River from downtown Washington in Arlington, Virginia and primarily handles domestic flights. Major international flights arrive and depart from Washington Dulles International Airport, west of the District in Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Virginia. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is northeast of the District in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
According to a 2010 study, Washington-area commuters spent 70 hours a year in traffic delays, which tied with Chicago for having the nation's worst road congestion. However, 37% of Washington-area commuters take public transportation to work, the second-highest rate in the country. An additional 12% of D.C. commuters walked to work, 6% carpooled, and 3% traveled by bicycle in 2010. A 2011 study by Walk Score found that Washington was the seventh-most walkable city in the country with 80% of residents living in neighborhoods that are not car dependent.
An expected 32% increase in transit usage within the District by 2030 has spurred construction of a new DC Streetcar system to interconnect the city's neighborhoods. Construction has also started on an additional Metro line that will connect Washington to Dulles airport. The District is part of the regional Capital Bikeshare program. Started in 2010, it is currently one of the largest bicycle sharing systems in the country with over 2,500 bicycles and more than 300 stations. The city is expanding a network of marked bicycle lanes which currently exist on of streets.
Utilities
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (i.e. WASA or D.C. Water) is an independent authority of the D.C. government that provides drinking water and wastewater collection in Washington. WASA purchases water from the historic Washington Aqueduct, which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The water, sourced from the Potomac River, is treated and stored in the city's Dalecarlia, Georgetown, and McMillan reservoirs. The aqueduct provides drinking water for a total of 1.1 million people in the District and Virginia, including Arlington, Falls Church, and a portion of Fairfax County. The authority also provides sewage treatment services for an additional 1.6 million people in four surrounding Maryland and Virginia counties.
Pepco is the city's electric utility and services 793,000 customers in the District and suburban Maryland. An 1889 law prohibits overhead wires within much of the historic City of Washington. As a result, all power lines and telecommunication cables are located underground in downtown Washington, and traffic signals are placed at the edge of the street. A plan announced in 2013 would bury an additional of primary power lines throughout the District.
Washington Gas is the city's natural gas utility and serves over one million customers in the District and its suburbs. Incorporated by Congress in 1848, the company installed the city's first gas lights in the U.S. Capitol building, White House, and along Pennsylvania Avenue.
See also
Arts and culture of Washington, D.C.
:Category:People from Washington, D.C.
Index of Washington, D.C.-related articles
Outline of Washington, D.C.
Notes
References
External links
Guide to Washington, D.C., materials from the Library of Congress
Category:Capital districts and territories
Category:Capitals in North America
Category:Planned capitals
Category:Planned cities in the United States
Category:Populated places established in 1790
Category:Populated places on the Potomac River
Category:Southern United States
Category:States and territories established in 1790
Category:States of the Mid-Atlantic
Category:Subdivisions of the United States
Category:Washington metropolitan area |
2016-01 | Chelsea_Manning-695285372 | Chelsea_Manning | Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but sensitive military and diplomatic documents. Manning was sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years' imprisonment, with the possibility of parole in the eighth year, and to be dishonorably discharged from the Army. Manning is a trans woman who, in a statement the day after sentencing, said she had felt female since childhood, wanted to be known as Chelsea, and desired to begin hormone replacement therapy. From early life and through much of her Army life, Manning was known as Bradley; she was diagnosed with gender identity disorder while in the Army.
Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010, she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 482,832 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War Diary. Much of the material was published by WikiLeaks or its media partners between April and November 2010.
Manning was ultimately charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which was the most serious charge and could have resulted in a death sentence. She was held at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico in Virginia, from July 2010 to April 2011 under Prevention of Injury status—which entailed de facto solitary confinement and other restrictions that caused domestic and international concern—before being transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she could interact with other detainees. She pleaded guilty in February 2013 to 10 of the charges. The trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013, and on July 30 she was convicted of 17 of the original charges and amended versions of four others, but was acquitted of aiding the enemy. She is serving a 35-year sentence at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
Reaction to Manning's disclosures, arrest, and sentence was mixed. Denver Nicks, one of her biographers, writes that the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, was widely seen as a catalyst for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, and that Manning was viewed as both a 21st-century Tiananmen Square Tank Man and an embittered traitor. Reporters Without Borders condemned the length of the sentence, saying that it demonstrated how vulnerable whistleblowers are.
Background
Early life
Born Bradley Edward Manning in 1987 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she was the second child of Susan Fox, originally from Wales, and Brian Manning, an American. Brian had joined the United States Navy in 1974 at the age of 19, and served for five years as an intelligence analyst. Brian met Susan in a local Woolworths while stationed in Wales at Cawdor Barracks. Manning's older sister was born in 1976. The couple returned to the United States in 1979, settling first to California. After their move near Crescent, they bought a two-story house with an above-ground swimming pool and of land, where they kept pigs and chickens.
Manning's sister Casey, 11 years her senior, told the court-martial that both their parents were alcoholics, and that their mother had drunk continually while pregnant with Chelsea. Captain David Moulton, a Navy psychiatrist, told the court that Manning's facial features showed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. Casey became Manning's principal caregiver, waking at night to make a bottle for the baby. The court heard that Manning was fed only milk and baby food until the age of two. As an adult she reached and weighed around .
Manning's father took a job as an information technology (IT) manager for a rental car agency, which required travel. The family lived several miles out of town and Manning's mother was unable to drive. She spent her days drinking, while Manning was left largely to fend for herself, playing with Legos or on the computer. Brian would stock up on food before his trips, and leave pre-signed checks that Casey mailed to pay the bills. A neighbor said that whenever Manning's elementary school went on field trips, she would give her own son extra food or money so he could make sure Manning had something to eat. Friends and neighbors considered the Mannings a troubled family.
Parents' divorce, move to Wales
Those who knew Manning said that even as a child, she always had a mind of her own. She was an atheist who was openly opposed to religion, for example, remaining silent during the part of the Pledge of Allegiance that refers to God. In a 2011 interview Manning's father said, "People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up." He also said that Manning excelled at the saxophone, science, and computers, creating her first website at the age of ten. Manning taught herself how to use PowerPoint, won the grand prize three years in a row at the local science fair, and in sixth grade, took top prize at a statewide quiz bowl.
A childhood friend of Manning's, speaking about a conversation they had when Manning was 13, said "he told me he was gay." The friend also said that Manning's home life was not good and that her father was very controlling. Around this time, Manning's parents divorced. She and her mother Susan moved out of the house to a rented apartment in Crescent, Oklahoma. Susan's instability continued and in 1998 she attempted suicide; Manning's sister drove their mother to the hospital, with the 11-year-old Manning sitting in the back of the car trying to make sure their mother was still breathing.
Manning's father remarried in 2000, the same year as his divorce. His new wife was also named Susan and had a son from a previous relationship. Manning apparently reacted badly when the son changed his surname to Manning too; she started taking running jumps at the walls, telling her mother: "I'm nobody now."
In November 2001, Manning and her mother left the United States and moved to Haverfordwest, Wales, where her mother had family. Manning attended the town's Tasker Milward secondary school. A schoolfriend there told Ed Caesar for The Sunday Times that Manning's personality was "unique, extremely unique. Very quirky, very opinionated, very political, very clever, very articulate." Manning's interest in computers continued, and in 2003, she and a friend set up a website, angeldyne.com, a message board that offered games and music downloads.
Manning became the target of bullying at the school because she was the only American and was viewed as effeminate. Manning had identified to two friends in Oklahoma as gay, but was not open about it at school in Wales. The students would imitate her accent, and apparently abandoned her once during a camping trip; her aunt told The Washington Post that Manning awoke to an empty camp site one morning, after everyone else had packed up their tents and left without her.
Return to the United States
Fearing that her mother was becoming too ill to cope, in 2005 (at the age of 17) Manning returned to the United States. She moved in with her father in Oklahoma City, where he was living with his second wife and her child. Manning got a job as a developer with a software company, Zoto, and was apparently happy for a time, but was let go after four months. Her boss told The Washington Post that on a few occasions, Manning had "just locked up," and would simply sit and stare, and in the end communication became too difficult. The boss told the newspaper that "nobody's been taking care of this kid for a really long time."
By then, Manning was living as an openly gay man. Her relationship with her father was apparently good, but there were problems between Manning and her stepmother. In March 2006, Manning reportedly threatened her stepmother with a knife during an argument about Manning's failure to get another job; the stepmother called the police and Manning was asked to leave the house. Manning drove to Tulsa in a pickup truck her father had given her, at first sleeping in it, then moving in with a friend from school. The two got jobs at Incredible Pizza in April. Manning moved on to Chicago before running out of money and again having nowhere to stay. Her mother arranged for Brian's sister, Debra, a lawyer in Potomac, Maryland, to take Manning in. Nicks writes that the 15 months Manning spent with her aunt were among the most stable of her life. Manning had a boyfriend, took several low-paid jobs, and spent a semester studying history and English at Montgomery College, but left after failing an exam.
Military service
Enlistment in the Army
Manning's father spent weeks in the fall of 2007 asking her to consider joining the Army. Hoping to gain a college education through the G.I. Bill, and perhaps to study for a PhD in physics, she enlisted in September that year. She told her Army supervisor later that she had also hoped joining such a masculine environment would resolve her gender identity disorder.
Manning began basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, on October 2, 2007. She wrote that she soon realized she was neither physically nor mentally prepared for it. Six weeks after enlisting, she was sent to the discharge unit. She was allegedly being bullied, and in the opinion of another soldier, was having a breakdown. The soldier told The Guardian: "The kid was barely five foot ... He was a runt, so pick on him. He's crazy, pick on him. He's a faggot, pick on him. The guy took it from every side. He couldn't please anyone." Denver Nicks writes that Manning, who was used to being bullied, fought back—if the drill sergeants screamed at her, she would scream at them—to the point where they started calling her "General Manning."
The decision to discharge her was revoked, and she started basic training again in January 2008. After graduating in April, she moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in order to attend Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 35F, intelligence analyst, receiving a TS/SCI security clearance (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information). According to Nicks, this security clearance, combined with the digitization of classified information and the government's policy of sharing it widely, gave Manning access to an unprecedented amount of material. Nicks writes that Manning was reprimanded while at Fort Huachuca for posting three video messages to friends on YouTube, in which she described the inside of the "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility" (SCIF) where she worked. Upon completion of her initial MOS course, Manning received the Army Service Ribbon and the National Defense Service Medal.
Move to Fort Drum, deployment to Iraq
In August 2008, Manning was sent to Fort Drum in Jefferson County, New York, where she joined the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and trained for deployment to Iraq. In the fall of 2008 while stationed there, she met Tyler Watkins, who was studying neuroscience and psychology at Brandeis University, near Boston. Watkins was her first serious relationship, and she posted happily on Facebook about it, regularly traveling 300 miles to Boston on visits.
Watkins introduced her to a network of friends and the university's hacker community. She also visited Boston University's "hackerspace" workshop, known as "Builds," and met its founder, David House, the MIT researcher who was later allowed to visit her in jail. In November 2008, she gave an anonymous interview to a high-school reporter during a rally in Syracuse in support of gay marriage, saying,
I was kicked out of my home and I once lost my job. The world is not moving fast enough for us at home, work, or the battlefield. I've been living a double life. ... I can't make a statement. I can't be caught in an act. I hope the public support changes. I do hope to do that before ETS [Expiration of Term of Service].
Nicks writes that Manning would travel back to Washington, D.C., for visits. An ex-boyfriend helped her find her way around the city's gay community, introducing her to lobbyists, activists and White House aides. Back at Fort Drum, she continued to display emotional problems and, by August 2009, had been referred to an Army mental-health counselor. A friend told Nicks that Manning could be emotionally fraught, describing an evening they had watched two movies together—The Last King of Scotland and Dancer in the Dark—after which Manning cried for hours. By September 2009 her relationship with Watkins was in trouble; they reconciled for a short time, but it was effectively over.
After four weeks at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk, Louisiana, Manning was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, arriving in October 2009. From her workstation there, she had access to SIPRNet (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) and JWICS (the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System). Two of her superiors had discussed not taking her to Iraq; it was felt she was a risk to herself and possibly others, according to a statement later issued by the Army—but again the shortage of intelligence analysts held sway. After 30 days of active duty in support of War on Terror operations, Manning received the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. In November 2009, she was promoted from Private First Class to Specialist.
Contact with gender counselor
In November 2009 Manning wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said she felt female, and discussed having surgery. The counselor told Steve Fishman of New York Magazine in 2011 that it was clear Manning was in crisis, partly because of her gender concerns, but also because she was opposed to the kind of war in which she found herself involved.
She was by all accounts unhappy and isolated. Because of the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy (known as DADT and in effect until September 20, 2011), Manning was unable to live as an openly gay man without risk of being discharged. But she apparently made no secret of her orientation: her friends said she kept a fairy wand on her desk. When she told her roommate she was attracted to men, he responded by suggesting they not speak to each other. Manning's working conditions included 14- to 15-hour night shifts in a tightly packed, dimly lit room.
On December 20, 2009, during a counseling session with two colleagues to discuss her poor time-keeping, Manning was told she would lose her one day off a week for persistent lateness. She responded by overturning a table, damaging a computer that was sitting on it. A sergeant moved Manning away from the weapons rack, and other soldiers pinned her arms behind her back and dragged her out of the room. Several witnesses to the incident believed her access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The following month, January 2010, she began posting on Facebook that she felt hopeless and alone.
State of mind over release of material
Manning told Amnesty International
Release of material to WikiLeaks
Manning said her first contact with WikiLeaks took place in January 2010, when she began to interact with them on IRC and Jabber. She had first noticed them toward the end of November 2009, when they posted 570,000 pager messages from the September 11 attacks.
On January 5, 2010, Manning downloaded the 400,000 documents that became known as the Iraq War logs. On January 8 she downloaded 91,000 documents from the Afghanistan database, the Afghan War logs. She saved the material on CD-RW, and smuggled it through security by labeling the CD-RW media "Lady Gaga". She then copied it onto her personal computer. The next day she wrote a message in a readme.txt file (see right), which she told the court was initially intended for The Washington Post.
Manning copied the files from her laptop to an SD card for her camera so that she could take it with her to the United States while on R&R leave. Army investigators later found the SD card in Manning's basement room in her aunt's home in Potomac, Maryland. On January 23 Manning flew to the United States via Germany for two weeks of leave. It was during this visit that she first went out dressed as a woman, wearing a wig and makeup. After her arrest, her former partner, Tyler Watkins, told Wired that Manning had said during the visit that she had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it.
Manning contacted The Washington Post and The New York Times to ask if they were interested in the material; the Post reporter did not sound interested and the Times did not return the call. Manning decided instead to pass it to WikiLeaks, and on February 3 sent them the Iraq and Afghan War logs via Tor. She returned to Iraq on February 11, with no acknowledgement from WikiLeaks that they had received the files.
On or around February 18 she passed WikiLeaks a diplomatic cable, dated January 13, 2010, from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavík, Iceland. They published it within hours, which suggested to Manning that they had received the other material too. She found the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral murder") video in a Judge Advocate's directory, and passed it to WikiLeaks on or around February 21. In late March she sent them a video of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; this was the video later removed and apparently destroyed by Daniel Domscheit-Berg when he left the organization. Between March 28 and April 9 she downloaded the 250,000 diplomatic cables, and uploaded them to a WikiLeaks dropbox on April 10.
Manning told the court that, during her interaction with WikiLeaks on IRC and Jabber, she developed a friendship with someone there, believed to be Julian Assange (although neither knew the other's name), which she said made her feel she could be herself. Army investigators found 14 to 15 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on her MacBook's hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Assange. She wrote in a statement that the more she had tried to fit in at work, the more alienated she became from everyone around her. The relationship with WikiLeaks had given her a brief respite from the isolation and anxiety.
Email to supervisor, recommended discharge
On April 24, 2010, Manning sent an email to her supervisor, Master Sergeant Paul Adkins—with the subject line "My Problem"—saying she was suffering from gender identity disorder. She attached a photograph of herself dressed as a woman and with the filename breanna.jpg. She wrote:
This is my problem. I've had signs of it for a very long time. It's caused problems within my family. I thought a career in the military would get rid of it. It's not something I seek out for attention, and I've been trying very, very hard to get rid of it by placing myself in situations where it would be impossible. But, it's not going away; it's haunting me more and more as I get older. Now, the consequences of it are dire, at a time when it's causing me great pain in itself ...
Adkins discussed the situation with Manning's therapists, but did not pass the email to anybody above him in his chain of command; he told Manning's court-martial that he was concerned the photograph would be disseminated among other staff. Captain Steven Lim, Manning's company commander, said he first saw the email after Manning's arrest, when information about hormone replacement therapy was found in Manning's room on base; at that point Lim learned that Manning had been calling herself Breanna.
Manning told Adrian Lamo that she had set up Twitter and YouTube accounts as Breanna to give her female identity a digital presence, writing to Lamo: "I wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life [for leaking information], or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me... plastered all over the world press... as [a] boy... [...] the CPU is not made for this motherboard..." On April 30 she posted on Facebook that she was utterly lost, and over the next few days wrote that she was "not a piece of equipment," and was "beyond frustrated" and "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity ..."
On May 7, according to Army witnesses, Manning was found curled in a fetal position in a storage cupboard; she had a knife at her feet and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair. A few hours later she had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which she punched Showman in the face. The brigade psychiatrist recommended a discharge, referring to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder." Manning's supervisor removed the bolt from her weapon, making it unable to fire, and she was sent to work in the supply office, although at this point her security clearance remained in place. As punishment for the altercation with Showman, she was demoted from Specialist (E-4) to Private First Class (E-3) three days before her arrest on May 27.
Ellen Nakashima writes that, on May 9, Manning contacted Jonathan Odell, a gay American novelist in Minneapolis, via Facebook, leaving a message that she wanted to speak to him in confidence; she said she had been involved in some "very high-profile events, albeit as a nameless individual thus far." On May 19, according to Army investigators, she emailed Eric Schmiedl, a mathematician she had met in Boston, and told him she had been the source of the Baghdad airstrike video. Two days later, she began the series of chats with Adrian Lamo that led to her arrest.
Publication of leaked material
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks was set up in late 2006 as a disclosure portal, initially using the Wikipedia model, where volunteers would write up restricted or legally threatened material submitted by whistleblowers. It was Julian Assange—an Australian Internet activist and journalist, and the de facto editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks—who had the idea of creating what Ben Laurie called an "open-source, democratic intelligence agency." The open-editing aspect was soon abandoned, but the site remained open for anonymous submissions.
According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks spokesperson, part of the WikiLeaks security concept was that they did not know who their sources were. The New York Times wrote in December 2010 that the U.S. government was trying to discover whether Assange had been a passive recipient of material from Manning, or had encouraged or helped her to extract the files; if the latter, Assange could be charged with conspiracy. Manning told Lamo in May 2010 that she had developed a working relationship with Assange, communicating directly with him using an encrypted Internet conferencing service, but knew little about him. WikiLeaks did not identify Manning as their source. Army investigators found pages of chats on Manning's computer between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange. Nicks writes that, despite this, no decisive evidence was found of Assange offering Manning any direction.
Reykjavik13
On February 18, 2010, WikiLeaks posted the first of the material from Manning, the diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavík, a document now known as Reykjavik13. On March 15 WikiLeaks posted a 32-page report written in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Defense about WikiLeaks itself, and on March 29 it posted U.S. State Department profiles of politicians in Iceland.
Baghdad airstrike
WikiLeaks named the Baghdad airstrike video "Collateral Murder," and Assange released it on April 5, 2010, during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The video showed two American helicopters firing on a group of ten men in the Amin District of Baghdad. Two were Reuters employees there to photograph an American Humvee under attack by the Mahdi Army. Pilots mistook their cameras for weapons. The helicopters also fired on a van, targeted earlier by one helicopter, that had stopped to help wounded members of the first group. Two children in the van were wounded and their father was killed. Pilots also engaged a building where retreating insurgents were holed up. The Washington Post wrote that it was this video, viewed by millions, that put WikiLeaks on the map. According to Nicks, Manning emailed a superior officer after the video aired and tried to persuade her that it was the same version as the one stored on SIPRNet. Nicks writes that it seemed as though Manning wanted to be caught.
Afghan War logs, Iraq War logs
WikiLeaks and three media partners—The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel—began publishing the 91,731 documents that became known as the Afghan War logs on July 25, 2010. This was followed on October 22, 2010, by 391,832 classified military reports covering the period January 2004 to December 2009; these became known as the Iraq War logs. Nicks writes that the publication of the former was a watershed moment, the "beginning of the information age exploding upon itself."
Diplomatic cables, Guantanamo Bay files
Manning was also responsible for the "Cablegate" leak of 251,287 State Department cables, written by 271 American embassies and consulates in 180 countries, dated December 1966 to February 2010. The cables were passed by Assange to his three media partners, plus El País and others, and published in stages from November 28, 2010, with the names of sources removed. WikiLeaks said it was the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on September 1, 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian published the passphrase for a file that was still online; Nicks writes that one Ethiopian journalist had to leave his country and the U.S. government said it had to relocate several sources. Manning was also the source of the Guantanamo Bay files leak, obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010 and published by The New York Times on April 24, 2011.
Granai airstrike
Manning said she gave WikiLeaks a video, in late March 2010, of the Granai airstrike in Afghanistan. The airstrike occurred on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai, Afghanistan, killing 86 to 147 Afghan civilians. The video was never published; Julian Assange said in March 2013 that Daniel Domscheit-Berg had taken it with him when he left WikiLeaks, and had apparently destroyed it.
Manning and Adrian Lamo
First contact
[[File:Lamo-Mitnick-Poulsen.png|thumb|alt=photograph|Adrian Lamo (left) and Wireds Kevin Poulsen (right) in 2001. The person in the middle, Kevin Mitnick, had no involvement in the Manning case.]]
On May 20, 2010, Manning contacted Adrian Lamo, a former "grey hat" hacker convicted in 2004 of having accessed The New York Times computer network two years earlier without permission. Lamo had been profiled that day by Kevin Poulsen in Wired magazine; the story said Lamo had been involuntarily hospitalized and diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Poulsen, by then a reporter, was himself a former hacker who had used Lamo as a source several times since 2000. Indeed it was Poulsen who, in 2002, had told The New York Times that Lamo had gained unauthorized access to its network; Poulsen then wrote the story up for SecurityFocus. Lamo would hack into a system, tell the organization, then offer to fix their security, often using Poulsen as a go-between.
Lamo said Manning sent him several encrypted emails on May 20. He said he was unable to decrypt them but replied anyway and invited the emailer to chat on AOL IM. Lamo said he later turned the emails over to the FBI without having read them.
Chats
In a series of chats between May 21 and 25, Manning—using the handle "bradass87"—told Lamo that she had leaked classified material. She introduced herself as an Army intelligence analyst, and within 17 minutes, without waiting for a reply, alluded to the leaks.
Lamo replied several hours later. He said: "I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection." They talked about restricted material in general, then Manning made her first explicit reference to the leaks: "This is what I do for friends." She linked to a section of the May 21, 2010, version of Wikipedia's article on WikiLeaks, which described the WikiLeaks release in March that year of a Department of Defense report on WikiLeaks itself. She added "the one below that is mine too"; the section below in the same article referred to the leak of the Baghdad airstrike ("Collateral Murder") video. Manning said she felt isolated and fragile, and was reaching out to someone she hoped might understand.
Manning said she had started to help WikiLeaks around Thanksgiving in November 2009—which fell on November 26 that year—after WikiLeaks had released the 9/11 pager messages; the messages were released on November 25. She told Lamo she had recognized that the messages came from an NSA database, and that seeing them had made her feel comfortable about stepping forward. Lamo asked what kind of material Manning was dealing with; Manning replied: "uhm ... crazy, almost criminal political backdealings ... the non-PR-versions of world events and crises ..." Although she said she dealt with Assange directly, Manning also said Assange had adopted a deliberate policy of knowing very little about her, telling Manning: "lie to me."
Lamo again assured her that she was speaking in confidence. Manning wrote: "but im not a source for you ... im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support," and Lamo replied: "i told you, none of this is for print."
Manning said the incident that had affected her the most was when 15 detainees had been arrested by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing anti-Iraqi literature. She was asked by the Army to find out who the "bad guys" were, and discovered that the detainees had followed what Manning said was a corruption trail within the Iraqi cabinet. She reported this to her commanding officer, but said "he didn't want to hear any of it"; she said the officer told her to help the Iraqi police find more detainees. Manning said it made her realize, "i was actively involved in something that i was completely against ..."
She explained that "i cant separate myself from others ... i feel connected to everybody ... like they were distant family," and cited Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman and Elie Wiesel. She said she hoped the material would lead to "hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. if not ... than [sic] we're doomed as a species." She said she had downloaded the material onto music CD-RWs, erased the music and replaced it with a compressed split file. Part of the reason no one noticed, she said, was that staff were working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and "people stopped caring after 3 weeks."
Lamo approaches authorities, chat logs published
Shortly after the first chat with Manning, Lamo discussed the information with Chet Uber of the volunteer group ProjectVIGILANT, which researches cybercrime, and with Timothy Webster, a friend who had worked in Army counterintelligence. Both advised Lamo to go to the authorities. His friend reported the conversation to United States Army Counterintelligence, and Lamo was contacted by counterintelligence agents shortly thereafter. He told them he believed Manning was endangering lives. He was largely ostracized by the hacker community afterwards. Nicks argues, on the other hand, that it was thanks to Lamo that the government had months to ameliorate any harm caused by the release of the diplomatic cables.
Lamo met with FBI and Army investigators on May 25 in California, and showed them the chat logs. On or around that date he also passed the story to Kevin Poulsen of Wired, and on May 27 gave him the chat logs and Manning's name under embargo. He met with the FBI again that day, at which point they told him Manning had been arrested in Iraq the day before. Poulsen and Kim Zetter broke the news of the arrest in Wired on June 6. Wired published around 25 percent of the chat logs on June 6 and 10, and the full logs in July 2011, after the material about Manning's gender identity disorder had appeared elsewhere.
Legal proceedings
Arrest and charges
Manning was arrested by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), on May 27, 2010, and transferred four days later to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. She was charged with several offenses in July, replaced by 22 charges in March 2011, including violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and of the Espionage Act. The most serious charge was "aiding the enemy," a capital offense, although prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. Another charge, which Manning's defense called a "made up offense" but of which she was found guilty, read that Manning "wantonly [caused] to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the US government, having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet is accessible to the enemy."
Detention
While in Kuwait, Manning was placed on suicide watch after her behavior caused concern. She was moved from Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on July 29, 2010, and classified as a maximum custody detainee with Prevention of Injury (POI) status. POI status is one stop short of suicide watch, entailing checks by guards every five minutes. Her lawyer, David Coombs, a former military attorney, said Manning was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am on weekends) and 8 pm, and was made to stand or sit up if she tried to. She was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into her mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. Manning complained that she regarded it as pretrial punishment.
Her cell was 6 × 12 ft (1.8 x 3.6 m) with no window, containing a bed, toilet and sink. The jail had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other. Her lawyer said the guards behaved professionally, and had not tried to harass or embarrass Manning. She was allowed to walk for up to one hour a day, meals were taken in the cell, and she was shackled during visits. There was access to television when it was placed in the corridor, and she was allowed to keep one magazine and one book. Because she was in pretrial detention, she received full pay.
On January 18, 2011, after Manning had an altercation with the guards, the commander of Quantico classified her as a suicide risk. Manning said the guards had begun issuing conflicting commands, such as "turn left, don't turn left," and upbraiding her for responding to commands with "yes" instead of "aye." Shortly afterwards, she was placed on suicide watch, had her clothing and eyeglasses removed, and was required to remain in her cell 24 hours a day. The suicide watch was lifted on January 21 after a complaint from her lawyer, and the brig commander who ordered it was replaced. On March 2 she was told that her request for removal of POI status—which entailed among other things sleeping wearing only boxer shorts—had been denied. Her lawyer said Manning joked to the guards that, if she wanted to harm herself, she could do so with her underwear or her flip-flops. The comment resulted in Manning being ordered to strip naked in her cell that night and sleep without clothing. On the following morning only, Manning stood naked for inspection. Following her lawyer's protest and media attention, Manning was issued a sleeping garment on or before March 11.
The detention conditions prompted national and international concern. Juan E. Mendez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, told The Guardian that the U.S. government's treatment of Manning was "cruel, inhuman and degrading." In January 2011 Amnesty International asked the British government to intervene because of Manning's status as a British citizen by descent, although Manning's lawyer said Manning did not regard herself as a British citizen. The controversy claimed a casualty in March that year when State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley criticized Manning's treatment and resigned two days later. In early April, 295 academics (most of them American legal scholars) signed a letter arguing that the treatment was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. On April 20 the Pentagon transferred Manning to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, a new medium-security facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was placed in an 80-square-foot cell with a window and a normal mattress, able to mix with other pretrial detainees and keep personal objects in her cell.
Evidence presented at Article 32 hearing
In April 2011, a panel of experts, having completed a medical and mental evaluation of Manning, ruled that she was fit to stand trial. An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland; the hearing resulted in Almanza's recommending that Manning be referred to a general court-martial. She was arraigned on February 23, 2012, and declined to enter a plea.
During the Article 32 hearing, the prosecution, led by Captain Ashden Fein, presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material. The court heard from two Army investigators, Special Agent David Shaver, head of the digital forensics and research branch of the Army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU); and Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor from ManTech International, who works for the CCIU. They testified that they had found 100,000 State Department cables on a workplace computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on an SD card found in her basement room in her aunt's home in Potomac, Maryland; and 10,000 cables on her personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been passed to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also recovered 14 to 15 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), were associated with the names Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank.
Johnson said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks. Also found was a text file named "Readme", attached to the logs and apparently written by Manning to Assange, which called the Iraq and Afghan War logs "possibly one of the most significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare." The investigators testified they had also recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning said she was the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video. Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system had been re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31, 2010, an attempt had been made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. The material was recovered after the overwrite attempts from unallocated space.
Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning to force her to give evidence against Assange. The defense also raised questions about whether Manning's confusion over her gender identity affected her behavior and decision making.
Guilty plea, trial, sentence
The judge, Army Colonel Denise Lind, ruled in January 2013 that any sentence would be reduced by 112 days because of the treatment Manning received at Quantico. On February 28, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges. Reading for over an hour from a 35-page statement, she said she had leaked the cables "to show the true cost of war." Prosecutors pursued a court-martial on the remaining charges.
The trial began on June 3, 2013. Manning was convicted on July 30, on 17 of the 22 charges in their entirety, including five counts of espionage and theft, and an amended version of four other charges; she was acquitted of aiding the enemy. The sentencing phase began the next day.
Captain Michael Worsley, a military psychologist who had treated Manning before her arrest, testified that Manning had been left isolated in the Army, trying to deal with gender-identity issues in a "hyper-masculine environment." Captain David Moulton, a psychiatrist who saw Manning after the arrest, said Manning had narcissistic traits, and showed signs of both fetal alcohol syndrome and Asperger syndrome. He said that, in leaking the material, Manning had been "acting out [a] grandiose ideation."
A defense psychiatrist, testifying to Manning's motives, suggested a different agenda:
Well, Pfc Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and future wars, actually. This was an attempt to crowdsource an analysis of the war, and it was his opinion that if ... through crowdsourcing, enough analysis was done on these documents, which he felt to be very important, that it would lead to a greater good ... that society as a whole would come to the conclusion that the war wasn't worth it ... that really no wars are worth it.
On August 14, Manning apologized to the court: "I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States. I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people. ... At the time of my decisions I was dealing with a lot of issues."
Manning's offenses carried a maximum sentence of 90 years. The government asked for 60 years as a deterrent to others, while Manning's lawyer asked for no more than 25 years. She was sentenced on August 21 to 35 years in prison, reduction in rank to private (private E-1 or PVT), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. She was given credit for 1,293 days of pretrial confinement, including 112 days for her treatment at Quantico, and will be eligible for parole after serving one-third of the sentence. There may also be additional credit for good behavior, which means she could be released after eight years. She is confined at the United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
On April 14, 2014, Manning's request for clemency was denied, as a result of which the case will go to the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals for further review.
Request for presidential pardon
On September 3, 2013, Manning's lawyer applied for a presidential pardon for his client. Coombs filed a Petition for Pardon/Commutation of Sentence to President Obama through the pardon attorney at the Department of Justice and Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh. In the petition, which was filed with the legal name "Bradley Manning" and used male-gender pronouns, Coombs contended that Manning's disclosures did not cause any "real damage," and that the documents in question did not merit protection as they were not sensitive. The request for a pardon included a supporting letter from Amnesty International which said that Manning's leaks had exposed violations of human rights. Coombs's letter touched on Manning's role as a whistleblower, asking that Manning be granted a full pardon or that her sentence be reduced to time served.
United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals
In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she wrote, "I am now preparing for my court-martial appeal before the first appeals court. The appeal team, with my attorneys Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward, are hoping to file our brief before the court in the next six months. We have already had success in getting the court to respect my gender identity by using feminine pronouns in the court filings (she, her, etc.)."
Reaction to disclosures
The publication of the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, attracted in-depth coverage worldwide, with several governments blocking websites that contained embarrassing details. Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, said: "I can't think of a time when there was ever a story generated by a news organisation where the White House, the Kremlin, Chávez, India, China, everyone in the world was talking about these things. ... I've never known a story that created such mayhem that wasn't an event like a war or a terrorist attack."
United States Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the leaks had placed the lives of American soldiers and Afghan informants in danger. Journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that Manning was the most important whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. In an impromptu questioning session after a fundraiser, captured on a cell phone video, President Barack Obama said that Manning "broke the law", which was later criticized as "unlawful command influence" on Manning's upcoming trial.
Manning and WikiLeaks were credited as catalysts for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, when waves of protesters rose up against rulers across the Middle East and North Africa, after the leaked cables exposed government corruption. In Tunisia, where the uprisings began on December 17, 2010, one of the leaked cables—published around 10 days earlier—showed that the President's daughter and her husband had their ice cream flown in from Saint-Tropez.
A Washington Post editorial asked why an apparently unstable Army private had been able to access and transfer sensitive material in the first place. According to a biographer, Manning's sexuality came into play by illustrating for the far right that gay people were unfit for military service, while the American mainstream thought of Manning as a gay soldier driven mad by bullying.
Non-military tributes
In 2011, Manning was awarded a "Whistleblowerpreis" by the German Section of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms and the Federation of German Scientists. In 2012, she was awarded "People's Choice Award" awarded by Global Exchange. In 2013, she was awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau. In 2014, she was awarded the Sam Adams Award by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.
Icelandic and Swedish Pirate Party MPs nominated Manning and fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In a statement to the Nomination Committee, the Pirate Party members said Manning and Snowden “have inspired change and encouraged public debate and policy changes that contributed to a more stable and peaceful world”. In 2013, Roots Action launched a petition nominating Manning for the prize that received more than 100,000 supporting signatures.
In April 2015 a bronze statute of Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange was erected in Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Germany's Green Party sponsored the statue created by Italian sculptor David Dormino.
Gender transition
2013
On August 22, 2013, the day after sentencing, Manning's attorney issued a press release to the Today show announcing that his client was a female, and asked that she be referred to by her new name of Chelsea and feminine pronouns. Manning's statement included the following:
The news media split in its reaction to Manning's request; some organizations used the new name and pronouns, and others continued to use the former ones. Advocacy groups such as GLAAD, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) encouraged media outlets to refer to Manning by her self-identified name and pronoun.
2014
In April 2014, the Kansas District Court considered a petition from Manning for a legal name change. The petition was granted that month. An Army spokesman stated that while the Army will update personnel records to acknowledge the name change, the military will continue to regard Manning as a male. Manning is seeking hormone therapy and the right to live as a woman while confined, consistent with her gender dysphoria, which has been confirmed by two Army medical specialists. Such treatment is provided in civilian federal prisons when it is found to be medically necessary, but it is not available in military prisons. The Pentagon policy considers transgender individuals ineligible to serve.
In July, the Federal Bureau of Prisons rejected a request by the Army to transfer Manning from the USDB to a civilian facility for treatment of her gender dysphoria. Instead, the Army will keep Manning in military custody and begin rudimentary gender treatment, which could include allowing her to wear female undergarments and possibly receive hormone treatments. No decision was announced regarding whether or not Manning will be transferred from the all-male USDB to a female facility.
On August 12, 2014, the ACLU and Manning's civilian attorney David Coombs said Manning was not receiving treatment for her gender identity condition as previously approved by Secretary of Defense Hagel. They notified the USDB, Hagel and other Defense Department officials that a lawsuit would be filed if they did not confirm by September 4 that treatment would be provided. On August 22, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Alayne Conway told NBC News, "The Department of Defense has approved a request by Army leadership to provide required medical treatment for an inmate diagnosed with gender dysphoria." Although Conway would not discuss "the medical needs of an individual," she did say, "In general terms, the initial stages of treatment for individuals with gender dysphoria include psychotherapy and elements of the 'real life experience' therapy. Treatment for the condition is highly individualized and generally is sequential and graduated." The Army declined to say when treatment might begin.
In September, Manning filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., against Secretary of Defense Hagel, claiming she'd "been denied access to medically necessary treatment" for gender disorder. She sued to be allowed to grow her hair longer and use cosmetics, and to receive hormone treatments "to express her female gender."
2015
On February 12, 2015, USA Today reported that the commandant of the USDB wrote in a February 5 memo, "After carefully considering the recommendation that (hormone treatment) is medically appropriate and necessary, and weighing all associated safety and security risks presented, I approve adding (hormone treatment) to Inmate Manning's treatment plan." According to USA Today, Manning remained a soldier, and the decision to administer hormone therapy was a first for the Army. Manning was not allowed to grow her hair longer. Her ACLU attorney said that the delay in approving her hormone treatment "came with a significant cost to Chelsea and her mental health."
On March 5, in response to Manning's request for an order compelling the military to use pronouns that conform to her chosen gender identity, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals ruled, "Reference to appellant in all future formal papers filed before this court and all future orders and decisions issued by this court shall either be neutral, e.g., Private First Class Manning or appellant, or employ a feminine pronoun."
On March 14, the digital library host Cryptome posted an unsigned public copy of a court document, filed March 10, wherein the parties to Manning's September 2014 lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Hagel agreed to stay proceedings for seven months, after which time they would address how the litigation should proceed in light of Manning's status at that time. The document revealed that the Army was then providing Manning with weekly psychotherapy, including psychotherapy specific to gender dysphoria; cross-sex hormone therapy; female undergarments; the ability to wear prescribed cosmetics in her daily life at the USDB; and speech therapy.
In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she disclosed,
I finally began my prescribed regime of hormones to continue my overdue gender transition in February. It's been such an amazing relief for my body and brain to finally come into alignment with each other. My stress and anxiety levels have tapered off quite considerably. Overall, things are beginning to move along nicely.
Prison life
In March 2015, Bloomberg News reported that Manning can be visited only by those she had named before her imprisonment, and not by journalists. She cannot be photographed or give interviews on camera. Manning is not allowed to browse the web, but consults print news and has access to new gender theory texts.
In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she described her daily life. "My days here are busy and very routine," Manning wrote. "I am taking college correspondence courses for a bachelor's degree. I also work out a lot to stay fit, and read newspapers, magazines and books to keep up-to-date on current events around the world and learn new things."
Also that month, Cosmopolitan published the first interview with Manning in prison, conducted by mail. Cosmo reported that Manning is optimistic about recent progress but says not being allowed to grow her hair long is "painful and awkward … I am torn up. I get through each day okay, but at night, when I'm alone in my room, I finally burn out and crash." Manning said it was "very much a relief" to announce that she is a woman, and did not fear the public response. "Honestly, I'm not terribly worried about what people out there might think of me. I just try to be myself." According to Cosmo, Manning has her own cell with "two tall vertical windows that face the sun," and can see "trees and hills and blue sky and all the things beyond the buildings and razor wire." Manning denies being harassed by other inmates, and claims some have become confidantes.
Writing
In February 2015, Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of Guardian US, announced that Manning had joined The Guardian as a contributing opinion writer on war, gender, and freedom of information. Viner added that Manning would not be paid in this capacity. In 2014, The Guardian had published two op-eds by Manning: "How to make Isis fall on its own sword" (September 16) and "I am a transgender woman and the government is denying my civil rights" (December 8). Manning's debut under the new arrangement, "The CIA's torturers and the leaders who approved their actions must face the law," appeared on March 9, 2015.
In April 2015, Manning began communicating via Twitter, under the handle @xychelsea, by using a voice phone to dictate to intermediaries, who then tweet on her behalf.
See also
Classified information in the United States
Information security
Information sensitivity
McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950
Reception of WikiLeaks
Source (journalism)
Material associated with Manning
12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike leaked video footage
Afghan War documents leak
Granai airstrike#Video of the airstrike
Guantanamo Bay files leak
Iraq War documents leak
United States diplomatic cables leak
Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak
Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak
References
Notes
CitationsBooks Brooke, Heather. The Revolution Will Be Digitised. William Heinemann, 2011.
Domscheit-Berg, Daniel. Inside WikiLeaks. Doubleday, 2011.
Fowler, Andrew. The Most Dangerous Man in the World. Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.
Leigh, David and Harding, Luke. WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy. Guardian Books, 2011.
Nicks, Denver. Private: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History. Chicago Review Press, 2012.Key articles Caesar, Ed. "Bradley Manning: Wikileaker", The Sunday Times, December 19, 2010; archived from the original on April 7, 2012.
Fishman, Steve. "Bradley Manning’s Army of One", New York Magazine, July 3, 2011.
Greenwald, Glenn. "The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks", Salon, June 18, 2010.
Last, Jonathan V. "The Left's Canonization of St. Bradley Manning", CBS News, January 11, 2011.
Manning, Bradley. "Memorandum", released by David Coombs, March 10, 2011; archived from the original on April 6, 2012.
Manning, Bradley. "PFC Manning's statement redacted", January 29, 2013.
Nakashima, Ellen. "Bradley Manning is at the center of the WikiLeaks controversy. But who is he?", The Washington Post, May 4, 2011; archived from the original on April 7, 2012.
Nicks, Denver. "Private Manning and the Making of Wikileaks", This Land, September 23, 2010.
PBS Frontline. "Bradley Manning's Facebook Page", March 2011; archived from the original on April 7, 2011.
Smith, Martin. "The Private Life of Bradley Manning", PBS Frontline, March 7, 2011 (interview transcripts: "Brian Manning" and "Jordan Davis").
Thompson, Ginger. "Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case", The New York Times, August 8, 2010.
Zetter, Kim. "Jolt in WikiLeaks Case: Feds Found Manning-Assange Chat Logs on Laptop", Wired, December 19, 2011.Key articles on the Lamo-Manning chat log, in order of publication Poulsen, Kevin. "Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized for Asperger’s", Wired magazine, May 20, 2010.
Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. "U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in WikiLeaks Video Probe", Wired magazine, June 6, 2010.
Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. 'I Can't Believe What I'm Confessing to You': The WikiLeaks Chats", Wired magazine, June 10, 2010.
Nakashima, Ellen. "Messages from alleged leaker Bradley Manning portray him as despondent soldier", The Washington Post, June 10, 2010.
Greenwald, Glenn. Email exchange between Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Poulsen, June 14–17, 2010.
Poulsen, Kevin and Zetter, Kim. "Three Weeks After Arrest, Still No Charges in WikiLeaks Probe", Wired magazine, June 16, 2010.
Jardin, Xeni. "WikiLeaks: a somewhat less redacted version of the Lamo/Manning logs", Boing Boing, June 19, 2010.
Greenwald, Glenn. "The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired", Salon, December 27, 2010.
Hansen, Evan and Poulsen, Kevin. "Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs", Wired magazine, December 28, 2010.
Greenwald, Glenn. "Wired's refusal to release or comment on the Manning chat logs", Salon, December 29, 2010.
Firedoglake. "Manning/WikiLeaks timeline", published as a complete version of the released excerpts. Retrieved March 14, 2011; archived from the original on March 28, 2012.
Hansen, Evan. "Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed", Wired magazine, July 13, 2011; archived from the original on March 28, 2012.
Further readingArticles'''
Khatchadourian, Raffi. "No Secrets", The New Yorker, June 7, 2010.
The Guardian. "Afghanistan: The War Logs". Retrieved May 9, 2012.
The Guardian. "Iraq: The War Logs". Retrieved May 9, 2012.
The New York Times. [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html "The War Logs]. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
Wired. "Bradley Manning". Retrieved May 8, 2012.
Books
Assange, Julian and O'Hagan, Andrew. Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography. Canongate, 2011.
Madar, Chase. The Passion of Bradley Manning. OR Books, 2012.
Mitchell, Greg and Gosztola, Kevin. Truth and Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. Sinclair Books, 2012.
Audio/video
Broom, Kyle. "Prevention of Injury (POI)", dramatization of Manning's account of detention; also see ImDb. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
Democracy Now!. Bradley Manning video archive, 2011–present.
Gavin, Patrick. "Celeb video: I am Bradley Manning", Politico, June 19, 2013.
Gonzales, Juan and Goodman, Amy. "Glenn Greenwald on the Assange Extradition Ruling, the Jailing of Bradley Manning ...", Democracy Now!, February 24, 2011.
Miller, Michelle. "Private", CBS News, April 26, 2012, interview with Denver Nicks, author of Private (2012), Manning's biography.
Nicks, Denver. "Private Manning Speaks", This Land, September 22, 2010.
Price, Tim. The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (play). Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012.
McGrath, John (director). "The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning", National Theatre Wales, April 12–28, 2012.
External links
"U.S. v Bradley Manning", scribd.com. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
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2016-01 | House-697160643 | House | House
A house is a building that functions as a home, ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shantytowns to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, marble or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation and electrical systems. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups or individuals. The design and structure of the house is also subject to change as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and other social, economic, demographic, and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors also influence the building style and patterns of domestic space.
Etymology
The English word house derives directly from the Old English Hus meaning "dwelling, shelter, home, house," which in turn derives from Proto-Germanic Khusan (reconstructed by etymological analysis) which is of unknown origin. The house itself gave rise to the letter 'B' through an early Proto-Semitic hieroglyphic symbol depicting a house. The symbol was called "bayt", "bet" or "beth" in various related languages, and became beta, the Greek letter, before it was used by the Romans.
Elements
Layout
Ideally, architects of houses design rooms to meet the needs of the people who will live in the house. Such designing, known as "interior design", has become a popular subject in universities. Feng shui, originally a Chinese method of moving houses according to such factors as rain and micro-climates, has recently expanded its scope to address the design of interior spaces, with a view to promoting harmonious effects on the people living inside the house, although no actual effect has ever been demonstrated. Feng shui can also mean the "aura" in or around a dwelling, making it comparable to the real-estate sales concept of "indoor-outdoor flow".
The square footage of a house in the United States reports the area of "living space", excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. The "square metres" figure of a house in Europe reports the area of the walls enclosing the home, and thus includes any attached garage and non-living spaces. The number of floors or levels making up the house can affect the square footage of a home.
Parts
Many houses have several large rooms with specialized functions and several very small rooms for other various reasons. These may include a living/eating area, a sleeping area, and (if suitable facilities and services exist) separate or combined washing and lavatory areas. Some larger properties may also feature rooms such as a spa room, indoor pool, indoor basketball court, and other 'non-essential' facilities. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) often share part of the house with human beings. Most conventional modern houses will at least contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A typical "foursquare house" (as pictured) occurred commonly in the early history of the US where they were mainly built, with a staircase in the center of the house, surrounded by four rooms, and connected to other sections of the home (including in more recent eras a garage).
History of the interior
Little is known about the earliest origin of the house and its interior, but it can be traced back to the simplest form of shelters. Roman architect Vitruvius' theories have claimed the first form of architecture as a frame of timber branches finished in mud, also known as the primitive hut.
Philip Tabor later states the contribution of 17th century Dutch houses as the foundation of houses today.
"As far as the idea of the home is concerned, the home of the home is the Netherlands. This idea's crystallization might be dated to the first three-quarters of the 17th century, when the Dutch Netherlands amassed the unprecedented and unrivalled accumulation of capital, and emptied their purses into domestic space.
Communal rooms
In the Middle Ages, the Manor Houses facilitated different activities and events. Furthermore, the houses accommodated numerous people, including family, relatives, employees, servants and their guests. Their lifestyles were largely communal, as areas such as the Great Hall enforced the custom of dining and meetings and the Solar intended for shared sleeping beds.
Interconnecting rooms
During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Italian Renaissance Palazzo consisted of plentiful rooms of connectivity. Unlike the qualities and uses of the Manor Houses, most rooms of the palazzo contained no purpose, yet were given several doors. These doors adjoined rooms in which Robin Evans describes as a "matrix of discrete but thoroughly interconnected chambers." The layout allowed occupants to freely walk room to room from one door to another, thus breaking the boundaries of privacy.
"Once inside it is necessary to pass from one room to the next, then to the next to traverse the building. Where passages and staircases are used, as inevitably they are, they nearly always connect just one space to another and never serve as general distributors of movement. Thus, despite the precise architectural containment offered by the addition of room upon room, the villa was, in terms of occupation, an open plan, relatively permeable to the numerous members of the household."
Although very public, the open plan encouraged sociality and connectivity for all inhabitants.
Corridor
An early example of the segregation of rooms and consequent enhancement of privacy may be found in 1597 at the Beaufort House built in Chelsea. It was designed by English architect John Thorpe who wrote on his plans, "A Long Entry through all". The separation of the passageway from the room developed the function of the corridor. This new extension was revolutionary at the time, allowing the integration of one door per room, in which all universally connected to the same corridor. English architect Sir Roger Pratt states "the common way in the middle through the whole length of the house, [avoids] the offices from one molesting the other by continual passing through them." Social hierarchies within the 17th century were highly regarded, as architecture was able to epitomize the servants and the upper class. More privacy is offered to the occupant as Pratt further claims, "the ordinary servants may never publicly appear in passing to and fro for their occasions there." This social divide between rich and poor favored the physical integration of the corridor into housing by the 19th century.
Sociologist Witold Rybczynski wrote, "the subdivision of the house into day and night uses, and into formal and informal areas, had begun." Rooms were changed from public to private as single entryways forced notions of entering a room with a specific purpose.
Employment-free house
Compared to the large scaled houses in England and the Renaissance, the 17th Century Dutch house was smaller, and was only inhabited by up to four to five members. This was due to their embracing "self-reliance", in contrast to the dependence on servants, and a design for a lifestyle centered on the family. It was important for the Dutch to separate work from domesticity, as the home became an escape and a place of comfort. This way of living and the home has been noted as highly similar to the contemporary family and their dwellings. House layouts also incorporated the idea of the corridor as well as the importance of function and privacy.
By the end of the 17th Century, the house layout was soon transformed to become employment-free, enforcing these ideas for the future. This came in favour for the industrial revolution, gaining large-scale factory production and workers. The house layout of the Dutch and its functions are still relevant today.
The names of parts of a house often echo the names of parts of other buildings, but could typically include:
Alcove
Atrium
Attic
Basement/cellar
Bathroom (in various senses of the word)
Bath/shower
Toilet
Bedroom (or nursery, for infants or small children)
Box-room / storage room
Conservatory
Dining room
Family room or den
Fireplace (for warmth during winter; generally not found in warmer climates)
Foyer
Front room (in various senses of the phrase)
Garage
Hallway / passage / Vestibule
Hearth – often an important symbolic focus of family togetherness
Kitchen
Larder
Laundry room
Library
Living room
Loft
Nook
Office or study
Pantry
Parlour
Pew/porch
Recreation room / rumpus room / television room
Shrines to serve the religious functions associated with a family
Stairwell
Sunroom
Swimming pool
Window
Workshop
Technology and privacy
The introduction of technology and electronic systems within the house has questioned the impressions of privacy as well as the segregation of work from home. Technological advances of surveillance and communications allow insight of personal habits and private lives. As a result, the "private becomes ever more public, [and] the desire for a protective home life increases, fuelled by the very media that undermine it" writes Hill. Work also, has been altered due to the increase of communications. The "deluge of information", has expressed the efforts of work, conveniently gaining access inside the house. Although commuting is reduced, "the desire to separate working and living remains apparent." In Jonathan Hill's book Immature Architecture, he identifies this new invasion of privacy as Electromagnetic Weather. Natural or man-made weather remains concurrent inside or outside the house, yet the electromagnetic weather is able to generate within both positions. On the other hand, some architects have designed homes in which eating, working and living are brought together.
Construction
In the United States, modern house-construction techniques include light-frame construction (in areas with access to supplies of wood) and adobe or sometimes rammed-earth construction (in arid regions with scarce wood-resources). Some areas use brick almost exclusively, and quarried stone has long provided walling. To some extent, aluminum and steel have displaced some traditional building materials. Increasingly popular alternative construction materials include insulating concrete forms (foam forms filled with concrete), structural insulated panels (foam panels faced with oriented strand board or fiber cement), and light-gauge steel framing and heavy-gauge steel framing.
More generally, people often build houses out of the nearest available material, and often tradition and/or culture govern construction-materials, so whole towns, areas, counties or even states/countries may be built out of one main type of material. For example, a large fraction of American houses use wood, while most British and many European houses utilize stone or brick or mud.
In the 1900s (decade), some house designers started using prefabrication. Sears, Roebuck & Co. first marketed their Sears Catalog Homes to the general public in 1908. Prefab techniques became popular after World War II. First small inside rooms framing, then later, whole walls were prefabricated and carried to the construction site. The original impetus was to use the labor force inside a shelter during inclement weather. More recently builders have begun to collaborate with structural engineers who use computers and finite element analysis to design prefabricated steel-framed homes with known resistance to high wind-loads and seismic forces. These newer products provide labor savings, more consistent quality, and possibly accelerated construction processes.
Lesser-used construction methods have gained (or regained) popularity in recent years. Though not in wide use, these methods frequently appeal to homeowners who may become actively involved in the construction process. They include:
Cannabrick construction
Cordwood construction
Geodesic domes
Straw-bale construction
Wattle and daub
Timber framing
Framing (construction)
Energy efficiency
In the developed world, energy-conservation has grown in importance in house-design. Housing produces a major proportion of carbon emissions (30% of the total in the UK, for example).
Development of a number of low-energy building types and techniques continues. They include the zero-energy house, the passive solar house, the autonomous buildings, the superinsulated and houses built to the Passivhaus standard.
Earthquake protection
One tool of earthquake engineering is base isolation which is increasingly used for earthquake protection. Base isolation is a collection of structural elements of a building that should substantially decouple it from the shaking ground thus protecting the building's integrity and enhancing its seismic performance. This technology, which is a kind of seismic vibration control, can be applied both to a newly designed building and to seismic upgrading of existing structures.
Normally, excavations are made around the building and the building is separated from the foundations. Steel or reinforced concrete beams replace the connections to the foundations, while under these, the isolating pads, or base isolators, replace the material removed. While the base isolation tends to restrict transmission of the ground motion to the building, it also keeps the building positioned properly over the foundation. Careful attention to detail is required where the building interfaces with the ground, especially at entrances, stairways and ramps, to ensure sufficient relative motion of those structural elements.
Bamboo is an earthquake-resistant material, and is very versatile because it comes from fast-grow plants. Adding that bamboos are common in Asia, bamboo-made houses are popular in some Asian countries.
Found materials
In many parts of the world, houses are constructed using scavenged materials. In Manila's Payatas neighborhood, slum houses are often made of material sourced from a nearby garbage dump.
In Dakar, it is not uncommon to see houses made of recycled materials standing atop a mixture of garbage and sand which serves as a foundation. The garbage-sand mixture is also used to protect the house from flooding.
Legal issues
Buildings with historical importance have legal restrictions.
United Kingdom
New houses in the UK are not covered by the Sale of Goods Act. When purchasing a new house the buyer has different legal protection than when buying other products. New houses in the UK are covered by a National House Building Council guarantee.
Identifying houses
With the growth of dense settlement, humans designed ways of identifying houses and/or parcels of land. Individual houses sometimes acquire proper names; and those names may acquire in their turn considerable emotional connotations: see for example the house of Howards End or the castle of Brideshead Revisited. A more systematic and general approach to identifying houses may use various methods of house numbering.
Animal houses
Humans often build houses for domestic or wild animals, often resembling smaller versions of human domiciles. Familiar animal houses built by humans include birdhouses, henhouses and doghouses, while housed agricultural animals more often live in barns and stables.
Houses and symbolism
Houses may express the circumstances or opinions of their builders or their inhabitants. Thus a vast and elaborate house may serve as a sign of conspicuous wealth, whereas a low-profile house built of recycled materials may indicate support of energy conservation.
Houses of particular historical significance (former residences of the famous, for example, or even just very old houses) may gain a protected status in town planning as examples of built heritage and/or of street scape. Commemorative plaques may mark such structures.
Home ownership provides a common measure of prosperity in economics. Contrast the importance of house-destruction, tent dwelling and house rebuilding in the wake of many natural disasters.
Peter Olshavsky's "House for the Dance of Death" provides a 'pataphysical variation on the house.
See also
Building
House-building
Index of construction articles
Functions
Building science
Mixed-use development
Visitability
Types
Boarding house
Earth sheltering
Home automation
Housing estate
Housing in Japan
Hurricane-proof house
Lodging
Lustron house
Mobile home
Modular home
Summer house
Tiny house
Economics
Affordable housing
Real estate bubble
United States housing bubble
Housing tenure
Miscellaneous
Domestic robot
Home network
Housewarming party
Squatting
Institutions
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
HUD USER
Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse
Lists
List of American houses
List of house styles
List of house types
List of human habitation forms
List of real estate topics
Open-air museum
References
External links
Category:Structural system |
2016-01 | Wikipedia-697043109 | Wikipedia | Wikipedia
Wikipedia ( or ) is a free-access, free-content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Those who can access the site can edit most of its articles. Wikipedia is ranked among the ten most popular websites, and constitutes the Internet's largest and most popular general reference work.
Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001. Sanger coined its name, a portmanteau of wiki and encyclopedia. Initially only in English, Wikipedia quickly became multilingual as it developed similar versions in other languages, which differ in content and in editing practices. The English Wikipedia is now one of 291 Wikipedia editions and is the largest with articles (having reached 5,000,000 articles in November 2015). There is a grand total, including all Wikipedias, of over 37 million articles in over 250 different languages. As of February 2014, it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.
A peer review of 42 science articles found in both Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia was published in Nature in 2005, and found that Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached Encyclopedia Britannicas. Criticisms of Wikipedia include claims that it exhibits systemic bias, presents a mixture of "truths, half truths, and some falsehoods", and that in controversial topics it is subject to manipulation and spin.
History
Other collaborative online encyclopedias were attempted before Wikipedia but none were so successful.
Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, a web portal company. Its main figures were the Bomis Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman. Sanger and Wales founded Wikipedia. While Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia, Sanger is credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal. On January 10, 2001, Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.
Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com, and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list. Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view" was codified in its first months. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia. Originally, Bomis intended to make Wikipedia a business for profit.
Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. By August 8, 2001, Wikipedia had over 8,000 articles. On September 25, 2001, Wikipedia had over 13,000 articles. And by the end of 2001 it had grown to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions. It had reached 26 language editions by late 2002, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the final days of 2004. Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers were taken down permanently in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Wikipedia. English Wikipedia passed the mark of two million articles on September 9, 2007, making it the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, surpassing even the 1408 Yongle Encyclopedia, which had held the record for almost 600 years.
Citing fears of commercial advertising and lack of control in Wikipedia, users of the Spanish Wikipedia forked from Wikipedia to create the Enciclopedia Libre in February 2002. These moves encouraged Wales to announce that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and to change Wikipedia's domain from wikipedia.com to wikipedia.org.
Though the English Wikipedia reached three million articles in August 2009, the growth of the edition, in terms of the numbers of articles and of contributors, appears to have peaked around early 2007. Around 1,800 articles were added daily to the encyclopedia in 2006; by 2013 that average was roughly 800. A team at the Palo Alto Research Center attributed this slowing of growth to the project's increasing exclusivity and resistance to change. Others suggest that the growth is flattening naturally because articles that could be called "low-hanging fruit"—topics that clearly merit an article—have already been created and built up extensively.
In November 2009, a researcher at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid (Spain) found that the English Wikipedia had lost 49,000 editors during the first three months of 2009; in comparison, the project lost only 4,900 editors during the same period in 2008. The Wall Street Journal cited the array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content among the reasons for this trend. Wales disputed these claims in 2009, denying the decline and questioning the methodology of the study. Two years later, Wales acknowledged the presence of a slight decline, noting a decrease from "a little more than 36,000 writers" in June 2010 to 35,800 in June 2011. In the same interview, Wales also claimed the number of editors was "stable and sustainable", a claim which was questioned by MIT's Technology Review in a 2013 article titled "The Decline of Wikipedia." In July 2012, the Atlantic reported that the number of administrators is also in decline. In the November 25, 2013, issue of New York magazine, Katherine Ward stated "Wikipedia, the sixth-most-used website, is facing an internal crisis. In 2013, MIT's Technology Review revealed that since 2007, the site has lost a third of the volunteer editors who update and correct the online encyclopedia's millions of pages and those still there have focused increasingly on minutiae."
In January 2007, Wikipedia entered for the first time the top-ten list of the most popular websites in the United States, according to comScore Networks. With 42.9 million unique visitors, Wikipedia was ranked number 9, surpassing the New York Times (#10) and Apple (#11). This marked a significant increase over January 2006, when the rank was number 33, with Wikipedia receiving around 18.3 million unique visitors. , Wikipedia has rank 6 among websites in terms of popularity according to Alexa Internet. In 2014, it received 8 billion pageviews every month. On February 9, 2014, The New York Times reported that Wikipedia has 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors a month, "according to the ratings firm comScore."
On January 18, 2012, the English Wikipedia participated in a series of coordinated protests against two proposed laws in the United States Congress—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)—by blacking out its pages for 24 hours. More than 162 million people viewed the blackout explanation page that temporarily replaced Wikipedia content.
Loveland and Reagle argue that, in process, Wikipedia follows a long tradition of historical encyclopedias that accumulated improvements piecemeal through "stigmergic accumulation".
On January 20, 2014, Subodh Varma reporting for The Economic Times indicated that not only had Wikipedia growth flattened but that it has "lost nearly 10 per cent of its page-views last year. That's a decline of about 2 billion between December 2012 and December 2013. Its most popular versions are leading the slide: page-views of the English Wikipedia declined by 12 per cent, those of German version slid by 17 per cent and the Japanese version lost 9 per cent." Varma added that, "While Wikipedia's managers think that this could be due to errors in counting, other experts feel that Google's Knowledge Graphs project launched last year may be gobbling up Wikipedia users." When contacted on this matter, Clay Shirky, associate professor at New York University and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Security indicated that he suspected much of the page view decline was due to Knowledge Graphs, stating, "If you can get your question answered from the search page, you don't need to click [any further]."
Openness
Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the procrastination principle regarding the security of its content. It started almost entirely open—anyone could create articles, and any Wikipedia article could be edited by any reader, even those who did not have a Wikipedia account. Modifications to all articles would be published immediately. As a result, any article could contain inaccuracies such as errors, ideological biases, and nonsensical or irrelevant text.
Restrictions
Over time, the English Wikipedia and some other Wikipedias gradually have restricted modifications. For example, in the English Wikipedia and some other language editions, only registered users may create a new article. On the English Wikipedia and some others, some particularly controversial, sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages are now "protected" to some degree. A frequently vandalized article can be semi-protected, meaning that only certain editors are able to modify it. A particularly contentious article may be locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.
In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors, depending on certain conditions. For example, the German Wikipedia maintains "stable versions" of articles, which have passed certain reviews. Following protracted trials and community discussion, the English Wikipedia introduced the "pending changes" system in December 2012. Under this system, new users' edits to certain controversial or vandalism-prone articles are "subject to review from an established Wikipedia editor before publication".
Review of changes
Although changes are not systematically reviewed, the software that powers Wikipedia provides certain tools allowing anyone to review changes made by others. The "History" page of each article links to each revision. On most articles, anyone can undo others' changes by clicking a link on the article's history page. Anyone can view the latest changes to articles, and anyone may maintain a "watchlist" of articles that interest them so they can be notified of any changes. "New pages patrol" is a process whereby newly created articles are checked for obvious problems.
In 2003, economics PhD student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in a wiki create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that features such as allowing easy access to past versions of a page favor "creative construction" over "creative destruction".
Vandalism
Any edit that changes content in a way that deliberately compromises the integrity of Wikipedia is considered vandalism. The most common and obvious types of vandalism include insertion of obscenities and crude humor. Vandalism can also include advertising language and other types of spam. Sometimes editors commit vandalism by removing information or entirely blanking a given page. Less common types of vandalism, such as the deliberate addition of plausible but false information to an article, can be more difficult to detect. Vandals can introduce irrelevant formatting, modify page semantics such as the page's title or categorization, manipulate the underlying code of an article, or use images disruptively.
Obvious vandalism is generally easy to remove from wiki articles; the median time to detect and fix vandalism is a few minutes. However, some vandalism takes much longer to repair.
In the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident, an anonymous editor introduced false information into the biography of American political figure John Seigenthaler in May 2005. Seigenthaler was falsely presented as a suspect in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The article remained uncorrected for four months. Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of USA Today and founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, called Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and asked whether he had any way of knowing who contributed the misinformation. Wales replied that he did not, although the perpetrator was eventually traced. After the incident, Seigenthaler described Wikipedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool". This incident led to policy changes at Wikipedia, specifically targeted at tightening up the verifiability of .
Policies and laws
See also:
Content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular, copyright laws) of the United States and of the U.S. state of Virginia, where the majority of Wikipedia's servers are located. Beyond legal matters, the editorial principles of Wikipedia are embodied in the and in numerous intended to appropriately shape content. Even these rules are stored in wiki form, and Wikipedia editors write and revise the website's policies and guidelines. Editors can by deleting or modifying non-compliant material. Originally, rules on the non-English editions of Wikipedia were based on a translation of the rules for the English Wikipedia. They have since diverged to some extent.
Content policies and guidelines
According to the rules on the English Wikipedia, each entry in Wikipedia must be about a topic that is encyclopedic and is not a dictionary entry or dictionary-like. A topic should also meet Wikipedia's standards of "notability", which generally means that the topic must have been covered in mainstream media or major academic journal sources that are independent of the article's subject. Further, Wikipedia intends to convey only knowledge that is already established and recognized. It must not present original research. A claim that is likely to be challenged requires a reference to a reliable source. Among Wikipedia editors, this is often phrased as "verifiability, not truth" to express the idea that the readers, not the encyclopedia, are ultimately responsible for checking the truthfulness of the articles and making their own interpretations. This can at times lead to the removal of information that is valid. Finally, Wikipedia must not take sides. All opinions and viewpoints, if attributable to external sources, must enjoy an appropriate share of coverage within an article. This is known as neutral point of view (NPOV).
Governance
Wikipedia's initial anarchy integrated democratic and hierarchical elements over time. An article is not considered to be owned by its creator or any other editor and is not vetted by any recognized authority. Wikipedia's contributors avoid a tragedy of the commons by internalizing benefits. They do this by experiencing flow and identifying with and gaining status in the Wikipedia community.
Administrators
Editors in good standing in the community can run for one of many levels of volunteer stewardship: this begins with "administrator", privileged users who can delete pages, prevent articles from being changed in case of vandalism or editorial disputes, and try to prevent certain persons from editing. Despite the name, administrators are not supposed to enjoy any special privilege in decision-making; instead, their powers are mostly limited to making edits that have project-wide effects and thus are disallowed to ordinary editors, and to implement restrictions intended to prevent certain persons from making disruptive edits (such as vandalism).
Fewer editors become administrators than in years past, in part because the process of vetting potential Wikipedia administrators has become more rigorous.
Bureaucrats name new administrators, solely upon the recommendations from the community.
Dispute resolution
Wikipedians may dispute, for example by repeatedly making opposite changes to an article. Over time, Wikipedia has developed documentation for editors about dispute resolution. In order to determine community consensus, editors can raise issues at the Village Pump, or initiate a request for comment.
Arbitration Committee
The Arbitration Committee presides over the ultimate dispute resolution process. Although disputes usually arise from a disagreement between two opposing views on how an article should read, the Arbitration Committee explicitly refuses to directly rule on the specific view that should be adopted. Statistical analyses suggest that the committee ignores the content of disputes and rather focuses on the way disputes are conducted, functioning not so much to resolve disputes and make peace between conflicting editors, but to weed out problematic editors while allowing potentially productive editors back in to participate. Therefore, the committee does not dictate the content of articles, although it sometimes condemns content changes when it deems the new content violates Wikipedia policies (for example, if the new content is considered biased). Its remedies include cautions and probations (used in 63% of cases) and banning editors from articles (43%), subject matters (23%) or Wikipedia (16%). Complete bans from Wikipedia are generally limited to instances of impersonation and anti-social behavior. When conduct is not impersonation or anti-social, but rather anti-consensus or in violation of editing policies, remedies tend to be limited to warnings.
Community
Each article and each user of Wikipedia has an associated "Talk" page. These form the primary communication channel for editors to discuss, coordinate and debate.
Wikipedia's community has been described as cult-like, although not always with entirely negative connotations. The project's preference for cohesiveness, even if it requires compromise that includes disregard of credentials, has been referred to as "anti-elitism".
Wikipedians sometimes award one another virtual barnstars for good work. These personalized tokens of appreciation reveal a wide range of valued work extending far beyond simple editing to include social support, administrative actions, and types of articulation work.
Wikipedia does not require that its editors and contributors provide identification. As Wikipedia grew, "Who writes Wikipedia?" became one of the questions frequently asked on the project. Jimmy Wales once argued that only "a community ... a dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers" makes the bulk of contributions to Wikipedia and that the project is therefore "much like any traditional organization". In 2008, a Slate magazine article reported that: "According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site's edits." This method of evaluating contributions was later disputed by Aaron Swartz, who noted that several articles he sampled had large portions of their content (measured by number of characters) contributed by users with low edit counts.
The English Wikipedia has articles, registered editors, and active editors. An editor is considered active if they make one or more edits in said month.
Editors who fail to comply with Wikipedia cultural rituals, such as signing talk pages, may implicitly signal that they are Wikipedia outsiders, increasing the odds that Wikipedia insiders may target or discount their contributions. Becoming a Wikipedia insider involves non-trivial costs: the contributor is expected to learn Wikipedia-specific technological codes, submit to a sometimes convoluted dispute resolution process, and learn a "baffling culture rich with in-jokes and insider references". Editors who do not log in are in some sense second-class citizens on Wikipedia, as "participants are accredited by members of the wiki community, who have a vested interest in preserving the quality of the work product, on the basis of their ongoing participation", but the contribution histories of anonymous unregistered editors recognized only by their IP addresses cannot be attributed to a particular editor with certainty.
A 2007 study by researchers from Dartmouth College found that "anonymous and infrequent contributors to Wikipedia [...] are as reliable a source of knowledge as those contributors who register with the site". Jimmy Wales stated in 2009 that "(I)t turns out over 50% of all the edits are done by just .7% of the users... 524 people... And in fact the most active 2%, which is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits." However, Business Insider editor and journalist Henry Blodget showed in 2009 that in a random sample of articles, most content in Wikipedia (measured by the amount of contributed text that survives to the latest sampled edit) is created by "outsiders", while most editing and formatting is done by "insiders".
A 2008 study found that Wikipedians were less agreeable, open, and conscientious than others. According to a 2009 study, there is "evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content".
Diversity
One study found that the contributor base to Wikipedia "was barely 13% women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s". A 2011 study by researchers from the University of Minnesota found that females comprised 16.1% of the 38,497 editors who started editing Wikipedia during 2009. In a January 2011 New York Times article, Noam Cohen observed that just 13% of Wikipedia's contributors are female according to a 2009 Wikimedia Foundation survey. Sue Gardner, a former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, hoped to see female contributions increase to twenty-five percent by 2015. Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women, noted the contrast in these Wikipedia editor statistics with the percentage of women currently completing bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and PhD programs in the United States (all at rates of 50 percent or greater).
In response, various universities have hosted edit-a-thons to encourage more women to participate in the Wikipedia community. In fall 2013, 15 colleges and universities, including Yale, Brown, and Pennsylvania State, offered college credit for students to "write feminist thinking" about technology into Wikipedia.
In August 2014, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced in a BBC interview the Wikimedia Foundation's plans for "doubling down" on the issue of gender bias on Wikipedia. Wales agreed that Sue Gardner's goal of 25% women enrollment by 2015 had not been met. Wales said the foundation would be open to more outreach, more software changes, and more women administrators. Software changes were left open to explore ways of increasing the appeal of Wikipedia to attract women readers to register as editors, and to increase to enhance the 'management' presence of women at Wikipedia.
Language editions
There are currently 288 language editions of Wikipedia (also called language versions, or simply Wikipedias). Twelve of these have over one million articles each (English, Swedish, Dutch, German, French, Waray-Waray, Russian, Cebuano, Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese and Polish), three more have over 700,000 articles (Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese), 36 more have over 100,000 articles, and 77 more have over 10,000 articles. The largest, the English Wikipedia, has over million articles. , according to Alexa, the English subdomain (en.wikipedia.org; English Wikipedia) receives approximately 58% of Wikipedia's cumulative traffic, with the remaining split among the other languages (Japanese: 8%; Spanish: 7%; German: 5%; Russian: 4%). As of , the six largest language editions are (in order of article count) the , , , , , and Wikipedias.
Since Wikipedia is based on the Web and therefore worldwide, contributors to the same language edition may use different dialects or may come from different countries (as is the case for the English edition). These differences may lead to some conflicts over spelling differences (e.g. colour versus color) or points of view.
Though the various language editions are held to global policies such as "neutral point of view", they diverge on some points of policy and practice, most notably on whether images that are not licensed freely may be used under a claim of fair use.
Jimmy Wales has described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language". Though each language edition functions more or less independently, some efforts are made to supervise them all. They are coordinated in part by Meta-Wiki, the Wikimedia Foundation's wiki devoted to maintaining all of its projects (Wikipedia and others). For instance, Meta-Wiki provides important statistics on all language editions of Wikipedia, and it maintains a list of articles every Wikipedia should have. The list concerns basic content by subject: biography, history, geography, society, culture, science, technology, and mathematics. As for the rest, it is not rare for articles strongly related to a particular language not to have counterparts in another edition. For example, articles about small towns in the United States might only be available in English, even when they meet notability criteria of other language Wikipedia projects.
Translated articles represent only a small portion of articles in most editions, in part because fully automated translation of articles is disallowed. Articles available in more than one language may offer "interwiki links", which link to the counterpart articles in other editions.
A study published by PLOS ONE in 2012 also estimated the share of contributions to different editions of Wikipedia from different regions of the world. It reported that the proportion of the edits made from North America was 51% for the English Wikipedia, and 25% for the simple English Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation hopes to increase the number of editors in the Global South to thirty-seven percent by 2015.
On March 1, 2014, The Economist in an article titled "The Future of Wikipedia" cited a trend analysis concerning data published by Wikimedia stating that: "The number of editors for the English-language version has fallen by a third in seven years." The attrition rate for active editors in English Wikipedia was cited by The Economist as substantially in contrast to statistics for Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia). The Economist reported that the number of contributors with an average of five of more edits per month was relatively constant since 2008 for Wikipedia in other languages at approximately 42,000 editors within narrow seasonal variances of about 2,000 editors up or down. The attrition rates for editors in English Wikipedia, by sharp comparison, were cited as peaking in 2007 at approximately 50,000 editors which has dropped to 30,000 editors as of the start of 2014. At the quoted trend rate, the number of active editors in English Wikipedia has lost approximately 20,000 editors to attrition since 2007, and the documented trend rate indicates the loss of another 20,000 editors by 2021, down to 10,000 active editors on English Wikipedia by 2021 if left unabated. Given that the trend analysis published in The Economist presents the number of active editors for Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia) as remaining relatively constant and successful in sustaining its numbers at approximately 42,000 active editors, the contrast has pointed to the effectiveness of Wikipedia in other languages to retain its active editors on a renewable and sustained basis. No comment was made concerning which of the differentiated edit policy standards from Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia) would provide a possible alternative to English Wikipedia for effectively ameliorating substantial editor attrition rates on the English language Wikipedia.
Critical reception
Several Wikipedians have criticized Wikipedia's large and growing regulation, which includes over 50 policies and nearly 150,000 words .
Critics have stated that Wikipedia exhibits systemic bias. Columnist and journalist Edwin Black criticizes Wikipedia for being a mixture of "truth, half truth, and some falsehoods". Articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Journal of Academic Librarianship have criticized Wikipedia's Undue Weight policy, concluding that the fact that Wikipedia explicitly is not designed to provide correct information about a subject, but rather only present , creates omissions which can lead to false beliefs based on incomplete information.
Journalists Oliver Kamm and Edwin Black noted how articles are dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices, usually by a group with an "ax to grind" on the topic. An article in Education Next Journal concluded that as a resource about controversial topics, Wikipedia is notoriously subject to manipulation and spin.
In 2006, the Wikipedia Watch criticism website listed dozens of examples of plagiarism in the English Wikipedia.
Accuracy of content
Articles for traditional encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica are carefully and deliberately written by experts, lending such encyclopedias a reputation for accuracy. Conversely, Wikipedia is often cited for factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations. However, a peer review in 2005 of forty-two scientific entries on both Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica by the science journal Nature found few differences in accuracy, and concluded that "the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three." Reagle suggested that while the study reflects "a topical strength of Wikipedia contributors" in science articles, "Wikipedia may not have fared so well using a random sampling of articles or on humanities subjects." The findings by Nature were disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica, and in response, Nature gave a rebuttal of the points raised by Britannica. In addition to the point-for-point disagreement between these two parties, others have examined the sample size and selection method used in the Nature effort, and suggested a "flawed study design" (in Natures manual selection of articles, in part or in whole, for comparison), absence of statistical analysis (e.g., of reported confidence intervals), and a lack of study "statistical power" (i.e., owing to small sample size, 42 or 4 x 101 articles compared, vs >105 and >106 set sizes for Britannica and the English Wikipedia, respectively).
As a consequence of the open structure, Wikipedia "makes no guarantee of validity" of its content, since no one is ultimately responsible for any claims appearing in it. Concerns have been raised by PC World in 2009 regarding the lack of accountability that results from users' anonymity, the insertion of false information, vandalism, and similar problems.
Economist Tyler Cowen wrote: "If I had to guess whether Wikipedia or the median refereed journal article on economics was more likely to be true, after a not so long think I would opt for Wikipedia." He comments that some traditional sources of non-fiction suffer from systemic biases and novel results, in his opinion, are over-reported in journal articles and relevant information is omitted from news reports. However, he also cautions that errors are frequently found on Internet sites, and that academics and experts must be vigilant in correcting them.
Critics argue that Wikipedia's open nature and a lack of proper sources for most of the information makes it unreliable. Some commentators suggest that Wikipedia may be reliable, but that the reliability of any given article is not clear. Editors of traditional reference works such as the Encyclopædia Britannica have questioned the project's utility and status as an encyclopedia.
Wikipedia's open structure inherently makes it an easy target for Internet trolls, spammers, and various forms of paid advocacy seen as counterproductive to the maintenance of a neutral and verifiable online encyclopedia.
In response to paid advocacy editing and undisclosed editing issues, Wikipedia was reported in an article by Jeff Elder in The Wall Street Journal on June 16, 2014 to have strengthened its rules and laws against undisclosed editing. The article stated that: "Beginning Monday (from date of article), changes in Wikipedia's terms of use will require anyone paid to edit articles to disclose that arrangement. Katherine Maher, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation's chief communications officer, said the changes address a sentiment among volunteer editors that, 'we're not an advertising service; we're an encyclopedia.'" These issues, among others, had been parodied since the first decade of Wikipedia, notably by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.
Most university lecturers discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring primary sources; some specifically prohibit Wikipedia citations. Wales stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate to use as citeable sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative. Wales once (2006 or earlier) said he receives about ten emails weekly from students saying they got failing grades on papers because they cited Wikipedia; he told the students they got what they deserved. "For God's sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia", he said.
In February 2007, an article in The Harvard Crimson newspaper reported that a few of the professors at Harvard University include Wikipedia in their syllabi, but that there is a split in their perception of using Wikipedia. In June 2007, former president of the American Library Association Michael Gorman condemned Wikipedia, along with Google, stating that academics who endorse the use of Wikipedia are "the intellectual equivalent of a dietitian who recommends a steady diet of Big Macs with everything".
A Harvard law textbook, Legal Research in a Nutshell (2011), cites Wikipedia as a "general source" that "can be a real boon" in "coming up to speed in the law governing a situation" and, "while not authoritative, can provide basic facts as well as leads to more in-depth resources".
Medical information
On March 5, 2014, Julie Beck writing for The Atlantic magazine in an article titled "Doctors' #1 Source for Healthcare Information: Wikipedia", stated that
"Fifty percent of physicians look up conditions on the (Wikipedia) site, and some are editing articles themselves to improve the quality of available information." Beck continued to detail in this article new programs of Dr. Amin Azzam at the University of San Francisco to offer medical school courses to medical students for learning to edit and improve Wikipedia articles on health-related issues, as well as internal quality control programs within Wikipedia organized by Dr. James Heilman to improve a group of 200 health-related articles of central medical importance up to Wikipedia's highest standard of peer review evaluated articles using its Featured Article and Good Article peer review evaluation standards. In a May 7, 2014 follow-up article in The Atlantic titled "Can Wikipedia Ever Be a Definitive Medical Text?", Julie Beck quotes Wikiproject Medicine's Dr. James Heilman as stating: "Just because a reference is peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's a high-quality reference." Beck added that: "Wikipedia has its own peer review process before articles can be classified as 'good' or 'featured.' Heilman, who has participated in that process before, says 'less than 1 percent' of Wikipedia's medical articles have passed.
Quality of writing
Because contributors usually rewrite small portions of an entry rather than making full-length revisions, high- and low-quality content may be intermingled within an entry. Roy Rosenzweig, a history professor, stated that American National Biography Online outperformed Wikipedia in terms of its "clear and engaging prose", which, he said, was an important aspect of good historical writing. Contrasting Wikipedia's treatment of Abraham Lincoln to that of Civil War historian James McPherson in American National Biography Online, he said that both were essentially accurate and covered the major episodes in Lincoln's life, but praised "McPherson's richer contextualization [...] his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln's voice [...] and [...] his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words." By contrast, he gives an example of Wikipedia's prose that he finds "both verbose and dull". Rosenzweig also criticized the "waffling—encouraged by the npov policy—[which] means that it is hard to discern any overall interpretive stance in Wikipedia history". By example, he quoted the conclusion of Wikipedia's article on William Clarke Quantrill. While generally praising the article, he pointed out its "waffling" conclusion: "Some historians [...] remember him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."
Other critics have made similar charges that, even if Wikipedia articles are factually accurate, they are often written in a poor, almost unreadable style. Frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski commented: "Even when a Wikipedia entry is 100 per cent factually correct, and those facts have been carefully chosen, it all too often reads as if it has been translated from one language to another then into to a third, passing an illiterate translator at each stage." A study of articles on cancer was undertaken in 2010 by Yaacov Lawrence of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University limited to those Wikipedia articles which could be found in the Physician Data Query and excluding Wikipedia articles written at the "start" class or the "stub" class level. Lawrence found the articles accurate but not very readable, and thought that "Wikipedia's lack of readability (to non-college readers) may reflect its varied origins and haphazard editing". The Economist argued that better-written articles tend to be more reliable: "inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information".
Coverage of topics and systemic bias
Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge in the form of an online encyclopedia, with each topic covered encyclopedically in one article. Since it has terabytes of disk space, it can have far more topics than can be covered by any printed encyclopedia. The exact degree and manner of coverage on Wikipedia is under constant review by its editors, and disagreements are not uncommon (see deletionism and inclusionism). Wikipedia contains materials that some people may find objectionable, offensive, or pornographic because Wikipedia is not censored. The policy has sometimes proved controversial: in 2008, Wikipedia rejected an online petition against the inclusion of images of Muhammad in the English edition of its Muhammad article, citing this policy. The presence of politically, religiously, and pornographically sensitive materials in Wikipedia has led to the censorship of Wikipedia by national authorities in China, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.
A 2008 study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Palo Alto Research Center gave a distribution of topics as well as growth (from July 2006 to January 2008) in each field:
Culture and the arts: 30% (210%)
Biographies and persons: 15% (97%)
Geography and places: 14% (52%)
Society and social sciences: 12% (83%)
History and events: 11% (143%)
Natural and physical sciences: 9% (213%)
Technology and the applied sciences: 4% (−6%)
Religions and belief systems: 2% (38%)
Health: 2% (42%)
Mathematics and logic: 1% (146%)
Thought and philosophy: 1% (160%)
These numbers refer only to the quantity of articles: it is possible for one topic to contain a large number of short articles and another to contain a small number of large ones. Through its "Wikipedia Loves Libraries" program, Wikipedia has partnered with major public libraries such as the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to expand its coverage of underrepresented subjects and articles.
A 2011 study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota indicated that male and female editors focus on different coverage topics. There was a greater concentration of females in the People and Arts category, while males focus more on Geography and Science.
Coverage of topics and selection bias
Research conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute has shown that the geographic distribution of article topics is highly uneven. Africa is most underrepresented.
A "selection bias" may arise when more words per article are devoted to one public figure than a rival public figure. Editors may dispute suspected biases and discuss controversial articles, sometimes at great length.
Systemic bias
When multiple editors contribute to one topic or set of topics, there may arise a systemic bias, such as non-opposite definitions for apparent antonyms. In 2011, Wales noted that the unevenness of coverage is a reflection of the demography of the editors, which predominantly consists of young males with high education levels in the developed world (cf. previously). The October 22, 2013, essay by Tom Simonite in MIT's Technology Review titled "The Decline of Wikipedia" discussed the effect of systemic bias and policy creep on the downward trend in the number of editors.
Systemic bias on Wikipedia may follow that of culture generally, for example favouring certain ethnicities or majority religions. It may more specifically follow the biases of Internet culture, inclining to being young, male, English-speaking, educated, technologically aware, and wealthy enough to spare time for editing. Biases of its own may include over-emphasis on topics such as pop culture, technology, and current events.
Taha Yasseri of the University of Oxford, in 2013, studied the statistical trends of systemic bias at Wikipedia introduced by editing conflicts and their resolution. His research examined the counterproductive work behavior of edit warring. Yasseri contended that simple reverts or "undo" operations were not the most significant measure of counterproductive behavior at Wikipedia and relied instead on the statistical measurement of detecting "reverting/reverted pairs" or "mutually reverting edit pairs." Such a "mutually reverting edit pair" is defined where one editor reverts the edit of another editor who then, in sequence, returns to revert the first editor in the "mutually reverting edit pairs." The results were tabulated for several language versions of Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia's three largest conflict rates belonged to the articles George W. Bush, Anarchism and Muhammad. By comparison, for the German Wikipedia, the three largest conflict rates at the time of the Oxford study were for the articles covering (i) Croatia, (ii) Scientology and (iii) 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Explicit content
Wikipedia has been criticized for allowing information of graphic content. Articles depicting arguably objectionable content (such as Feces, Cadaver, Human penis, Vulva, and Nudity) contain graphic pictures and detailed information easily available to anyone with access to the internet, including children.
The site also includes sexual content such as images and videos of masturbation and ejaculation, photographs of nude children, illustrations of zoophilia, and photos from hardcore pornographic films in its articles.
The Wikipedia article about Virgin Killer—a 1976 album from German heavy metal band Scorpions—features a picture of the album's original cover, which depicts a naked prepubescent girl. The original release cover caused controversy and was replaced in some countries. In December 2008, access to the Wikipedia article Virgin Killer was blocked for four days by most Internet service providers in the United Kingdom after it was reported by a member of the public as child pornography, to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which issues a stop list to Internet service providers. IWF, a non-profit, non-government-affiliated organization, later criticized the inclusion of the picture as "distasteful".
In April 2010, Sanger wrote a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, outlining his concerns that two categories of images on Wikimedia Commons contained child pornography, and were in violation of US federal obscenity law. Sanger later clarified that the images, which were related to pedophilia and one about lolicon, were not of real children, but said that they constituted "obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children", under the PROTECT Act of 2003. That law bans photographic child pornography and cartoon images and drawings of children that are obscene under American law. Sanger also expressed concerns about access to the images on Wikipedia in schools. Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh strongly rejected Sanger's accusation, saying that Wikipedia did not have "material we would deem to be illegal. If we did, we would remove it." Following the complaint by Sanger, Wales deleted sexual images without consulting the community. After some editors who volunteer to maintain the site argued that the decision to delete had been made hastily, Wales voluntarily gave up some of the powers he had held up to that time as part of his co-founder status. He wrote in a message to the Wikimedia Foundation mailing-list that this action was "in the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I acted". Critics, including Wikipediocracy, noticed that many of the pornographic images deleted from Wikipedia since 2010 have reappeared.
Privacy
One privacy concern in the case of Wikipedia is the right of a private citizen to remain a "private citizen" rather than a "public figure" in the eyes of the law. It is a battle between the right to be anonymous in cyberspace and the right to be anonymous in real life ("meatspace"). A particular problem occurs in the case of an individual who is relatively unimportant and for whom there exists a Wikipedia page against her or his wishes.
In January 2006, a German court ordered the German Wikipedia shut down within Germany because it stated the full name of Boris Floricic, aka "Tron", a deceased hacker. On February 9, 2006, the injunction against Wikimedia Deutschland was overturned, with the court rejecting the notion that Tron's right to privacy or that of his parents was being violated.
Wikipedia has a "" that uses the OTRS system to handle queries without having to reveal the identities of the involved parties. This is used, for example, in confirming the permission for using individual images and other media in the project.
Sexism
Wikipedia has been described as harboring a battleground culture of sexism and harassment.
Operation
A group of Wikipedia editors may form a WikiProject to focus their work on a specific topic area, using its associated discussion page to coordinate changes across multiple articles.
Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia chapters
Wikipedia is hosted and funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization which also operates Wikipedia-related projects such as Wiktionary and Wikibooks. The foundation relies on public contributions and grants to fund its mission. Wikimedia chapters, local associations of users and supporters of the Wikimedia projects also participate in the promotion, development, and funding of the project. The foundation's 2013 IRS Form 990 shows revenue of $39.7 million and expenses of almost $29 million, with assets of $37.2 million and liabilities of about $2.3 million.
In May 2014, Wikimedia Foundation named Lila Tretikov as its new executive director, taking over for Sue Gardner. The Wall Street Journal reported on May 1, 2014 that Tretikov's information technology background from her years at University of California offers Wikipedia an opportunity to develop in more concentrated directions guided by her often repeated position statement that, "Information, like air, wants to be free." The same Wall Street Journal article reported these directions of development according to an interview with spokesman Jay Walsh of Wikimedia who "said Tretikov would address that issue (paid advocacy) as a priority. 'We are really pushing toward more transparency... We are reinforcing that paid advocacy is not welcome.' Initiatives to involve greater diversity of contributors, better mobile support of Wikipedia, new geo-location tools to find local content more easily, and more tools for users in the second and third world are also priorities, Walsh said."
Software operations and support
The operation of Wikipedia depends on MediaWiki, a custom-made, free and open source wiki software platform written in PHP and built upon the MySQL database system. The software incorporates programming features such as a macro language, variables, a transclusion system for templates, and URL redirection. MediaWiki is licensed under the GNU General Public License and it is used by all Wikimedia projects, as well as many other wiki projects. Originally, Wikipedia ran on UseModWiki written in Perl by Clifford Adams (Phase I), which initially required CamelCase for article hyperlinks; the present double bracket style was incorporated later. Starting in January 2002 (Phase II), Wikipedia began running on a PHP wiki engine with a MySQL database; this software was custom-made for Wikipedia by Magnus Manske. The Phase II software was repeatedly modified to accommodate the exponentially increasing demand. In July 2002 (Phase III), Wikipedia shifted to the third-generation software, MediaWiki, originally written by Lee Daniel Crocker.
Several MediaWiki extensions are installed to extend the functionality of the MediaWiki software.
In April 2005, a Lucene extension was added to MediaWiki's built-in search and Wikipedia switched from MySQL to Lucene for searching. The site currently uses Lucene Search 2.1, which is written in Java and based on Lucene library 2.3.
In July 2013, after extensive beta testing, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) extension, VisualEditor, was opened to public use. It was met with much rejection and criticism, and was described as "slow and buggy". The feature was turned off afterward.
Automated editing
Computer programs called bots have been used widely to perform simple and repetitive tasks, such as correcting common misspellings and stylistic issues, or to start articles such as geography entries in a standard format from statistical data. One controversial contributor massively creating articles with his bot was reported to create up to ten thousand articles on the Swedish Wikipedia on certain days. There are also some bots designed to automatically warn editors making common editing errors (such as unmatched quotes or unmatched parenthesis). Edits misidentified by a bot as the work of a banned editor can be restored by other editors. An anti-vandal bot tries to detect and revert vandalism quickly and automatically. Bots can also report edits from particular accounts or IP address ranges, as was done at the time of the MH17 jet downing incident in July 2014. Bots on Wikipedia must be approved prior to activation.
According to Andrew Lih, the current expansion of Wikipedia to millions of articles would be difficult to envision without the use of such bots.
Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality
A "WikiProject" is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over 2,000 WikiProjects and activity varies.
In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles. Articles are rated by Wikiprojects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality classes: either "A", "good article" or the highest, "featured article". Of the about 4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of March 2015, a little more than 5000 (0.12%) are featured articles, and a little less than 2000 (0.04%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of Wikipedia.
The articles can also be rated as per "importance" as judged by a Wikiproject. Currently, there are 5 importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "???" for unclassified/unsure level. For a particular article, different Wikiprojects may assign different importance levels.
The Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Wikipedia. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more Wikiprojects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart. The software regularly auto-updates the data.
Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a few editors. A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.
[Note: The table above (prepared by the Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team) is automatically updated daily by User:WP 1.0 bot, but the bar-chart and the two pie-charts are not auto-updated. In them, new data has to be entered by a Wikipedia editor.]
Hardware operations and support
Wikipedia receives between 25,000 and 60,000 page requests per second, depending on time of day. page requests are first passed to a front-end layer of Squid caching servers. Further statistics, based on a publicly available 3-month Wikipedia access trace, are available. Requests that cannot be served from the Squid cache are sent to load-balancing servers running the Linux Virtual Server software, which in turn pass them to one of the Apache web servers for page rendering from the database. The web servers deliver pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the language editions of Wikipedia. To increase speed further, rendered pages are cached in a distributed memory cache until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses.
Wikipedia currently runs on dedicated clusters of Linux servers (mainly Ubuntu). As of December 2009, there were 300 in Florida and 44 in Amsterdam. By January 22, 2013, Wikipedia had migrated its primary data center to an Equinix facility in Ashburn, Virginia.
Internal research and operational development
In accordance with growing amounts of incoming donations exceeding seven digits in 2013 as recently reported, the Foundation has reached a threshold of assets which qualify its consideration under the principles of industrial organization economics to indicate the need for the re-investment of donations into the internal research and development of the Foundation. Two of the recent projects of such internal research and development have been the creation of a Visual Editor and a largely under-utilized "Thank" tab which were developed for the purpose of ameliorating issues of editor attrition, which have met with limited success. The estimates for reinvestment by industrial organizations into internal research and development was studied by Adam Jaffe who recorded that the range of 4% to 25% annually was to be recommended, with high end technology requiring the higher level of support for internal reinvestment. At the 2013 level of contributions for Wikimedia presently documented as 45 million dollars, the computed budget level recommended by Jaffe and Caballero for reinvestment into internal research and development is between 1.8 million and 11.3 million dollars annually.
According to the Michael Porter five forces analysis framework for industry analysis, Wikipedia and its parent institution Wikimedia are known as "first movers" and "radical innovators" in the services provided and supported by an open-source, on-line encyclopedia. The "five forces" are centered around the issue of "competitive rivalry" within the encyclopedia industry where Wikipedia is seen as having redefined by its "radical innovation" the parameters of effectiveness applied to conventional encyclopedia publication. This is the first force of Porter's five forces analysis. The second force is the "threat of new entrants" with competitive services and products possibly arising on the internet or the web. As a "first mover", Wikipedia has largely eluded the emergence of a fast second to challenge its radical innovation and its standing as the central provider of the services which it offers through the World Wide Web. Porter's third force is the "threat of substitute products" and it is too early to identify Google's "Knowledge Graphs" as an effective competitor given the current dependence of "Knowledge Graphs" upon Wikipedia's free access to its open-source services. The fourth force in the Porter five forces analysis is the "bargaining power of consumers" who use the services provided by Wikipedia, which has historically largely been nullified by the Wikipedia founding principle of an open invitation to expand and edit its content expressed in its moniker of being "the encyclopedia which anyone can edit." The fifth force in the Porter five forces analysis is defined as the "bargaining power of suppliers", presently seen as the open domain of both the global internet as a whole and the resources of public libraries world-wide, and therefore it is not seen as a limiting factor in the immediate future of the further development of Wikipedia.
Internal news publications
Community-produced news publications include the English Wikipedia's The Signpost, founded in 2005 by Michael Snow, an attorney, Wikipedia administrator and former chair of the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees. It covers news and events from the site, as well as major events from other Wikimedia projects, such as Wikimedia Commons. Similar publications are the German-language Kurier, and the Portuguese-language Correio da Wikipédia. Other past and present community news publications on English Wikipedia include the "Wikiworld" web comic, the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject Military History and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. There are also a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the Wikimedia Blog and This Month in Education.
Access to content
Content licensing
When the project was started in 2001, all text in Wikipedia was covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), a copyleft license permitting the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and commercial use of content while authors retain copyright of their work. The GFDL was created for software manuals that come with free software programs licensed under the GPL. This made it a poor choice for a general reference work; for example, the GFDL requires the reprints of materials from Wikipedia to come with a full copy of the GFDL text. In December 2002, the Creative Commons license was released: it was specifically designed for creative works in general, not just for software manuals. The license gained popularity among bloggers and others distributing creative works on the Web. The Wikipedia project sought the switch to the Creative Commons. Because the two licenses, GFDL and Creative Commons, were incompatible, in November 2008, following the request of the project, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released a new version of the GFDL designed specifically to allow Wikipedia to by August 1, 2009. (A new version of the GFDL automatically covers Wikipedia contents.) In April 2009, Wikipedia and its sister projects held a community-wide referendum which decided the switch in June 2009.
The handling of media files (e.g. image files) varies across language editions. Some language editions, such as the English Wikipedia, include non-free image files under fair use doctrine, while the others have opted not to, in part because of the lack of fair use doctrines in their home countries (e.g. in Japanese copyright law). Media files covered by free content licenses (e.g. Creative Commons' CC BY-SA) are shared across language editions via Wikimedia Commons repository, a project operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia's accommodation of varying international copyright laws regarding images has led some to observe that its photographic coverage of topics lags behind the quality of the encyclopedic text.
The Wikimedia Foundation is not a licensor of content, but merely a hosting service for the contributors (and licensors) of the Wikipedia. This position has been successfully defended in court.
Methods of access
Because Wikipedia content is distributed under an open license, anyone can reuse or re-distribute it at no charge. The content of Wikipedia has been published in many forms, both online and offline, outside of the Wikipedia website.
Websites – Thousands of "mirror sites" exist that republish content from Wikipedia: two prominent ones, that also include content from other reference sources, are Reference.com and Answers.com. Another example is Wapedia, which began to display Wikipedia content in a mobile-device-friendly format before Wikipedia itself did.
Mobile apps – A variety of mobile apps provide access to Wikipedia on hand-held devices, including both Android and iOS devices (see Wikipedia apps). (See also Mobile access.)
Search engines – Some web search engines make special use of Wikipedia content when displaying search results: examples include Bing (via technology gained from Powerset) and DuckDuckGo.
Compact discs, DVDs – Collections of Wikipedia articles have been published on optical discs. An English version, 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection, contained about 2,000 articles. The Polish-language version contains nearly 240,000 articles. There are German- and Spanish-language versions as well. Also, "Wikipedia for Schools", the Wikipedia series of CDs / DVDs produced by Wikipedians and SOS Children, is a free, hand-checked, non-commercial selection from Wikipedia targeted around the UK National Curriculum and intended to be useful for much of the English-speaking world. The project is available online; an equivalent print encyclopedia would require roughly 20 volumes.
Books – There are efforts to put a select subset of Wikipedia's articles into printed book form. Since 2009, tens of thousands of print on demand books which reproduced English, German, Russian and French Wikipedia articles have been produced by the American company Books LLC and by three Mauritian subsidiaries of the German publisher VDM.
Semantic Web – The website DBpedia, begun in 2007, extracts data from the infoboxes and category declarations of the English-language Wikipedia. Wikimedia has created the Wikidata project with a similar objective of storing the basic facts from each page of Wikipedia and the other WMF wikis and make it available in a queriable semantic format, RDF. This is still under development. As of Feb 2014 it has 15,000,000 items and 1,000 properties for describing them.
Obtaining the full contents of Wikipedia for reuse presents challenges, since direct cloning via a web crawler is discouraged. Wikipedia publishes "dumps" of its contents, but these are text-only; there was no dump available of Wikipedia's images.
Several languages of Wikipedia also maintain a reference desk, where volunteers answer questions from the general public. According to a study by Pnina Shachaf in the Journal of Documentation, the quality of the Wikipedia reference desk is comparable to a standard library reference desk, with an accuracy of 55%.
Mobile access
Wikipedia's original medium was for users to read and edit content using any standard web browser through a fixed Internet connection. Although Wikipedia content has been accessible through the mobile web since July 2013, The New York Times on February 9, 2014 quoted Erik Moller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, stating that the transition of internet traffic from desktops to mobile devices was significant and a cause for concern and worry. The The New York Times article reported the comparison statistics for mobile edits stating that, "Only 20 percent of the readership of the English-language Wikipedia comes via mobile devices, a figure substantially lower than the percentage of mobile traffic for other media sites, many of which approach 50 percent. And the shift to mobile editing has lagged even more." The New York Times reports that Mr. Moller has assigned "a team of 10 software developers focused on mobile", out of a total of approximately 200 employees working at the Wikimedia Foundation. One principal concern cited by The New York Times for the "worry" is for Wikipedia to effectively address attrition issues with the number of editors which the online encyclopedia attracts to edit and maintain its content in a mobile access environment.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported in July 2014 that Google's Android mobile apps have dominated the largest share of global smartphone shipments for 2013 with 78.6% of market share over their next closest competitor in iOS with 15.2% of the market. At the time of the Tretikov appointment and her posted web interview with Sue Gardner in May 2014, Wikimedia representatives made a technical announcement concerning the number of mobile access systems in the market seeking access to Wikipedia. Directly after the posted web interview, the representatives stated that Wikimedia would be applying an all-inclusive approach to accommodate as many mobile access systems as possible in its efforts for expanding general mobile access, including BlackBerry and the Windows Phone system, making market share a secondary issue. The latest version of the Android app for Wikipedia was released on July 23, 2014 to generally positive reviews, scoring over four of a possible five in a poll of approximately 200,000 users downloading from Google. The latest version for iOS was released on April 3, 2013 to similar reviews.
Access to Wikipedia from mobile phones was possible as early as 2004, through the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), via the Wapedia service. In June 2007 Wikipedia launched en.mobile.wikipedia.org, an official website for wireless devices. In 2009 a newer mobile service was officially released, located at en.m.wikipedia.org, which caters to more advanced mobile devices such as the iPhone, Android-based devices or WebOS-based devices. Several other methods of mobile access to Wikipedia have emerged. Many devices and applications optimise or enhance the display of Wikipedia content for mobile devices, while some also incorporate additional features such as use of Wikipedia metadata (See ), such as geoinformation.
Wikipedia Zero is an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation to expand the reach of the encyclopedia to the developing countries.
Andrew Lih and Andrew Brown both maintain editing Wikipedia with smart phones is difficult and this discourages new potential contributors. Several years running the number of Wikipedia editors has been falling and Tom Simonite of MIT Technology Review claims the bureaucratic structure and rules are a factor in this. Simonite alleges some Wikipedians use the labyrinthine rules and guidelines to dominate others and those editors have a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
Lih alleges there is serious disagreement among existing contributors how to resolve this. Lih fears for Wikipedia’s long term future while Brown fears problems with Wikipedia will remain and rival encyclopedias will not replace it.
Impact
Readership
Wikipedia is extremely popular. In February 2014, The New York Times reported that Wikipedia is ranked fifth globally among all websites, stating "With 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors a month [...] Wikipedia trails just Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and Google, the largest with 1.2 billion unique visitors."
In addition to logistic growth in the number of its articles, Wikipedia has steadily gained status as a general reference website since its inception in 2001. About 50% of search engine traffic to Wikipedia comes from Google, a good portion of which is related to academic research. The number of readers of Wikipedia worldwide reached 365 million at the end of 2009. The Pew Internet and American Life project found that one third of US Internet users consulted Wikipedia. In 2011 Business Insider gave Wikipedia a valuation of $4 billion if it ran advertisements.
According to "Wikipedia Readership Survey 2011", the average age of Wikipedia readers is 36, with a rough parity between genders. Almost half of Wikipedia readers visit the site more than five times a month, and a similar number of readers specifically look for Wikipedia in search engine results. About 47% of Wikipedia readers do not realize that Wikipedia is a non-profit organization.
Cultural significance
Wikipedia's content has also been used in academic studies, books, conferences, and court cases. The Parliament of Canada's website refers to Wikipedia's article on same-sex marriage in the "related links" section of its "further reading" list for the Civil Marriage Act. The encyclopedia's assertions are increasingly used as a source by organizations such as the US federal courts and the World Intellectual Property Organization – though mainly for supporting information rather than information decisive to a case. Content appearing on Wikipedia has also been cited as a source and referenced in some US intelligence agency reports. In December 2008, the scientific journal RNA Biology launched a new section for descriptions of families of RNA molecules and requires authors who contribute to the section to also submit a draft article on the RNA family for publication in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has also been used as a source in journalism, often without attribution, and several reporters have been dismissed for plagiarizing from Wikipedia.
In 2006, Time magazine recognized Wikipedia's participation (along with YouTube, Reddit, MySpace, and Facebook) in the rapid growth of online collaboration and interaction by millions of people worldwide.
In July 2007 Wikipedia was the focus of a 30-minute documentary on BBC Radio 4 which argued that, with increased usage and awareness, the number of references to Wikipedia in popular culture is such that the word is one of a select band of 21st-century nouns that are so familiar (Google, Facebook, YouTube) that they no longer need explanation and are on a par with such 20th-century words as hoovering or Coca-Cola.
On September 28, 2007, Italian politician Franco Grillini raised a parliamentary question with the minister of cultural resources and activities about the necessity of freedom of panorama. He said that the lack of such freedom forced Wikipedia, "the seventh most consulted website", to forbid all images of modern Italian buildings and art, and claimed this was hugely damaging to tourist revenues.
On September 16, 2007, The Washington Post reported that Wikipedia had become a focal point in the 2008 US election campaign, saying: "Type a candidate's name into Google, and among the first results is a Wikipedia page, making those entries arguably as important as any ad in defining a candidate. Already, the presidential entries are being edited, dissected and debated countless times each day." An October 2007 Reuters article, titled "Wikipedia page the latest status symbol", reported the recent phenomenon of how having a Wikipedia article vindicates one's notability.
Active participation also has an impact. Law students have been assigned to write Wikipedia articles as an exercise in clear and succinct writing for an uninitiated audience.
Awards
Wikipedia won two major awards in May 2004. The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities of the annual Prix Ars Electronica contest; this came with a €10,000 (£6,588; $12,700) grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges' Webby Award for the "community" category. Wikipedia was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby award.
In 2007, readers of brandchannel.com voted Wikipedia as the fourth-highest brand ranking, receiving 15% of the votes in answer to the question "Which brand had the most impact on our lives in 2006?"
In September 2008, Wikipedia received Quadriga A Mission of Enlightenment award of Werkstatt Deutschland along with Boris Tadić, Eckart Höfling, and Peter Gabriel. The award was presented to Wales by David Weinberger.
In 2015, Wikipedia was awarded both the annual Erasmus Prize, which recognizes exceptional contributions to culture, society or social sciences, and the Spanish Princess of Asturias Award on International Cooperation. Speaking at the Asturian Parliament in Oviedo, the city that hosts the awards ceremony, Jimmy Wales praised the work of the Asturian language Wikipedia users. The night of the ceremony, members of the Wikimedia Foundation held a meeting with wikipedians from all parts of Spain, including the local Asturian community.
Satire
Many parodies target Wikipedia's openness and susceptibility to inserted inaccuracies, with characters vandalizing or modifying the online encyclopedia project's articles.
Comedian Stephen Colbert has parodied or referenced Wikipedia on numerous episodes of his show The Colbert Report and coined the related term wikiality, meaning "together we can create a reality that we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on". Another example can be found in "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence", a July 2006 front-page article in The Onion., as well as the 2010 The Onion article "'L.A. Law' Wikipedia Page Viewed 874 Times Today".
In an episode of the television comedy The Office U.S., which aired in April 2007, an incompetent office manager (Michael Scott) is shown relying on a hypothetical Wikipedia article for information on negotiation tactics in order to assist him in negotiating lesser pay for an employee. The tactics he used failed, as a joke about the unreliability of Wikipedia and what anyone can do to change its contents. Viewers of the show tried to add the episode's mention of the page as a section of the actual Wikipedia article on negotiation, but this effort was prevented by other users on the article's talk page.
"My Number One Doctor", a 2007 episode of the television show Scrubs, played on the perception that Wikipedia is an unreliable reference tool with a scene in which Dr. Perry Cox reacts to a patient who says that a Wikipedia article indicates that the raw food diet reverses the effects of bone cancer by retorting that the same editor who wrote that article also wrote the Battlestar Galactica episode guide.
In 2008, the comedic website CollegeHumor produced a video sketch named "Professor Wikipedia", in which the fictitious Professor Wikipedia instructs a class with a medley of unverifiable and occasionally absurd statements.
The Dilbert comic strip from May 8, 2009, features a character supporting an improbable claim by saying "Give me ten minutes and then check Wikipedia."
In July 2009, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a comedy series called Bigipedia, which was set on a website which was a parody of Wikipedia. Some of the sketches were directly inspired by Wikipedia and its articles.
In 2010, comedian Daniel Tosh encouraged viewers of his show, Tosh.0, to visit the show's Wikipedia article and edit it at will. On a later episode, he commented on the edits to the article, most of them offensive, which had been made by the audience and had prompted the article to be locked from editing.
On August 23, 2013, the New Yorker website published a cartoon with this caption: "Dammit, Manning, have you considered the pronoun war that this is going to start on your Wikipedia page?"
In December 2015, John Julius Norwich stated, in a letter published in the London Times newspaper, that as an historian he resorted to Wikipedia "at least a dozen times a day", and had never yet caught it out. He described it as "a work of reference as useful as any in existence", with so wide a range that it is almost impossible to find a person, place or thing that it has left uncovered, and that he could never have written his last two books without it.
Sister projects – Wikimedia
Wikipedia has also spawned several sister projects, which are also wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation. These other Wikimedia projects include Wiktionary, a dictionary project launched in December 2002, Wikiquote, a collection of quotations created a week after Wikimedia launched, Wikibooks, a collection of collaboratively written free textbooks and annotated texts, Wikimedia Commons, a site devoted to free-knowledge multimedia, Wikinews, for citizen journalism, and Wikiversity, a project for the creation of free learning materials and the provision of online learning activities. Of these, only Commons has had success comparable to that of Wikipedia. Another sister project of Wikipedia, Wikispecies, is a catalogue of species. In 2012 Wikivoyage, an editable travel guide, and Wikidata, an editable knowledge base, launched.
Publishing
The most obvious economic effect of Wikipedia has been the death of commercial encyclopedias, especially the printed versions, e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica, which were unable to compete with a product that is essentially free. Nicholas Carr wrote a 2005 essay, "The amorality of Web 2.0", that criticized websites with user-generated content, like Wikipedia, for possibly leading to professional (and, in his view, superior) content producers going out of business, because "free trumps quality all the time". Carr wrote: "Implicit in the ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 is the hegemony of the amateur. I for one can't imagine anything more frightening." Others dispute the notion that Wikipedia, or similar efforts, will entirely displace traditional publications. For instance, Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, wrote in Nature that the "wisdom of crowds" approach of Wikipedia will not displace top scientific journals, with their rigorous peer review process.
There is also an ongoing debate about the influence of Wikipedia on the biography publishing business. "The worry is that, if you can get all that information from Wikipedia, what's left for biography?" said Kathryn Hughes, professor of life writing at UEA and author of The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton and George Eliot: the Last Victorian.
Scientific use
In computational linguistics, information retrieval and natural language processing, Wikipedia has seen widespread use as a corpus for linguistic research. In particular, it commonly serves as a target knowledge base for the entity linking problem, which is then called "wikification", and to the related problem of word sense disambiguation. Methods similar to wikification can in turn be used to find "missing" links in Wikipedia.
In 2015, French researchers Dr José Lages of the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon and Dima Shepelyansky of Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse published a global university ranking based on Wikipedia scholarly citations. They used PageRank "followed by the number of appearances in the 24 different language editions of Wikipedia (descending order) and the century in which they were founded (ascending order)."
Related projects
A number of interactive multimedia encyclopedias incorporating entries written by the public existed long before Wikipedia was founded. The first of these was the 1986 BBC Domesday Project, which included text (entered on BBC Micro computers) and photographs from over 1 million contributors in the UK, and covered the geography, art, and culture of the UK. This was the first interactive multimedia encyclopedia (and was also the first major multimedia document connected through internal links), with the majority of articles being accessible through an interactive map of the UK. The user interface and part of the content of the Domesday Project were emulated on a website until 2008.
One of the most successful early online encyclopedias incorporating entries by the public was h2g2, which was created by Douglas Adams. The h2g2 encyclopedia is relatively light-hearted, focusing on articles which are both witty and informative. Everything2 was created in 1998. All of these projects had similarities with Wikipedia, but were not wikis and neither gave full editorial privileges to public users.
GNE, an encyclopedia which was not a wiki, also created in January 2001, co-existed with Nupedia and Wikipedia early in its history; however, it has been retired.
Other websites centered on collaborative knowledge base development have drawn inspiration from Wikipedia. Some, such as Susning.nu, Enciclopedia Libre, Hudong, and Baidu Baike likewise employ no formal review process, although some like Conservapedia are not as open. Others use more traditional peer review, such as Encyclopedia of Life and the online wiki encyclopedias Scholarpedia and Citizendium. The latter was started by Sanger in an attempt to create a reliable alternative to Wikipedia.
See also
Outline of Wikipedia – guide to the subject of Wikipedia presented as a tree structured list of its subtopics; for an outline of the contents of Wikipedia, see Portal:Contents/Outlines
Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia
Democratization of knowledge
Interpedia, an early proposal for a collaborative Internet encyclopedia
List of Internet encyclopedias
Network effect
Print Wikipedia art project to visualize how big Wikipedia is. In cooperation with Wikimedia foundation.
QRpedia – multilingual, mobile interface to Wikipedia
Wikipedia Review
References
Notes
Further reading
Academic studies
Leitch, Thomas. Wikipedia U: Knowledge, authority, and a liberal education in the digital age (2014)
Jensen, Richard. "Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812", The Journal of Military History 76#4 (October 2012): 523–556; online version.
(A blog post by the author.)
Priedhorsky, Reid, Jilin Chen, Shyong (Tony) K. Lam, Katherine Panciera, Loren Terveen, and John Riedl. "Creating, Destroying, and Restoring Value in Wikipedia". Proc. GROUP 2007;
Rosenzweig, Roy. Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. (Originally published in The Journal of American History 93.1 (June 2006): 117–46.)
Books
(See book review by Baker, as listed hereafter.)
(Substantial criticisms of Wikipedia and other web 2.0 projects.)
Listen to:
The NPR interview with A. Keen, Weekend Edition Saturday, June 16, 2007.
Sheizaf Rafaeli & Yaron Ariel (2008). "Online motivational factors: Incentives for participation and contribution in Wikipedia." In
Book reviews and other articles
Baker, Nicholson. "The Charms of Wikipedia". The New York Review of Books, March 20, 2008. Retrieved December 17, 2008. (Book rev. of The Missing Manual, by John Broughton, as listed previously.)
Crovitz, L. Gordon. "Wikipedia's Old-Fashioned Revolution: The online encyclopedia is fast becoming the best." (Originally published in Wall Street Journal online – April 6, 2009.)
Postrel, Virginia, "Who Killed Wikipedia? : A hardened corps of volunteer editors is the only force protecting Wikipedia. They might also be killing it", Pacific Standard magazine, November/December 2014 issue.
Learning resources
Wikiversity list of learning resources. (Includes related courses, Web-based seminars, slides, lecture notes, text books, quizzes, glossaries, etc.)
The Great Book of Knowledge, Part 1: A Wiki is a Kind of Bus, Ideas, with Paul Kennedy, CBC Radio One, originally broadcast January 15, 2014. Webpage includes a link to the archived audio program (also found here). The radio documentary discusses Wikipedia's history, development and its place within the broader scope of the trend to democratized knowledge. It also includes interviews with several key Wikipedia staff and contributors, including Kat Walsh and Sue Gardner (audio, 53:58, Flash required).
Other media coverage
"See Who's Editing Wikipedia – Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign", WIRED, August 14, 2007.
"Is Wikipedia Cracking Up?" The Independent, February 3, 2009.
"Wikipedia probe into paid-for 'sockpuppet' entries", BBC News', October 21, 2013.
"The Decline of Wikipedia", MIT Technology Review, October 22, 2013
Edits to Wikipedia pages on Bell, Garner, Diallo traced to 1 Police Plaza (March 2015), Capital
External links
– multilingual portal (contains links to all language editions)
Wikitrends: Wikipedia articles most visited today
Wikipedia topic page at The New York Times
Video of TED talk by Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia
Audio of interview with Jimmy Wales about Wikipedia in general on the EconTalk podcast
Wikipedia and why it matters – Larry Sanger's 2002 talk at Stanford University; video archive and transcript of the talk
, describing an intelligence project utilizing Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia articles could be auto-generated from web content
Community Performance Optimization: Making Your People Run as Smoothly as Your Site, talk presented at OOPSLA 2009 by the Wikimedia Foundation's senior software architect and former chief technology officer Brion Vibber, comparing the challenges of a large community of editors with those of a large community of software developers
WikiPapers – compilation of conference papers, journal articles, theses, books, datasets and tools about Wikipedia and wikis
Open Wikipedia Ranking
Category:Collaborative projects
Category:Creative Commons-licensed websites
Category:Free encyclopedias
Category:General encyclopedias
Category:Internet properties established in 2001
Category:Multilingual websites
Category:Internet encyclopedias
Category:Open content projects
Category:Social information processing
Category:Virtual communities
Category:Wikimedia projects
Category:Wikis
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Category:American websites
Category:Articles containing video clips |
2016-01 | German_language-697731928 | German_language | German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. A portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. Languages which are most similar to German include Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, the continental Scandinavian languages and Luxembourgish. A Germanophone is a speaker of the German language either natively or by preference.
German is the most widely spoken (and official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Italian province of South Tyrol (Alto Adige) and Liechtenstein; it is also an official (but not majority) language of Belgium and Luxembourg. With slightly different standardized variants (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German), German is a pluricentric language. German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German/Plautdietsch) are alternatively referred to as "languages" and "dialects".
One of the major languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union. German also is the third most widely taught foreign language in both the US and the EU, the second most commonly used scientific language as well as the third most widely used language on websites. Germany is ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in the German language.
History
Origins
The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. The earliest evidence of Old High German is from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the sixth century AD; the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the eighth century; and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the ninth century. Old Saxon, at this time, belonged to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Lower Saxony was to fall under German, rather than Anglo-Frisian, influence during the existence of the Holy Roman Empire.
Because Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German for several hundred years was the general wish of German writers to be understood by as many readers as possible.
Modern German
Germany
When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament, published in parts and completed in 1534), he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony (), also known as (German from the city of Meissen). This language was based on Eastern Upper and Eastern Central German dialects, and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle High German, unlike the spoken German dialects in Central and Upper Germany, which had, at that time, already begun to lose the genitive case and the preterite tense.
Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luther's translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language ()—the difference in relation to "Protestant German" was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, ending the period of Early New High German.
Until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language: in urban northern Germany, the local Low Saxon or Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was markedly different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides; however, the actual pronunciation of Standard German varies from region to region.
The Austrian Empire
German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.
Some cities, such as Prague () and Budapest (Buda, ), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Pozsony (, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Some cities remained mainly non-German, but most cities, such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb (), and Ljubljana (), were primarily German during this time, despite being surrounded by territory where other languages were spoken.
In the eastern provinces of Banat and Transylvania (), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—such as (Timișoara), (Sibiu) and (Brașov)—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.
Standardization
In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form. The (literally, German stage language) had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatre (Bühnendeutsch) three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of Standard German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterize the dialect of the area today—especially the pronunciation of the ending as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, Standard German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of Standard German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century.
Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called , "High German") which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the . This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860. In 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.
Geographic distribution
Due to the German diaspora as well as German being the third most widely taught foreign language in the US and the EU amongst others, the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. As for the number of speakers of any language worldwide, an assessment is always compromised by the lack of sufficient, reliable data. For an exact, global number of native German speakers, this is further complicated by the existence of several idioms whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and/or linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic (e.g., Alsatian), Low German/Plautdietsch, and Yiddish. Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language, 10-25 million as a second language, and 75–100 million as a foreign language. This would imply approximately 175-220 million German speakers worldwide. It is estimated that also including all persons who are or were taking German classes, i.e., regardless of their actual proficiency, would amount to about 280 million people worldwide with at least some knowledge of German.
Europe and Asia
German Sprachraum
The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German Sprachraum". It comprises an estimated 88 million native speakers and 10 million who speak German as a second language (e.g. immigrants). Excluding regional minority languages, German is the only official, nationwide language of
Germany (de facto, not specified in the constitution),
Austria (de jure),
17 cantons of Switzerland (de jure), and
Liechtenstein (de jure).
It is a co-official language of the
Italian Autonomous Province of South Tyrol (also majority language),
Belgium (as majority language only in the German-speaking Community),
four cantons of Switzerland, and
Luxembourg.
Outside the Sprachraum
Minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World Wars greatly diminished them, remnants of these communities survived and are now widely regarded as cultural assets in their respective host countries.
Within Europe and Asia, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:
Bosnia and Herzegovina (see also: )
Czech Republic (see also: Germans in the Czech Republic)
Denmark (see also: North Schleswig Germans)
Hungary (see also: Germans of Hungary)
Italy (outside of South Tyrol; see also: Cimbrian, Mòcheno/Fersentalerisch, Walser German)
Kazakhstan (see also: Germans of Kazakhstan)
Poland (see also German minority in Poland; German is auxiliary language in 31 communes; de facto in today's Poland there is not a single locality or even village neighborhood where German would be used as a language of everyday communication )
Romania (see also: Germans of Romania)
Russia (see also: Germans in Russia)
Slovakia (see also: Carpathian Germans)
Ukraine (see also: Germans in Ukraine)
In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. In the Netherlands, the Limburgish, Frisian, and Low German languages are protected regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, however they are widely considered separate languages and neither German nor Dutch dialects.
Africa
Namibia
Namibia used to be a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Mostly descending from German settlers who immigrated during this time, 25–30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today. German, along with English and Afrikaans was a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. At this point, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language, claiming that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans and several indigenous languages became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, German is used in a wide variety of spheres, especially business and tourism, as well as the churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), schools (e.g. the ), literature (German-Namibian authors include Giselher W. Hoffmann), radio (the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation produces radio programs in German), and music (e.g. artist EES). The is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.
South Africa
Mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, an estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "", a variety of Low German, concentrated in and around Wartburg. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.
North America
In the United States, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the most common language spoken at home after English. German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region of the country, such as New Ulm and many other towns in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg (named after a town near Odessa in Ukraine) in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, and Muenster in Texas; Corn (formerly Korn), Kiefer and Berlin in Oklahoma; and Kiel, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin.
Between 1843 and 1910, more than 5 million Germans emigrated overseas, mostly to the United States. German remained an important language in churches, schools, newspapers, and even the administration of the United States Brewers' Association through the early 20th century, but was severely repressed during World War I. Over the course of the 20th century, many of the descendants of 18th century and 19th century immigrants ceased speaking German at home, but small populations of speakers are still found in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites, Dunkards and some Mennonites historically spoke Hutterite German and a West Central German variety of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch), Kansas (Mennonites and Volga Germans), North Dakota (Hutterite Germans, Mennonites, Russian Germans, Volga Germans, and Baltic Germans), South Dakota, Montana, Texas (Texas German), Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Ohio (72,570). A significant group of German Pietists in Iowa formed the Amana Colonies and continue to practice speaking their heritage language. Early twentieth century immigration was often to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.
The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies or communities founded by German-speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from. For example, Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia. Texas German is a dialect spoken in the areas of Texas settled by the Adelsverein, such as New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. In the Amana Colonies in the state of Iowa, Amana German is spoken. Plautdietsch is a large minority language spoken in Northern Mexico by the Mennonite communities, and is spoken by more than 200,000 people in Mexico. Pennsylvania German is a West Central German dialect spoken by most of the Amish population of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana and resembles Palatinate German dialects.
Hutterite German is an Upper German dialect of the Austro-Bavarian variety of the German language, which is spoken by Hutterite communities in Canada and the United States. Hutterite is spoken in the U.S. states of Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota; and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Its speakers belong to some Schmiedleit, Lehrerleit, and Dariusleit Hutterite groups, but there are also speakers among the older generations of Prairieleit (the descendants of those Hutterites who chose not to settle in colonies). Hutterite children who grow up in the colonies learn to speak Hutterite German before learning English, the standard language of the surrounding areas, in school. Many of these children, though, continue with German Grammar School, in addition to public school, throughout a student's elementary education.
In Canada, there are 622,650 speakers of German according to the most recent census in 2006, with people of German ancestry (German Canadians) are found throughout the country. German-speaking communities are particularly found in British Columbia (118,035) and Ontario (230,330). There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, which was at one point named Berlin. German immigrants were instrumental in the country's three largest urban areas: Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver; post-Second World War immigrants managed to preserve a fluency in the German language in their respective neighborhoods and sections. In the first half of the 20th century, over a million German-Canadians made the language Canada's third most spoken after French and English.
In Mexico there are also large populations of German ancestry, mainly in the cities of: Mexico City, Puebla, Mazatlán, Tapachula, Ecatepec de Morelos, and larger populations scattered in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Zacatecas.
South America
In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo. There are also important concentrations of German-speaking descendants in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia. In the 20th century, over 100,000 German political refugees and invited entrepreneurs settled in Latin America, in countries such as Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, to establish German-speaking enclaves, and reportedly there is a small German immigration to Puerto Rico. In most locations where German immigrants settled, the vast majority of their descendents no longer speak German, as they have been largely assimilated into the host language and culture of the specific location of settlement; generally Spanish or Portuguese.
Co-official statuses of German or German varieties in Brazil
Espírito Santo (statewide cultural language)
Domingos Martins
Laranja da Terra
Pancas
Santa Maria de Jetibá
Vila Pavão
Rio Grande do Sul
Santa Maria do Herval
Canguçu
Santa Catarina
Antônio Carlos
Pomerode
Oceania
In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of immigration in the 1840s from Prussia (particularly the Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German has developed and is spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the twentieth century but now its use is limited to a few older speakers.
German migration to New Zealand in the 19th century was less pronounced than migration from Britain, Ireland, and perhaps even Scandinavia. Despite this there were significant pockets of German-speaking communities which lasted until the first decades of the 20th century. German-speakers settled principally in Puhoi, Nelson, and Gore. At the last census (2006), 37,500 people in New Zealand spoke German, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.
There is also an important German creole being studied and recovered, named , spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, across Micronesia and in northern Australia (i.e. coastal parts of Queensland and Western Australia), by a few elderly people. The risk of its extinction is serious and efforts to revive interest in the language are being implemented by scholars.
German as a foreign language
Like French, German has become a classic second foreign language in the western world, as English (Spanish in the US) is well established as first foreign language. German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French) as well as in Russia. In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French) as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French). In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide. As this number remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million), roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as foreign language can be inferred assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, 47 million people, i.e., up to two thirds of this global number, within the EU claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and Northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland. German was once and, to some extent, is still, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.
Standard German
Standard German originated not as a traditional dialect of a specific region but as a written language. However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial standard German differs greatly from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.
Standard German differs regionally between German-speaking countries in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.
In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties according to circumstances.
Varieties of Standard German
In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of standard German.
The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They differ only slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
German Standard German
Austrian Standard German
Swiss Standard German
In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of standard German is largely restricted to the written language. This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, whereas Austrian Standard German is officially used in the Austrian education system.
A mixture of dialect and standard does not normally occur in Northern Germany either. The traditional varieties there are Low German, whereas Standard German is a High German "variety". Because their linguistic distance to it is greater, they do not mesh with Standard German the way that High German dialects (such as Bavarian, Swabian, Hessian) can.
Dialects
German is a member of the West Germanic language of the Germanic family of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family. The German dialects are the traditional local varieties, many of them are hardly understandable to someone who knows only standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance in the Ethnologue). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.
The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers. The same phenomenon is found in the eastern Netherlands, as the traditional dialects are not always identified with their Low Saxon/Low German origins, but with Dutch.
The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.
Low German
Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. The translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, based around northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.
The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. Today, Low Saxon can be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a reasonable Standard German influx and varieties of Standard German with a Low Saxon influence known as . Sometimes, Low Saxon and Low Franconian varieties are grouped together because both are unaffected by the High German consonant shift. However, the proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II.
High German
High German is divided into Central German, High Franconian (a transitional dialect), and Upper German. Central German dialects include Ripuarian, Moselle Franconian, Rhine Franconian, Central Hessian, East Hessian, North Hessian, Thuringian, Silesian German, Lorraine Franconian, , North Upper Saxon, High Prussian, and Upper Saxon. It is spoken in the southeastern Netherlands, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of France and parts of Germany roughly between the river Main and the southern edge of the Lowlands. Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German, but the common (linguistically incorrect) German term for modern Standard German is , High German.
The Moselle Franconian varieties spoken in Luxembourg have been officially standardised and institutionalised and are usually considered a separate language known as Luxembourgish.
The two High Franconian dialects are East Franconian and South Franconian.
Upper German dialects include Northern Austro-Bavarian, Central Austro-Bavarian, Southern Austro-Bavarian, Swabian, East Franconian, High Alemannic German, Highest Alemannic German, Alsatian and Low Alemannic German. They are spoken in parts of the Alsace, southern Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy.
Wymysorys is a High German dialect of Poland native to Wilamowice, and and are High German dialects of Romania. The High German varieties spoken by Ashkenazi Jews (mostly in the former Russian Empire) have several unique features, and are usually considered as a separate language, Yiddish. It is the only Germanic language that does not use the Latin script as the basis of its standard alphabet.
Grammar
German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.
Noun inflection
German nouns inflect by case, gender and number:
four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative.
three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender: for instance, nouns ending in (-ing), (-ship), or (-hood, -ness) are feminine, and nouns ending in or (diminutive forms) are neuter and nouns ending in (-ism) are masculine. Others are more variable, sometimes depending on the region in which the language is spoken; and some endings are not restricted to one gender, e.g. (-er), e.g. (feminine), celebration, party, (masculine), labourer, and (neuter), thunderstorm.
two numbers: singular and plural.
This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic and Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number, but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns, in the genitive and sometimes in the dative. Both of these cases are losing ground to substitutes in informal speech. The dative noun ending is considered somewhat old-fashioned in many contexts and is often dropped, but it is still used in proverbs and the like, in formal speech and in written language. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: .
In German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised to make it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence (—"On Friday I went shopping."; —"One day he finally showed up.") This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in other languages such as Danish (which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948) and English.
Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun compounds in which the first noun modifies the category given by the second,: ("dog hut"; specifically: "dog kennel"). Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: ("tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds in theory (see also English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is , which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duty assignment law" [from (cattle), (meat), (labelling), (supervision), (duties), (assignment), (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward or even satiric.
Verb inflection
The inflection of standard German verbs includes:
two main conjugation classes: weak and strong (as in English). Additionally, there is a third class, known as mixed verbs, whose conjugation combines features of both the strong and weak patterns.
three persons: first, second and third.
two numbers: singular and plural.
three moods: indicative, imperative and subjunctive (in addition to infinitive)
two voices: active and passive. The passive voice uses auxiliary verbs and is divisible into static and dynamic. Static forms show a constant state and use the verb ’’to be’’ (sein). Dynamic forms show an action and use the verb “to become’’ (werden).
two tenses without auxiliary verbs (present and preterite) and four tenses constructed with auxiliary verbs (perfect, pluperfect, future and future perfect).
the distinction between grammatical aspects is rendered by combined use of subjunctive and/or preterite marking so the plain indicative voice uses neither of those two markers; the subjunctive by itself conveys secondhand information; subjunctive plus preterite marks the conditional state; and the preterite alone shows either plain indicative (in the past), or functions as a (literal) alternative for either second-hand-information or the conditional state of the verb, when necessary for clarity.
the distinction between perfect and progressive aspect is and has, at every stage of development, been a productive category of the older language and in nearly all documented dialects, but, strangely enough, it is now rigorously excluded from written usage in its present normalised form.
disambiguation of completed vs. uncompleted forms is widely observed and regularly generated by common prefixes ( [to look], [to see—unrelated form: ]).
Verb prefixes
The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix refers to destruction, as in (to tear apart), (to break apart), (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in (to try) from (to seek), (to interrogate) from (to take), (to distribute) from (to share), (to understand) from (to stand).
Other examples include the following:
(to stick), (to detain); (to buy), (to sell); (to hear), (to cease); (to drive), (to experience).
Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, , meaning "to go along", would be split, giving (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").
Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement:
A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:
He "came" on Friday evening, after a hard day at work and the usual annoyances that had time and again been troubling him for years now at his workplace, with questionable joy, to a meal which, as he hoped, his wife had already put on the table, finally at home "on".
Word order
German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For polar questions, exclamations and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end.
German requires for a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence. The verb is preceded by the topic of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are some possibilities:
(The old man gave me yesterday the book; normal order)
(The book gave [to] me yesterday the old man)
(The book gave the old man [to] me yesterday)
(The book gave [to] me the old man yesterday)
(Yesterday gave [to] me the old man the book, normal order)
([To] me gave the old man the book yesterday (entailing: as for you, it was another date))
The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.
However, German's flexibile word order allows one to emphasise specific words:
Normal word order:
The manager entered yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office.
Object in front:
His office entered the manager yesterday at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand.
The object (his office) is thus highlighted; it could be the topic of the next sentence.
Adverb of time in front:
Yesterday entered the manager at 10 o'clock with an umbrella in the hand his office. (but today without umbrella)
Both time expressions in front:
.
Yesterday at 10 o'clock entered the manager with an umbrella in the hand his office.
The full-time specification is highlighted.
Another possibility:
.
Yesterday at 10 o'clock the manager entered his office with an umbrella in his hand.
Both the time specification and the fact he carried an umbrella are accentuated.
Swapped adverbs:
The manager entered with an umbrella in the hand yesterday at 10 o'clock his office.
The phrase is highlighted.
Swapped object:
The warden entered yesterday at 10 o'clock his office with an umbrella in his hand.
The time specification and the object (his office) are lightly accentuated.
The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as poetic meter and figures of speech) more freely.
Auxiliary verbs
When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:
(The old man has me today the book given.)
(The book has the old man me today given.)
(Today has the old man me the book given.)
Modal verbs
Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"
Multiple infinitives
German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle in is often replaced by the infinitive.
V psv perf mod
One suspects that the deserter probably shot become be should.
("It is suspected that the deserter probably should have been shot")
He knew not that the agent a picklock had make let
He knew not that the agent a picklock make let had
("He did not know that the agent had had a picklock made")
The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the latter version is unusual.
Vocabulary
Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the European language family. However, there is a significant amount of loanwords from other languages, in particular from Latin, Greek, Italian, French and most recently English.
Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. , , , , from Latin , , , , ). Borrowing from Latin continued after the fall of the Roman Empire during Christianization, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism. In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance, and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.
At the same time, the effectiveness of the German language in forming equivalents for foreign words from its inherited Germanic stem repertory is great. Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises in pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000. The tradition of loan translation was revitalized in the 18th century, with linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced hundreds of words that are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that try to promote the (substitution) of foreign words deemed unnecessary with German alternatives. It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated and as well democratise public life.
As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.
- "historical", ()
- "humaneness", ()
- "millennium", ()
- "perception", ()
- "vocabulary", ()
The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The (The German Dictionary) initiated by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).
The Duden is the de facto official dictionary of the German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880. The Duden is updated regularly, with new editions appearing every four or five years. it is in its 26th edition and in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects such as loanwords, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, and so forth.The first of these volumes, (), has long been the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The Duden has become the bible of the German language, being the definitive set of rules regarding grammar, spelling and usage of German.
The ("Austrian Dictionary"), abbreviated , is the official dictionary of the German language in the Republic of Austria. It is edited by a group of linguists under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (). It is the Austrian counterpart to the German Duden and contains a number of terms unique to Austrian German or more frequently used or differently pronounced there. A considerable amount of this "Austrian" vocabulary is also common in Southern Germany, especially Bavaria, and some of it is used in Switzerland as well. The most recent edition is the 42nd from 2012. Since the 39th edition from 2001 the orthography of the was adjusted to the German spelling reform of 1996. The dictionary is also officially used in the Italian province of South Tyrol.
Orthography
German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with Umlaut, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as the Eszett or (sharp s), ß. In Switzerland "ss" is used instead of "ß". Additionally, when written in capitals, "ß" is replaced with "ss" in Germany, whereas in Austria it is traditionally replaced with "sz" (the same digraph used in Hungarian for the "s" sound); there are some exceptions to these rules (see below).
Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features — German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns, a relic of a widespread practice in Northern Europe in the early modern era (including English for a while, in the 1700s) — and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. The longest German word that has been published is made of 79 characters. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (In contrast, although English can also string nouns together, it usually separates the nouns with spaces.)
Present
Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word-endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs. Because there is no capital ß, it is always written as "SS" when capitalization is required. For example, (tape measure) is capitalized . An exception is the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, a "ß" is used instead of "SS". (So: "" instead of "".) A capital ß has been proposed and included in Unicode ("ẞ"; Unicode character U+1E9E), but it is not yet recognized as standard German. In Switzerland, ß is not used at all.
Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner ß can be transcribed as ss. Some operating systems use key sequences to extend the set of possible characters to include, amongst other things, umlauts; in Microsoft Windows this is done using Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available because they are a makeshift, not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld , Coesfeld and Itzehoe , but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)
There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book occurs after but before (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary comes after , but in some dictionaries and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.
Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in .
Past
Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages. (Often, foreign names in a text were printed in an Antiqua typeface even though the rest of the text was in Fraktur.) The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish. It is also believed that the Nazi régime had banned this script as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.
The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.
A proper use of the long s, (), ſ, is essential for writing German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces include the long s also. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but nowadays it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words (guard-house) and (tube of polish/wax). One can easily decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, ( vs. ). The long s only appears in lower case.
Reform of 1996
The orthography reform of 1996 led to public controversy and considerable dispute. The states () of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria would not accept it. The dispute landed at one point in the highest court, which made a short issue of it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule—everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the coming school year. In 2007, some traditional spellings were finally invalidated, whereas in 2008, on the other hand, many of the old comma rules were again put in force.
The most noticeable change was probably in the use of the letter ß, called (Sharp S) or (pronounced ess-tsett). Traditionally, this letter was used in three situations:
After a long vowel or vowel combination,
Before a t, and
At the end of a syllable
Thus , , and . Currently only the first rule is in effect, thus , , and . The word 'foot' has the letter ß because it contains a long vowel, even though that letter occurs at the end of a syllable. The logic of this change is that an 'ß' is a single letter whereas 'ss' obviously are two letters, so the same distinction applies as for instance between the words and .
Phonology
Vowels
In German, vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) are either short or long, as follows:
Short is realized as in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short can be spelled either with e or with ä (for instance, "would have" and "chain" rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are close. The one exception is the open sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, and have merged into , removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like 'bears/berries' or 'spike (of wheat)/honour' become homophonous (see: Captain Bluebear).
In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed is not pronounced , but vocalised to .
Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
If a vowel (other than i) is at the end of a syllable or followed by a single consonant, it is usually pronounced long (e.g. ).
If a vowel is followed by h or if an i is followed by an e, it is long.
If the vowel is followed by a double consonant (e.g. ff, ss or tt), ck, tz or a consonant cluster (e.g. st or nd), it is nearly always short (e.g. ). Double consonants are used only for this function of marking preceding vowels as short; the consonant itself is never pronounced lengthened or doubled, in other words this is not a feeding order of gemination and then vowel shortening.
Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. "has" is short despite the first rule; , "moon" is long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences: In central Germany (Hessen), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long, whereas most other Germans would pronounce it short; the same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word "cities", is pronounced with a short vowel by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short ( "compartment", "kitchen") or long ( "search", "books") almost at random. Thus, is homographous between "puddle" and "manner of laughing" (colloquial) or "laugh!" (imperative).
German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:
Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme , which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, an at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised is not a phonemic diphthong: "bear", "he", "we", "gate", "short", "words".
In most varieties of standard German, syllables that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop .
Consonants
With approximately 25 phonemes, the German consonant system exhibits an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate . The consonant inventory of the standard language is shown below.
1 has two allophones, and , after back and front vowels, respectively.
2 has three allophones in free variation: , and . In the syllable coda, the allophone is found in many varieties.
3 The voiceless stops , , are aspirated except when preceded by a sibilant, exactly as in English.
4 The voiced stops , , are devoiced to , , , respectively, in word-final position.
5 and occur only in words of foreign (usually English or French) origin.
Where a stressed syllable has an initial vowel, it is preceded by . As its presence is predictable from context, is not considered a phoneme.
Consonant spellings
c standing by itself is not a German letter. In borrowed words, it is usually pronounced (before ä, äu, e, i, ö, ü, y) or (before a, o, u, and consonants). The combination ck is, as in English, used to indicate that the preceding vowel is short.
ch occurs often and is pronounced either (after ä, ai, äu, e, ei, eu, i, ö, ü and consonants; in the diminutive suffix ; and at the beginning of a word), (after a, au, o, u), or at the beginning of a word before a, o, u and consonants. Ch never occurs at the beginning of an originally German word. In borrowed words with initial Ch before front vowels ( "chemistry" etc.), is considered standard. However, Upper Germans and Franconians (in the geographical sense) replace it with , as German as a whole does before darker vowels and consonants such as in , . Middle Germans (except Franconians) will borrow a from the French model. Both agree in considering each other's variant, and Upper Germans also the standard in , as particularly awkward and unusual.
dsch is pronounced (e.g. "jungle") but appears in a few loanwords only.
f is pronounced as in "father".
h is pronounced as in "home" at the beginning of a syllable. After a vowel it is silent and only lengthens the vowel (e.g. = roe deer).
j is pronounced in Germanic words ( ) (like "y" in "year"). In recent loanwords, it follows more or less the respective languages' pronunciations.
l is always pronounced , never (the English "dark L").
q only exists in combination with u and is pronounced . It appears in both Germanic and Latin words ( ; ). But as most words containing q are Latinate, the letter is considerably rarer in German than it is in English.
r is usually pronounced in a guttural fashion (a voiced uvular fricative or uvular trill ) in front of a vowel or consonant ( ; ). In spoken German, however, it is commonly vocalised after a vowel ( being pronounced rather like — ). In some varieties, the r is pronounced as a "tongue-tip" r (the alveolar trill ).
s in German is pronounced (as in "zebra") if it forms the syllable onset (e.g. ), otherwise (e.g. ). In Austria and Switzerland and often in Southern Germany, it is always pronounced . A ss indicates that the preceding vowel is short. st and sp at the beginning of words of German origin are pronounced and , respectively.
ß (a letter unique to German called or ) was a ligature of a double s and of an sz and is always pronounced . Originating in Blackletter typeface, it traditionally replaced ss at the end of a syllable (e.g. → ; → ); within a word it contrasts with ss in indicating that the preceding vowel is long (compare "with moderation" and "in loads"). The use of ß has recently been limited by the latest German spelling reform and is no longer used for ss after a short vowel (e.g. and were always pronounced with a short U/Ü); Switzerland and Liechtenstein already abolished it in 1934.
sch is pronounced (like "sh" in "shine").
tion in Latin loanwords is pronounced .
th is found, rarely, in loanwords and is pronounced
v is pronounced in a limited number of words of Germanic origin, such as , "bird", "from, of", "before, in front of", "full" and the prefix . It is also used in loanwords, where it is normally pronounced . This pronunciation is common in words like , , , , , , and English loanwords; however, pronunciation is by some people in some in the very south. The only non-German word in which "v" normally is pronounced "f" is (Eve).
w is pronounced as in "vacation" (e.g. ).
y is pronounced as when long, and when short (as in ; or ), except in ay and ey which are both pronounced . It is also often used in loanwords and pronounced like in the original language like in Style or Recycling.
z is always pronounced (e.g. ), except in loanwords. A tz indicates that the preceding vowel is short.
Consonant shifts
German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sounds, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and the 10th centuries. It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German , "this" and "that" → and , "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → , "think" → , "thirsty" → and many other examples.
Likewise, the gh in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an f, or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → , "through" and "thorough" → , "high" → , "naught" → , "light" → or , "sight" → , "daughter" → , "neighbour" → .
Literature
The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
The , whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collections collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.
Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who was the first to translate the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for the modern "High German" language. Among the most well known German poets and authors are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht and Heine. Thirteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek and Herta Müller.
German loanwords in the English language
English has taken many loanwords from German, often without any change of spelling (aside from, often, the elimination of umlauts and not capitalizing nouns):
Organisations
The use and learning of the German language are promoted by a number of organisations.
Goethe-Institut
The government-backed (named after the famous German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example, the teaches the German language qualification.
Verein Deutsche Sprache
The Dortmund-based , which was founded in 1997, supports the German language and is the largest language association of citizens in the world. The VDS has more than thirty-five thousand members in over seventy countries. Its founder, statistics professor Dr. Walter Krämer, has remained chairperson of the association from its beginnings.
Deutsche Welle
The German state broadcaster is the equivalent of the British BBC World Service and provides radio and television broadcasts in German and 30 other languages across the globe. Its German language services are tailored for German language learners by being spoken at slow speed. also provides an website to learn German.
See also
Deutsch (disambiguation)
German family name etymology
German toponymy
Germanism (linguistics)
List of German exonyms
List of German expressions in English
List of non-English-language newspapers in New South Wales#German language newspapers
List of pseudo-German words adapted to English
List of terms used for Germans
Names for the German language
Otto Basler
References
Notes
Bibliography
Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
Michael Clyne, The German Language in a Changing Europe (1995) ISBN 0-521-49970-4
George O. Curme, A Grammar of the German Language (1904, 1922)—the most complete and authoritative work in English
Anthony Fox, The Structure of German (2005) ISBN 0-19-927399-5
The survey of the Germanic branch languages includes chapters by Winfred P. Lehmann, Ans van Kemenade, John Ole Askedal, Erik Andersson, Neil Jacobs, Silke Van Ness, and Suzanne Romaine.
W.B. Lockwood, German Today: The Advanced Learner's Guide (1987) ISBN 0-19-815850-5
Ruth H. Sanders. German: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press; 2010) 240 pages. Combines linguistic, anthropological, and historical perspectives in a "biography" of German in terms of six "signal events" over millennia, including the Battle of Kalkriese, which blocked the spread of Latin-based language north.
External links
Duden, the de-facto official German dictionary
Leo, free online German dictionary
Category:Fusional languages
Category:High German languages
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Category:Languages of Denmark
Category:Languages of Germany
Category:Languages of Hungary
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Category:Languages of Namibia
Category:Languages of Switzerland
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Category:Subject–verb–object languages
Category:Verb-second languages |
2016-01 | Korean_language-697690273 | Korean_language | Korean language
Korean (, see below) is the official language of both South Korea and North Korea, as well as one of the two official languages in China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. About 80 million people speak Korean worldwide. For over a millennium, Koreans wrote with adapted Chinese characters called hanja, complemented by phonetic systems like hyangchal, gugyeol, and idu. In the 15th century, Sejong the Great commissioned a national writing system called Hangul, but it only came into widespread use in the 20th century, because of the yangban aristocracy's preference for hanja.
Historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. The idea that Korean belongs to a putative Altaic language family has been generally discredited. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
History
Korean is descended from Proto-Korean, Old Korean, Middle Korean, and Modern Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Names
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by many names including hangug-eo ( "Korean language"),
hangug-mal (한국말, "Korean speech") and uri-mal (우리말, "our speech"). In "hangug-eo" and "hangug-mal", the first part of the word,
"hanguk", refers to the Korean nation while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively.
Korean is also referred to as gug-eo (, literally "national language"). This name is based off the same Chinese characters 國語 (meaning "nation" + "language") that are also used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages.
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called Choseon-mal (), or more formally, Choseon-eo ().
The English word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo (고려), which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (고려사람; also Goryeo In [; ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Koryo-mar ().
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ ( or the short form: Cháoyǔ ()) has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, whereas Hánguóyǔ ( or the short form: Hányǔ ()) is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.
Some older English sources also use the spelling "Corea" to refer to the country, and its inflected form for the language and people, "Korea" becoming more popular in the late 1800s according to Google's NGram English corpus as of 2015.
Classification
The majority of historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. There are still a small number who think that Korean might be related to the putative Altaic language grouping, but linguists agree today that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages, as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely.
The hypothesis that Korean might be related to Japanese has had some supporters due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin and Roy Andrew Miller. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list. Some linguists concerned with the issue, for example Alexander Vovin, have argued that the indicated similarities between Japanese and Korean are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing, especially from ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning "hemp". This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern Ryūkyū, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-Ryūkyūan dialect group. Also, the doublet wo meaning "hemp" is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryūkyū. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. (See Classification of Japonic languages for further details on a possible relationship.)
Among ancient languages, various closer relatives of Korean have been proposed, constituting a possible small Koreanic language family. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language.
Geographic distribution and international spread
Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, the United States, Japan, and Russia. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Koreans may speak it with native fluency.
Official status
Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.
In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language (; 國立國語院), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Language Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences (; 社會科學院語學研究所, Sahoe Kwahagwon Ŏhak Yŏnguso).
King Sejong Institute
It's a central public institution supporting the King Sejong Institute which is the overseas educational institution of the Korean language and Korean cultures.
It was established based on Article 9, Section 2 of the [Framework Act on the National Language] in order to do coordination management of the government's propagation project of the Korean language and Korean cultures.
Increase in the demand for the Korean language education
Rapid increase in the Korean language education thanks to the spread of Hanryu, Increase in international marriage, expansion of Korean enterprises' making inroads into overseas markets, and enforcement of employment license system
Necessity of the National Brand representing the educational institution of the Korean language
Awareness of necessity of specialized brand cultivation which can do general support of overseas Korean language education based on the successful strategic propagation project of their own language
TOPIK KOREA Institute
TOPIK KOREA Institute is a lifelong educational center affiliated with a variety of Korean universities in Seoul, South Korea, whose aim is to promote Korean language and culture, support local Korean teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.
The TOPIK KOREA Institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as King Sejong Institute. Unlike the organization, however, TOPIK KOREA Institutes operate within established universities and colleges around the world, providing educational materials.
Dialects
Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal () [literally "speech"], saturi (), or bang'eon () in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of both South Korea and North Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, though the northern standard has been influenced by the dialect of P'yŏngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other and at least partially mutually intelligible, though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be sometimes classified as a separate language. One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, whereas speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect maintain the pitch accent of Middle Korean. Some dialects are conservative, maintaining Middle Korean sounds (such as z, β, ə) which have been lost from the standard language, whereas others are highly innovative.
There is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean 입 "mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect vs. Standard Korean "garlic chives". This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.
There are few clear boundaries between Korean dialects, and they are typically partially grouped according to the regions of Korea.
Phonology
Consonants
1 The semivowels and are represented in Korean writing by modifications to vowel symbols (see below).
The IPA symbol (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.
Vowels
ㅏ is closer to a near-open central vowel (), though is still used for tradition.
Allophones
is aspirated and becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see North–South differences in the Korean language). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (버섯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
frequently denasalize to at the beginnings of words.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . Note that a written syllable-final 'ㄹ', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ㅇ'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western loanwords changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or . The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (두음법칙) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in North Korea.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) at the end of a word are pronounced with no audible release, .
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial . For example,
"labor" – north: rodong (로동), south: nodong (노동)
"history" – north: ryŏksa (력사), south: yeoksa (역사)
"female" – north: nyŏja (녀자), south: yeoja (여자)
Morphophonemics
Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-은/-는) and -i/-ga (-이/-가). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-을/-를), -euro/-ro (-으로/-로), -eseo/-seo (-에서/-서), -ideunji/-deunji (-이든지/-든지) and -iya/-ya (-이야/-야). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a rieul consonant.
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Grammar
Korean is an agglutinative language. The Korean language is traditionally considered to have nine parts of speech. For details, see Korean parts of speech. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is subject–object–verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element.
"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
"Yes."
Speech levels and honorifics
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean grammar. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, whereas that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
Honorifics
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.
Honorifics in traditional Korea were strictly hierarchical. The caste and estate systems possessed patterns and usages much more complex and stratified than those used today. The intricate structure of the Korean honorific system flourished in traditional culture and society. Honorifics in contemporary Korea are now used for people who are psychologically distant. Honorifics are also used for people who are superior in status. For example, older relatives, people who are older, teachers, and employers.
Speech levels
There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorifics—which are used to show respect towards the referent (the person spoken of) —speech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience (the person spoken to). The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb 하다 (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix 체 ("che", hanja: 體), which means "style".
The highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (존댓말), whereas the lowest level (haeche, 해체) is called banmal (반말) in Korean.
Nowadays, younger-generation speakers no longer feel obligated to lower their usual regard toward the referent. It is common to see younger people talk to their older relatives with banmal (반말). This is not out of disrespect, but instead it shows the intimacy and the closeness of the relationship between the two speakers. Transformations in social structures and attitudes in today's rapidly changing society have brought about change in the way people speak.
Gender and the Korean language
Korean genders are viewed with somewhat stronger gender roles than in the west, and there are stronger contrasts between the genders within Korean speech. Some examples of this can be seen in: (1) softer tone used by women in speech; (2) a married woman introducing herself as someone’s mother or wife, not with her own name; (3) the presence of gender differences in titles and occupational terms (for example, a sajang is a company president and yŏsajang is a female company president.); (4) females sometimes using more tag questions and rising tones in statements, also seen in speech from children.
In Western societies, individuals tend to avoid expressions of power asymmetry, mutually addressing each other by their first names for the sake of solidarity. Between two people of asymmetrical status in a Korean society, people tend to emphasize differences in status for the sake of solidarity. Koreans prefer to use kinship terms rather than any other terms of reference. In traditional Korean society, women have long been in disadvantaged positions. Korean social structure traditionally was a patriarchically dominated family system that emphasized the maintenance of family lines. This structure has tended to separate roles of women from those of men.
Vocabulary
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. A significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, either
directly borrowed from written Chinese, or
coined in Korea or Japan using Chinese characters,
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50–60%. Later, the same author (2006, p. 5) gives an even higher estimate of 65%. Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Keun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the colonial period include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%.
Korean has two numeral systems: one native, and one borrowed from Sino-Korean.
To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.
The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, approximately 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Western languages such as German via Japanese (아르바이트 (areubaiteu) "part-time job", 알레르기 (allereugi) "allergy", 기브스 (gibseu or gibuseu) "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > dāsu > daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current "Hangulization" rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see names of Germany), the first part of whose endonym the Japanese approximated using the kanji doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: dok + il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented "Hangeulizations" of the countries' endonyms or English names.
Because of such a prevalence of English in modern Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or 'Konglish' (콩글리쉬), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary).
Korean uses words adapted from English in ways that may seem strange to native English speakers. For example, in soccer heading () is used as a noun meaning a 'header', whereas fighting () is a term of encouragement like 'come on'/'go (on)' in English. Something that is 'service' () is free or 'on the house'. A building referred to as an 'apart-uh' () is an 'apartment' (but in fact refers to a residence more akin to a condominium) and a type of pencil that is called a 'sharp' () is a mechanical pencil.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign influences on the Korean language in the North. In the early years, the North Korean government tried to eliminate Sino-Korean words. Consequently, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which are not in North Korean.
Writing system
Formerly, the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using hanja, called hyangchal or idu: the use of Chinese characters either as rebuses to stand for Korean words, or as synonyms for those words. Writing was confined to the ruling elite, who most often wrote only in Classical Chinese.
Sejong the Great promulgated the Korean alphabet, hangul, in 1446. Korean is now written almost exclusively in hangul, which is sometimes combined with hanja in South Korea. South Korean high schools still teach 1,800 hanja, while North Korea abolished hanja after 1948.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom.
Differences between North Korean and South Korean
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.
Pronunciation
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced between vowels.
Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently, such as the examples below. The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune–Reischauer and Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one were to write the word as pronounced.
* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "的" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ㄴ, ㅁ or ㅇ. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)
Spelling
Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.
Spelling and pronunciation
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="4" |Word
! rowspan="2" |Meaning
! rowspan="2" |Remarks
|-
! North spelling
! North pronun.
! South spelling
! South pronun.
|-
|
| ryeongryang (ryŏngryang)
|
| yeongnyang (yŏngnyang)
| strength
| Initial r'''s are dropped if followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
|-
|
| rodong (rodong)
|
| nodong (nodong)
| work
| Initial r's are demoted to an n if not followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
|-
|
| wonssu (wŏnssu)
|
| wonsu (wŏnsu)
| mortal enemy
| "Mortal enemy" and "field marshal" are homophones in the South. Possibly to avoid referring to Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il or Kim Jong-un as the enemy, the second syllable of "enemy" is written and pronounced 쑤 in the North.
|-
|
| rajio (rajio)
|
| radio (radio)
| radio
|
|-
|
| u (u)
|
| wi (wi)
| on; above
|
|-
|
| anhae (anhae)
|
| anae (anae)
| wife
|
|-
|
| kkuba (kkuba)
|
| kuba (k'uba)
| Cuba
| When transcribing foreign words from languages that do not have contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated stops, North Koreans generally use tensed stops for the unaspirated ones while South Koreans use aspirated stops in both cases.
|-
|
|pe (p'e)
|
|pye (p'ye), pe (p'e)
|lungs
|In the case where ye comes after a consonant, such as in hye and pye, it is pronounced without the palatal approximate. North Korean orthography reflect this pronunciation nuance.
|}
In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:
Grammar
Some grammatical constructions are also different:
Vocabulary
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:
Punctuation
In the North, guillemets and are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, “ and ”, are standard, although and are also used.
Study by non-native learners
For native English speakers, Korean is generally considered to be one of the most difficult languages to master despite the relative ease of learning Hangul. For instance, the United States' Defense Language Institute places Korean in Category IV, which also includes Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese. This means that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute places Korean in Category V, the highest level of difficulty.
The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; they are estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities. However, Sejong Institutes in the United States have noted a sharp rise in the number of people of other ethnic backgrounds studying Korean between 2009 and 2011; they attribute this to rising popularity of South Korean music and television shows.
Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners.
Korean language tests
There are two widely used tests of Korean as a foreign language: the Korean Language Proficiency Test (KLPT) and the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK). The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination. The TOPIK was first administered in 1997 and was taken by 2,274 people. Since then the total number of people who have taken the TOPIK has surpassed 1 million, with more than 150,000 candidates taking the test in 2012.
The TOPIK test has three different difficulty levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced; the difficulty level of the test taken determines the level achieved—the beginner test is levels 1 and 2; intermediate is levels 3 and 4; and advanced is levels 5 and 6. The TOPIK includes four sections: vocabulary/grammar (어휘및 문법), writing (쓰기), listening (듣기), and reading (읽기). The vocabulary/grammar section, listening section, and reading section each consist of 30 multiple choice questions worth a total of 100 points. The writing section consists of 10 multiple-choice questions worth 4 points each, and 4-6 written responses worth 60 points. The overall total score out of 400 is determined by adding up the 4 scores from each individual 100-point section. However, the level achieved is not simply a matter of achieving a minimum total score; the test-taker must achieve a minimum score in each section in addition to a minimum average total score. In order to achieve the lower of the two levels on each test (levels 1, 3, and 5), the test-taker must get at least 40 points in each of the four sections, and must get an average total score of 50 on the four sections. In order to achieve the higher of the two levels on each test (levels 2, 4, and 6), the test-taker must get at least 50 points in each of the four sections, and must get an average total score of 70 on the four sections.
See also
Hangul
Korean count word
Korean language and computers
Korean mixed script
Korean numerals
Korean particles
Korean phonology
Korean romanization
McCune–Reischauer
Revised romanization of Korean
SKATS
Yale romanization of Korean
Altaic languages
Hanja (ancient Chinese characters in Korean)
List of English words of Korean origin
List of Korea-related topics
Sino-Korean vocabulary
Vowel harmony
References
Further reading
Argüelles, Alexander, and Jong-Rok Kim (2000). A Historical, Literary and Cultural Approach to the Korean Language. Seoul: Hollym.
Argüelles, Alexander, and Jongrok Kim (2004). A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
Arguelles, Alexander (2007). Korean Newspaper Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
Arguelles, Alexander (2010). North Korean Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press
(Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
Hulbert, Homer B. (1905). A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
Martin, Samuel E. (1966). Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185–251.
Martin, Samuel E. (1990). Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483–509.
Miller, Roy Andrew (1971). Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52719-0.
Miller, Roy Andrew (1996). Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 974-8299-69-4.
Ramstedt, G. J. (1928). Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
Rybatzki, Volker (2003). Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3: 47–82.
Starostin, Sergei A., Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (2003). Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13153-1.
Sohn, H.-M. (1999). The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Song, J.-J. (2005). The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
Trask, R. L. (1996). Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
Vovin, Alexander (2010). Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Whitman, John B. (1985). The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean''. Unpublished Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation.
External links
Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
Sogang University free online Korean language and culture course
USA Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course
Linguistic map of Korea
dongsa.net, Korean verb conjugation tool
Korean Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary)
Hanja Explorer, a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary
Category:Agglutinative languages
Category:Buyeo languages
Category:Languages of China
Category:Languages of Japan
Category:Languages of Korea
Category:Languages of North Korea
Category:Languages of South Korea
Category:Languages of Canada
Category:Languages of the United States
Category:National symbols of Korea
Category:Subject–object–verb languages |
2016-01 | Toy_Story-697504174 | Toy_Story | Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated buddy-comedy adventure film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by John Lasseter, Toy Story was the first feature-length computer-animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar. Toy Story follows a group of anthropomorphic toys who pretend to be lifeless whenever humans are present, and focuses on the relationship between Woody, a pullstring cowboy doll (voiced by Tom Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure (voiced by Tim Allen). The film was written by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, and Joss Whedon, and featured music by Randy Newman. Its executive producers were Steve Jobs and Edwin Catmull.
Pixar, which produced short animated films to promote their computers, was approached by Disney to produce a computer-animated feature after the success of the short film, Tin Toy (1988), which is told from a small toy's perspective. Lasseter, Stanton, and Pete Docter wrote early story treatments which were thrown out by Disney, who pushed for a more edgy film. After disastrous story reels, production was halted and the script was re-written, better reflecting the tone and theme Pixar desired: that "toys deeply want children to play with them, and that this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions." The studio, then consisting of a relatively small number of employees, produced the film under minor financial constraints.
The top-grossing film on its opening weekend, Toy Story went on to earn over $361 million worldwide. Reviews were positive, praising both the animation's technical innovation and the screenplay's wit and sophistication, and it is now widely considered by many critics to be one of the best animated films ever made. The film received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for "You've Got a Friend in Me", as well as winning a Special Achievement Academy Award. It was inducted into the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2005, its first year of eligibility. In addition to home media releases and theatrical re-releases, Toy Story-inspired material has run the gamut from toys, video games, theme park attractions, spin-offs, merchandise, and two sequels—Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010)—both of which also garnered massive commercial success and critical acclaim, with a third sequel, Toy Story 4, slated for a 2018 release.
Plot
In a world where toys pretend to be lifeless in the presence of humans, Woody, a pullstring cowboy toy, is the leader of a group of toys that are owned by a boy named Andy Davis. With his family moving away one week before his birthday, Andy is given a week-early party to spend with his friends, while the toys stage a reconnaissance mission to discover Andy's new presents. Andy receives a spaceman action figure named Buzz Lightyear, whose impressive features see him replacing Woody as Andy's favorite toy. Woody becomes resentful, especially when he notices that Buzz also gets attention from the other toys. However, Buzz believes himself to be a real space ranger on a mission to return to his home planet, while Woody tries to convince him that he is just a toy.
As Andy prepares for a family outing at Pizza Planet, his mother allows him to bring only one toy along. Fearing Andy will choose Buzz, Woody attempts to trap Buzz behind a desk, but the plan ends in failure when Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out the window, which results in the other toys turning against Woody by accusing him of eliminating Buzz out of jealousy. Now that Buzz is missing, Andy reluctantly takes Woody to Pizza Planet, but Buzz climbs into the car and confronts Woody when they stop at a gas station. As they argue, they fall out of the van, which drives off and leaves them behind. While Buzz still believes he is a real space ranger, Woody spots a Pizza Planet delivery truck and convinces him that it can take him to a space port. As Woody looks for Andy at Pizza Planet, Buzz sees a rocket-shaped skill game and jumps inside, mistaking it for a real spaceship. Woody follows him in it, but Andy's toy-abusing neighbor, Sid Phillips, arrives and operates the machine, maneuvering the claw to snag Buzz and Woody who are then taken to his house.
At Sid's house, Woody and Buzz try to escape before Andy's moving day, encountering Sid's abused toy creations and his vicious bull terrier Scud. During an attempt, Buzz sees a commercial for Buzz Lightyear action figures and realizes that he is actually a toy himself. Disbelieving, he attempts to prove that he could fly, but falls and crashes down the stairs, breaks his left arm off and becomes depressed. Woody sees Andy's other toys from a distance and cannot convince them that Buzz is alive. After Sid's toys fix Buzz's arm to Woody's surprise, Sid decides to blow up the space ranger with a firework rocket, but a thunderstorm delays the plan. That night, Woody tells Buzz that he can bring joy to Andy as a toy, reinvigorating his spirit. The next morning, Woody and Sid's toys rescue Buzz and scare Sid into no longer abusing toys by coming to life in front of him. Woody and Buzz then leave Sid's house just as Andy's mother drives away toward their new house.
They manage to climb onto the moving truck, but Scud chases after them and tries to pull Woody off the truck. Buzz tackles the dog and is left behind. Woody tries rescuing Buzz with Andy's RC car, but the other toys, still thinking Woody is eliminating fellow toys, attack the cowboy and toss him off the truck. Having evaded Scud, Buzz and RC pickup Woody and continue after the truck. Upon seeing Woody and Buzz together on RC, the other toys realize their mistake and try to help them get back aboard but RC's batteries become depleted, stranding them. Woody then ignites the rocket on Buzz's back and manages to throw RC into the truck before they soar into the air. Buzz opens his wings to free himself from the rocket before it explodes, gliding with Woody to land safely into a box in the van, right next to Andy.
On Christmas, at their new house, Woody and Buzz stage another reconnaissance mission to prepare for the new toy arrivals. As Woody jokingly asks what might be worse than Buzz, they discover Andy's new gift is a puppy, and the two share a worried smile.
Cast
Main cast
Tom Hanks as Sheriff Woody, a cowboy pull-string doll
Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger action figure
Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, a potato shaped doll with put together pieces on his body
Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, a dachshund slink toy
Wallace Shawn as Rex, a cowardly green Tyrannosaurus rex
John Ratzenberger as Hamm, a piggy bank
Annie Potts as Bo Peep, a shepherdess and Woody's love interest
John Morris as Andy Davis, the young boy who owns all the toys
Erik von Detten as Sid Phillips, Andy's next door neighbor and a bully, who destroys toys for his own amusement
Laurie Metcalf as Ms. Davis, Andy's mother
R. Lee Ermey as Sarge, a green plastic figure soldier
Sarah Freeman as Hannah Phillips, Sid's younger sister
Penn Jillette as TV announcer
Additional voices
Hannah Unkrich as Molly Davis, Andy's baby sister
Jack Angel as Shark/Rocky Gibraltar
Greg Berg as Minesweeper Soldier
Debi Derryberry as Squeeze toy aliens/Pizza Planet Intercom
Mickie McGowan as Ms. Phillips, Sid's mother
Ryan O'Donohue as kid in Buzz Lightyear commercial
Jeff Pidgeon as Squeeze toy aliens/Mr. Spell/Robot
Phil Proctor as Pizza Planet guard/bowling announcer
Joe Ranft as Lenny
Andrew Stanton as Buzz Lightyear commercial chorus
Production
Development
Director John Lasseter's first experience with computer animation was during his work as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation, when two of his friends showed him the lightcycle scene from Tron. It was an eye-opening experience which awakened Lasseter to the possibilities offered by the new medium of computer-generated animation. Lasseter tried to pitch the idea of a fully computer-animated film to Disney, but the idea was rejected and Lasseter was fired. He then went on to work at Lucasfilm and later as a founding member of Pixar, which was purchased by entrepreneur and Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs in 1986. At Pixar, Lasseter created short, computer-animated films to show off the Pixar Image Computer's capabilities, and Tin Toy (1988) —a short told from the perspective of a toy, referencing Lasseter's love of classic toys— would go on to claim the 1988 Academy Award for animated short films, the first computer-generated film to do so. Tin Toy gained Disney's attention, and the new team at The Walt Disney Company—CEO Michael Eisner and chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg in the film division —began a quest to get Lasseter to come back. Lasseter, grateful for Jobs’ faith in him, felt compelled to stay with Pixar, telling co-founder Ed Catmull, "I can go to Disney and be a director, or I can stay here and make history." Katzenberg realized he could not lure Lasseter back to Disney and therefore set plans into motion to ink a production deal with Pixar to produce a film. Disney had always made their own movies in the house, and refused to change this. But when Tim Burton, who used to work a Disney, wanted to buy back the rights to The Nightmare Before Christmas, it was made a deal that he could make it as a Disney movie outside the studio. Which also opened the door for Pixar, which could make their movies outside Disney.
Both sides were willing. Catmull and fellow Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith had long wanted to produce a computer-animated feature. In addition, Disney had licensed Pixar's Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), and that made it the largest customer for Pixar’s computers. Jobs made it apparent to Katzenberg that although Disney was happy with Pixar, it was not the other way around: "We want to do a film with you," said Jobs. "That would make us happy." At this same time, Peter Schneider, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, was potentially interested in making a feature film with Pixar. When Catmull, Smith and head of animation Ralph Guggenheim met with Schneider in the summer of 1990, they found the atmosphere to be puzzling and contentious. They later learned that Katzenberg intended that if Disney were to make a film with Pixar, it would be outside Schneider's purview, which aggravated Schneider. After that first meeting, the Pixar contingent went home with low expectations and were surprised when Katzenberg called for another conference. Catmull, Smith and Guggenheim were joined by Bill Reeves (head of animation research and development), Jobs, and Lasseter. They brought with them an idea for a half-hour television special called A Tin Toy Christmas. They reasoned that a television program would be a sensible way to gain experience before tackling a feature film.
They met with Katzenberg at a conference table in the Team Disney building at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. Catmull and Smith considered it would be difficult to keep Katzenberg interested in working with the company over time. They considered it even more difficult to sell Lasseter and the junior animators on the idea of working with Disney, who had a bad reputation for how they treated their animators, and Katzenberg, who had built a reputation as a micromanaging tyrant. Katzenberg asserted this himself in the meeting: "Everybody thinks I’m a tyrant. I am a tyrant. But I’m usually right." He threw out the idea of a half-hour special and eyed Lasseter as the key talent in the room: "John, since you won't come work for me, I'm going to make it work this way." He invited the six visitors to mingle with the animators—"ask them anything at all"—and the men did so, finding they all backed up Katzenberg's statements. Lasseter felt he would be able to work with Disney and the two companies began negotiations. Pixar at this time was on the verge of bankruptcy and needed a deal with Disney. Katzenberg insisted that Disney be given the rights to Pixar’s proprietary technology for making 3-D animation, but Jobs refused. In another case, Jobs demanded Pixar would have part ownership of the film and its characters, sharing control of both video rights and sequels, but Katzenberg refused. Disney and Pixar reached accord on contract terms in an agreement dated May 3, 1991, and signed on in early July. Eventually the deal specified that Disney would own the picture and its characters outright, have creative control, and pay Pixar about 12.5% of the ticket revenues. It had the option (but not the obligation) to do Pixar’s next two films and the right to make (with or without Pixar) sequels using the characters in the film. Disney could also kill the film at any time with only a small penalty. These early negotiations would become a point of contention between Jobs and Eisner for many years.
An agreement to produce a feature film based on Tin Toy with a working title of Toy Story was finalized and production began soon thereafter.
Writing
The original treatment for Toy Story, drafted by Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Docter, had little in common with the eventual finished film. It paired Tinny, the one-man band from Tin Toy with a ventriloquist's dummy and sent them on a sprawling odyssey. Under studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg, Woody was the main villain, abusing the others toys until they rallied against him; however after Disney executive saw the storyboards they relinquished creative control to Pixar. The core idea of Toy Story was present from the treatment onward, however: that "toys deeply want children to play with them, and that this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions." Katzenberg felt the original treatment was problematic and told Lasseter to reshape Toy Story as more of an odd-couple buddy picture, and suggested they watch some classic buddy movies, such as The Defiant Ones and 48 Hrs., in which two characters with different attitudes are thrown together and have to bond. Lasseter, Stanton, and Docter emerged in early September 1991 with the second treatment, and although the lead characters were still Tinny and the dummy, the outline of the final film was beginning to take shape.
The script went through many changes before the final version. Lasseter decided Tinny was "too antiquated", and the character was changed to a military action figure, and then given a space theme. Tinny's name changed to Lunar Larry, then Tempus from Morph, and eventually Buzz Lightyear (after astronaut Buzz Aldrin). Lightyear's design was modeled on the suits worn by Apollo astronauts as well as G.I. Joe action figures. Woody, the second character, was inspired by a Casper the Friendly Ghost doll that Lasseter had when he was a child. Originally, Woody was a ventriloquist's dummy with a pull-string (hence the name Woody). However, character designer Bud Luckey suggested that Woody could be changed to a cowboy ventriloquist dummy. John Lasseter liked the contrast between the Western genre and the Sci-Fi genre and the character immediately changed. Eventually all the ventriloquist dummy aspects of the character were deleted, because the dummy was designed to look "sneaky and mean." However they kept the name Woody to pay homage to the Western actor Woody Strode. The story department drew inspiration from films such as Midnight Run and The Odd Couple, and Lasseter screened Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky (1986) for further influence.
Toy Storys script was strongly influenced by the ideas of screenwriter Robert McKee. The members of Pixar's story team—Lasseter, Stanton, Docter and Joe Ranft—were aware that most of them were beginners at writing for feature films. None of them had any feature story or writing credits to their name besides Ranft, who had taught a story class at CalArts and did some storyboard work prior. Seeking insight, Lasseter and Docter attended a three-day seminar in Los Angeles given by McKee. His principles, grounded in Aristotle's Poetics, dictated that a character emerges most realistically and compellingly from the choices that the protagonist makes in reaction to his problems. Disney also appointed Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow and, later, Joss Whedon to help develop the script. Whedon found that the script wasn't working but had a great structure, and added the character of Rex and sought a pivotal role for Barbie. The story team continued to touch up the script as production was underway. Among the late additions was the encounter between Buzz and the alien squeaky toys at Pizza Planet, which emerged from a brainstorming session with a dozen directors, story artists, and animators from Disney.
Casting
Katzenberg gave approval for the script on January 19, 1993, at which point voice casting could begin. Lasseter always wanted Tom Hanks to play the character of Woody. Lasseter claimed Hanks "has the ability to take emotions and make them appealing. Even if the character, like the one in A League of Their Own, is down-and-out and despicable." Billy Crystal was approached to play Buzz, but turned down the role, which he later regretted, and subsequently accepted the role of Mike Wazowski in another Pixar success, Monsters, Inc.. Bill Murray was also considered for Buzz. Jim Carrey was considered for Buzz as well. Lasseter took the role to Tim Allen, who was appearing in Disney's Home Improvement, and he accepted.
To gauge how an actor's voice would fit with a character, Lasseter borrowed a common Disney technique: animate a vocal monologue from a well-established actor to meld the actor's voice with the appearance or actions of the animated character. This early test footage, using Hanks' voice from Turner & Hooch, convinced Hanks to sign on to the film. Toy Story was both Hanks and Allen's first animated film role.
Production shutdown
Every couple of weeks, Lasseter and his team would put together their latest set of storyboards or footage to show Disney. In early screen tests, Pixar impressed Disney with the technical innovation but convincing Disney of the plot was more difficult. At each presentation by Pixar, Katzenberg would tear much of it up, giving out detailed comments and notes. Katzenberg’s big push was to add more edginess to the two main characters. Disney wanted the film to appeal to both children and adults, and asked for adult references to be added to the film. After many rounds of notes from Katzenberg and other Disney execs, the general consensus was that Woody had been stripped of almost all charm. Tom Hanks, while recording the dialogue for the story reels, exclaimed at one point that the character was a jerk. Lasseter and his Pixar team had the first half of the movie ready to screen, so they brought it down to Burbank to show to Katzenberg and other Disney executives on November 19, 1993, an event they later dubbed "The Black Friday Incident." The results were disastrous, and Schneider, who was never particularly enamored of Katzenberg’s idea of having outsiders make animation for Disney, declared it a mess and ordered that production be stopped immediately. Katzenberg asked colleague Thomas Schumacher why the reels were bad. Schumacher replied bluntly: "Because it’s not their movie anymore."
Lasseter was embarrassed with what was on the screen, later recalling, "It was a story filled with the most unhappy, mean characters that I’ve ever seen." He asked Disney for the chance to retreat back to Pixar and rework the script in two weeks, and Katzenberg was supportive. Lasseter, Stanton, Docter and Ranft delivered the news of the production shutdown to the production crew, many of whom had left other jobs to work on the project. In the meantime, the crew would shift to television commercials while the head writers worked out a new script. Although Lasseter kept morale high by remaining outwardly buoyant, the production shutdown was "a very scary time," recalled story department manager BZ Petroff. Schneider had initially wanted to shutdown production altogether and fire all recently hired animators. Katzenberg put the film under the wing of Walt Disney Feature Animation. The Pixar team was pleased that the move would give them an open door to counsel from Disney's animation veterans. Schneider, however, continued to take a dim view of the project and would later go over Katzenberg's head to urge Eisner to cancel it. Stanton retreated into a small, dark windowless office, emerging periodically with new script pages. He and the other story artists would then draw the shots on storyboards. Whedon came back to Pixar for part of the shutdown to help with revising, and the script was revised in two weeks as promised. When Katzenberg and Schneider halted production on Toy Story, Steve Jobs kept the work going with his own personal funding. Jobs did not insert himself much into the creative process, respecting the artists at Pixar and instead managing the relationship with Disney.
The Pixar team came back with a new script three months later, with the character of Woody morphed from being a tyrannical boss of Andy’s other toys to being their wise leader. It also included a more adult-oriented staff meeting amongst the toys rather than a juvenile group discussion that had existed in earlier drafts. Buzz Lightyear's character was also changed slightly "to make it more clear to the audience that he really doesn't realize he's a toy." Katzenberg and Schneider approved the new approach, and by February 1994 the film was back in production. The voice actors returned in March 1994 to record their new lines. When production was greenlit, the crew quickly grew from its original size of 24 to 110, including 27 animators, 22 technical directors, and 61 other artists and engineers. In comparison, The Lion King, released in 1994, required a budget of $45 million and a staff of 800. In the early budgeting process, Jobs was eager to produce the film as efficiently as possible, impressing Katzenberg with his focus on cost-cutting. Despite this, the $17 million production budget was proving inadequate, especially given the major revision that was necessary after Katzenberg had pushed them to make Woody too edgy. Jobs demanded more funds to complete the film right, and insisted that Disney was liable for the cost overruns. Katzenberg was not willing, and Ed Catmull, described as "more diplomatic than Jobs," was able to reach a compromise.
Animation
Recruiting animators for Toy Story was brisk; the magnet for talent was not the pay, generally mediocre, but rather the allure of taking part in the first computer-animated feature. Lasseter said that on the challenges of the computer animation in the film "We had to make things look more organic. Every leaf and blade of grass had to be created. We had to give the world a sense of history. So the doors are banged up, the floors have scuffs." The film began with animated storyboards to guide the animators in developing the characters. 27 animators worked on the film, using 400 computer models to animate the characters. Each character was either created out of clay or was first modeled off of a computer-drawn diagram before reaching the computer animated design. Once the animators had a model, articulation and motion controls were coded; this would allow each character to move in a variety of ways, such as talking, walking, or jumping. Out of all the characters, Woody was the most complex, as he required 723 motion controls, including 212 for his face and 58 for his mouth. The first piece of animation, a 30-second test, was delivered to Disney in June 1992 when the company requested a sample of what the film would look like. Lasseter wanted to impress Disney with a number of things in the test that could not be done in traditional, hand-drawn animation, such as Woody's yellow plaid shirt with red stripes, the reflections in Buzz's helmet, the decals on his space suit, or venetian blind shadows falling across Andy's room.
Every shot in the film passed through the hands of eight different teams. The art department gave a shot its color scheme and general lighting. Under Craig Good, the layout department then placed the models in the shot, framed it by setting the location of the virtual camera, and programmed any camera motion. To make the medium feel as familiar as possible, they sought to stay within the limits of what might be done in a live-action film with real cameras, dollies, tripods, and cranes. Headed by directing animators Rich Quade and Ash Brannon, a shot went to the animation department from layout. Lasseter opted against Disney's approach of assigning an animator to work on a character throughout a film, but made certain exceptions in scenes where he felt acting was particularly critical. The animators used the Menv program to set each character into a desired pose. Once a sequence of hand-built poses (or "keyframes") was created, the software would build poses for the frames in-between. The animators studied videotapes of the actors for inspiration, and Lasseter rejected automatic lip-syncing. To sync the characters' mouths and facial expressions to the actors' voices, animators spent a week per 8 seconds of animation.
Afterward, the animators would compile the scenes, and develop a new storyboard with the computer animated characters. They then added shading, lighting, visual effects, and finally used 300 computer processors to render the film to its final design. Under Tom Porter, the shading team used RenderMan's shader language to create shader programs for each of a model's surfaces. A few surfaces in Toy Story came from real objects: a shader for the curtain fabric in Andy's room used a scan of actual cloth. Under Galyn Susman and Sharon Calahan, the lighting team orchestrated the final lighting of the shot after animation and shading. Each completed shot then went into rendering on a "render farm" of 117 Sun Microsystems computers that ran 24 hours a day. Finished animation emerged in a steady drip of around three minutes a week. Each frame took from 45 minutes up to 30 hours to render, depending on its complexity. In total, the film required 800,000 machine hours and 114,240 frames of animation. There are over 77 minutes of animation spread across 1,561 shots. A camera team, aided by David DiFrancesco, recorded the frames onto film stock. Toy Story was rendered at a mere 1,536 by 922 pixels, with each of those pixels corresponding to roughly a quarter inch of screen area on a typical cinema screen. During post-production, the film was sent to Skywalker Sound, where the sound effects were mixed with the music score.
Music
Disney was concerned with Lasseter's position on the use of music. Unlike other Disney films of the time, Lasseter did not want the film to be a musical, saying it was a buddy film featuring "real toys." Joss Whedon agreed saying, "It would have been a really bad musical, because it's a buddy movie. It's about people who won't admit what they want, much less sing about it. ... Buddy movies are about sublimating, punching an arm, 'I hate you.' It's not about open emotion." However, Disney favored the musical format, claiming "Musicals are our orientation. Characters breaking into song is a great shorthand. It takes some of the onus off what they're asking for." Disney and Pixar reached a compromise: the characters in Toy Story would not break into song, but the film would use songs over the action, as in The Graduate, to convey and amplify the emotions that Buzz and Woody were feeling. Disney and Lasseter tapped Randy Newman to compose the film. The edited Toy Story was due to Newman and Gary Rydstrom in late September 1995 for their final work on the score and sound design, respectively.
Lasseter claimed "His songs are touching, witty, and satirical, and he would deliver the emotional underpinning for every scene." Newman developed the film's signature song "You've Got a Friend in Me" in one day.
Editing and pre-release
It was difficult for crew members to perceive the film's quality during much of the production process, when the finished footage was in scattered pieces and lacked elements like music and sound design. Some animators felt the film would be a significant disappointment commercially, but felt animators and animation fans would find it interesting. According to Lee Unkrich, one of the original editors of Toy Story, a scene was cut out of the original final edit. The scene features Sid, after Pizza Planet, torturing Buzz and Woody violently. Unkrich decided to cut right into the scene where Sid is interrogating the toys because the creators of the movie thought the audience would be loving Buzz and Woody at that point. Another scene, where Woody was trying to get Buzz's attention when he was stuck in the box crate, was shortened because the creators felt it would lose the energy of the movie. Peter Schneider had grown buoyant about the film as it neared completion, and announced a United States release date of November, coinciding with Thanksgiving weekend and the start of the winter holiday season.
Sources indicate that executive producer Steve Jobs lacked confidence in the film during its production, and he had been talking to various companies, ranging from Hallmark to Microsoft, about selling Pixar. However, as the film progressed, Jobs became ever more excited about it, feeling that he might be on the verge of transforming the movie industry. As scenes from the movie were finished, he watched them repeatedly and had friends come by his home to share his new passion. Jobs decided that the release of Toy Story that November would be the occasion to take Pixar public. A test audience near Anaheim in late July 1995 indicated the need for last-minute tweaks, which added further pressure to the already frenetic final weeks. Response cards from the audience were encouraging, but were not top of the scale, adding further question as to how audiences would respond. The film ended with a shot of Andy's house and the sound of a new puppy. Michael Eisner, who attended the screening, told Lasseter afterward that the film needed to end with a shot of Woody and Buzz together, reacting to the news of the puppy.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Toy Story was produced by Walt Disney Records and was released on November 22, 1995, the week of the film's release. Scored and written by Randy Newman, the soundtrack has received praise for its "sprightly, stirring score". Despite the album's critical success, the soundtrack only peaked at number 94 on the Billboard 200 album chart. A cassette and CD single release of "You've Got a Friend in Me" was released on April 12, 1996, to promote the soundtrack's release. The soundtrack was remastered in 2006. After it went out of print, the album was made available for purchase digitally in retailers such as iTunes. The soundtrack, along with Newman's complete unreleased score for the film was reissued on July 17, 2015 as part of the Walt Disney Records: The Legacy Collection series.
Tracklisting
Charts
Release
There were two premieres of Toy Story in November 1995. Disney organized one at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, and built a fun house, Totally Toy Story, next door featuring the characters. Jobs did not attend and instead rented the Regency, a similar theater in San Francisco, and held his own premiere the next night. Instead of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the guests were Silicon Valley celebrities, such as Larry Ellison and Andy Grove. The dueling premieres highlighted a festering issue between the companies: whether Toy Story was a Disney or a Pixar film. "The audience appeared to be captivated by the film," wrote David Price in his 2008 book The Pixar Touch. "Adult-voiced sobs could be heard during the quiet moments after Buzz Lightyear fell and lay broken on the stairway landing." Toy Story opened on 2,281 screens in the United States on November 22, 1995 (before later expanding to 2,574 screens). It was paired alongside a reissue of a Roger Rabbit short called Rollercoaster Rabbit, while select prints contained The Adventures of André and Wally B..
The film was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival out of competition from February 15 to 26, 1996. Elsewhere, the film opened in March 1996.
Marketing
Marketing for the film included $20 million spent by Disney for advertising as well as advertisers such as Burger King, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Payless ShoeSource paying $125 million in tied promotions for the film. A marketing consultant reflected on the promotion: "This will be a killer deal. How can a kid, sitting through a one-and-a-half-hour movie with an army of recognizable toy characters, not want to own one?" Despite this, Disney Consumer Products was slow to see the potential of Toy Story early on. When the Thanksgiving release date was announced in January 1995, many toy companies were accustomed to having eighteen months to two years of runway time, and passed on the project. In February 1995, Disney took the idea to Toy Fair, a toy industry trade show in New York. There, a Toronto-based company with a factory based in China, Thinkway Toys, became interested. Although Thinkway was a small player in the industry, mainly producing toy banks in the form of film characters, it was able to scoop up the worldwide master license for Toy Story toys simply because no one else wanted it. Walt Disney Home Video put a trailer for the film on seven million copies of the VHS re-release of Cinderella; the Disney Channel ran a television special on the making of Toy Story; Walt Disney World in Florida held a daily Toy Story parade at Disney-MGM Studios.
It was screenwriter Joss Whedon's idea to incorporate Barbie as a character who would rescue Woody and Buzz in the film's final act. The idea was dropped after Mattel objected and refused to license the toy. Producer Ralph Guggenheim claimed that Mattel did not allow the use of the toy as "They [Mattel] philosophically felt girls who play with Barbie dolls are projecting their personalities onto the doll. If you give the doll a voice and animate it, you're creating a persona for it that might not be every little girl's dream and desire." Hasbro likewise refused to license G.I. Joe (mainly because Sid was going to blow one up), but they did license Mr. Potato Head. The only toy in the movie that was not in production was Slinky Dog, which was discontinued since the 1970s. When designs for Slinky were sent to Betty James (Richard James's wife) she said that Pixar had improved the toy and that it was "cuter" than the original.
3-D re-release
On October 2, 2009, the film was re-released in Disney Digital 3-D. The film was also released with Toy Story 2 as a double feature for a two-week run which was extended due to its success. In addition, the film's second sequel, Toy Story 3, was also released in the 3-D format. Lasseter commented on the new 3-D re-release:
"The Toy Story films and characters will always hold a very special place in our hearts and we're so excited to be bringing this landmark film back for audiences to enjoy in a whole new way thanks to the latest in 3-D technology. With Toy Story 3 shaping up to be another great adventure for Buzz, Woody and the gang from Andy's room, we thought it would be great to let audiences experience the first two films all over again and in a brand new way."
Translating the film into 3-D involved revisiting the original computer data and virtually placing a second camera into each scene, creating left-eye and right-eye views needed to achieve the perception of depth. Unique to computer animation, Lasseter referred to this process as "digital archaeology." The process took four months, as well as an additional six months for the two films to add the 3-D. The lead stereographer Bob Whitehill oversaw this process and sought to achieve an effect that affected the emotional storytelling of the film:
"When I would look at the films as a whole, I would search for story reasons to use 3-D in different ways. In Toy Story, for instance, when the toys were alone in their world, I wanted it to feel consistent to a safer world. And when they went out to the human world, that's when I really blew out the 3-D to make it feel dangerous and deep and overwhelming."
Unlike other countries, the United Kingdom received the films in 3-D as separate releases. Toy Story was released on October 2, 2009. Toy Story 2 was instead released January 22, 2010. The re-release performed well at the box office, opening with $12,500,000 in its opening weekend, placing at the third position after Zombieland and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The double feature grossed $30,714,027 in its five-week release.
Home media
Toy Story was released by Walt Disney Home Video on VHS and LaserDisc on October 29, 1996 with no bonus material. In the first week of this release, VHS rentals totaled $5.1 million, debuting Toy Story as the week's 1 video. Over 21.5 million VHS copies were sold the first year. A deluxe edition widescreen LaserDisc 4-disc box set was released on December 18, 1996. On January 11, 2000, the film was re-released on VHS, but this time as the first video to be part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection with the bonus short, Tin Toy. This release which sold two million copies. The film was released on DVD release on October 17, 2000 in a two-pack with Toy Story 2. The same day, a 3-disc "Ultimate Toy Box" set was released, featuring Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and a third disc of bonus materials. The twin-pack release was later released individually on March 20, 2001. The DVD two-pack, the Ultimate Toy Box set, the Gold Classic Collection VHS and DVD, and the original DVD were all put in the Disney Vault on May 1, 2003. On September 6, 2005, a 2-disc "10th Anniversary Edition" was released featuring much of the bonus material from the "Ultimate Toy Box", including a retrospective special with John Lasseter, a home theater mix, as well as a new picture. This DVD went back in the Disney Vault on January 31, 2009, along with Toy Story 2. The 10th Anniversary release was the last version of Toy Story to be released before taken out of the Disney Vault lineup, along with Toy Story 2. Also on September 6, 2005, a bare-bones UMD of Toy Story was released for the Sony PlayStation Portable.
The film was available for the first time on Blu-ray in a Special Edition Combo Pack that included two discs, the Blu-ray, and the DVD versions of the film. This combo-edition was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on March 23, 2010, along with its sequel. There was a DVD-only re-release on May 11, 2010. Another "Ultimate Toy Box", packaging the Combo Pack with those of both sequels, became available on November 2, 2010. On November 1, 2011, along with the DVD and Blu-ray release of Cars 2, Toy Story and the other two films were released on each DVD/Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D/Digital Copy combo pack (4 discs each for the first two films, and 5 for the third film). They were also released on Blu-ray 3D in a complete trilogy box set.
Reception
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 9/10 based on 78 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Entertaining as it is innovative, Toy Story reinvigorated animation while heralding the arrival of Pixar as a family-friendly force to be reckoned with." At the website Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film earned a "universal acclaim" level rating of 92/100 based on 16 reviews by mainstream critics. Reviewers hailed the film for its computer animation, voice cast, and ability to appeal to numerous age groups.
Leonard Klady of Variety commended the animation's "... razzle-dazzle technique and unusual look and that "the camera loops and zooms in a dizzying fashion that fairly takes one's breath away." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times compared the film's innovative animation to Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, saying that "both movies take apart the universe of cinematic visuals, and put it back together again, allowing us to see in a new way." Due to the film's animation, Richard Corliss of TIME claimed that it was "... the year's most inventive comedy."
The voice cast was also praised by various critics. Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today approved of the selection of Hanks and Allen for the lead roles. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times stated that "Starting with Tom Hanks, who brings an invaluable heft and believability to Woody, Toy Story is one of the best voiced animated features in memory, with all the actors ... making their presences strongly felt."
Several critics also recognized the film's ability to appeal to various age groups, specifically children and adults. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote "It has the purity, the ecstatic freedom of imagination, that's the hallmark of the greatest children's films. It also has the kind of spring-loaded allusive prankishness that, at times, will tickle adults even more than it does kids."
In 1995, Toy Story was ranked eighth in TIME s list of the "Best 10 films of 1995". In 2011, TIME named it one of the "25 All-TIME Best Animated Films".
It also ranks at number 99 in Empire magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Films of All Time" and as the highest ranked animated movie.
In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the greatest animated film of all time. In 2007, the Visual Effects Society named the film 22nd in its list of the "Top 50 Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time". In 2005 (ten years after its theatrical release), the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, one of five films to be selected in its first year of eligibility. The film is ranked 99th on the AFI's list of the "100 greatest American Films of All-Time". It was one of only two animated films on that list, with the other being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). It was also sixth best in the animation genre on AFI's 10 Top 10.
Director Terry Gilliam would praise the film as "a work of genius. It got people to understand what toys are about. They're true to their own character. And that's just brilliant. It's got a shot that's always stuck with me, when Buzz Lightyear discovers he's a toy. He's sitting on this landing at the top of the staircase and the camera pulls back and he's this tiny little figure. He was this guy with a massive ego two seconds before... and it's stunning. I'd put that as one of my top ten films, period."
Box office performance
Before the film's release, executive producer and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs stated "If Toy Story is a modest hit—say $75 million at the box office—we'll [Pixar and Disney] both break even. If it gets $100 million, we'll both make money. But if it's a real blockbuster and earns $200 million or so at the box office, we'll make good money, and Disney will make a lot of money." Upon its release on November 22, 1995, Toy Story managed to gross more than $350 million worldwide. Disney chairman Michael Eisner stated "I don't think either side thought Toy Story would turn out as well as it has. The technology is brilliant, the casting is inspired, and I think the story will touch a nerve. Believe me, when we first agreed to work together, we never thought their first movie would be our 1995 holiday feature, or that they could go public on the strength of it." The film's first five days of domestic release (on Thanksgiving weekend), earned it $39,071,176. The film placed first in the weekend's box office with $29,140,617. The film maintained its 1 position at the domestic box office for the following two weekends. Toy Story was the highest-grossing domestic film in 1995, beating Batman Forever and Apollo 13 (also starring Tom Hanks). At the time of its release, it was the third highest-grossing animated film after The Lion King (1994) and Aladdin (1992). When not considering inflation, Toy Story is 96 on the list of the highest-grossing domestic films of all time. The film had gross receipts of $191,796,233 in the U.S. and Canada and $170,162,503 in international markets for a total of $361,958,736 worldwide. At the time of its release, the film ranked as 17th highest-grossing film (unadjusted) domestically, and worldwide it was the 21st highest-grossing film.
Accolades
The film won and was nominated for various other awards including a Kids' Choice Award, MTV Movie Award, and a British Academy Film Award, among others. John Lasseter received an Academy Special Achievement Award in 1996 "for the development and inspired application of techniques that have made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film." Additionally, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, two to Randy Newman for Best Music—Original Song, for "You've Got a Friend in Me", and Best Music—Original Musical or Comedy Score. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for the work by Joel Cohen, Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Alec Sokolow, Andrew Stanton and Joss Whedon, making Toy Story the first animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award writing category.
Toy Story won eight Annie Awards, including "Best Animated Feature". Animator Pete Docter, director John Lasseter, musician Randy Newman, producers Bonnie Arnold and Ralph Guggenheim, production designer Ralph Eggleston, and writers Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, Andrew Stanton, and Joss Whedon all won awards for "Best Individual Achievement" in their respective fields for their work on the film. The film also won "Best Individual Achievement" in technical achievement.
Toy Story was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for Best Motion Picture—Comedy or Musical, and one for Best Original Song—Motion Picture for Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me". At both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, the film won "Best Animated Film". Toy Story is also among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14, and the highest-placed (at 99) animated film in Empire magazines list of "500 Greatest Movie of All Time".
In 2005, Toy Story, along with Toy Story 2 was voted the 4th greatest cartoon in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons poll, behind The Simpsons, Tom and Jerry and South Park.
Impact and legacy
Toy Story had a large impact on the film industry with its innovative computer animation. After the film's debut, various industries were interested in the technology used for the film. Graphics chip makers desired to compute imagery similar to the film's animation for personal computers; game developers wanted to learn how to replicate the animation for video games; and robotics researchers were interested in building artificial intelligence into their machines that compared to the film's lifelike characters. Various authors have also compared the film to an interpretation of Don Quixote as well as humanism. In addition, Toy Story left an impact with its catchphrase "To Infinity and Beyond", sequels, and software, among others.
"To Infinity and Beyond"
Buzz Lightyear's classic line "To Infinity and Beyond" has seen usage not only on themed merchandise, but among philosophers and mathematical theorists as well. In 2008, during STS-124 astronauts took an action figure of Buzz Lightyear into space on the Discovery Space Shuttle as part of an educational experience for students while stressing the catchphrase. The action figure was used for experiments in zero-g. It was reported in 2008 that a father and son had continually repeated the phrase to help them keep track of each other while treading water for 15 hours in the Atlantic Ocean. The phrase occurs in the lyrics of Beyoncé's 2008 song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", during the bridge.
Sequels, shows, and spin-offs
Toy Story has spawned three sequels: Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Toy Story 4, to be released in 2018. Initially, the first sequel to Toy Story was going to be a direct-to-video release, with development beginning in 1996. However, after the cast from Toy Story returned and the story was considered to be better than that of a direct-to-video release, it was announced in 1998 that the sequel would see a theatrical release. The sequel saw the return of the majority of the voice cast from Toy Story, and the film focuses on rescuing Woody after he is stolen at a yard sale. The film was equally well received by critics, many of whom thought it was even better than the first installment, earning a rare 100% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 125 reviews. At Metacritic, the film earned a favorable rating of 88/100 based on 34 reviews. The film's widest release was 3,257 theaters and it grossed $485,015,179 worldwide, becoming the second-most successful animated film after The Lion King at the time of its release.
Toy Story 3 centers on the toys being accidentally donated to a day-care center when their owner Andy is preparing to go to college. Again, the majority of the cast from the prior two films returned. It was the first film in the franchise to be released in 3-D for its first run, though the first two films, which were originally released in 2-D, were re-released in 3-D in 2009 as a double feature. Like its predecessors, Toy Story 3 received enormous critical acclaim, earning a 99% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. It also grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing animated film until the release of 2013's Frozen.
In November 1996, the Disney on Ice: Toy Story ice show opened which featured the cast's voices as well as Randy Newman's music. In April 2008, the Disney Wonder cruise ship launched Toy Story: The Musical shows on its cruises.
Toy Story also led to a spin-off direct-to-video animated film, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, as well as the animated television series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. The film and series followed Buzz Lightyear and his friends at Star Command as they uphold justice across the galaxy. Although the film was criticized for not using the same animation as in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, it sold three million VHS and DVDs in its first week of release. The television series brought further commercial and critical acclaim, winning a Daytime Emmy in 2001 for Outstanding Sound Editing. The series ran for a total of 65 episodes.
Following the release of Toy Story 3, a series of Toy Story short films have been shown in theaters in front of other Disney features: Hawaiian Vacation (shown before Cars 2), centering on Barbie and Ken on vacation in Bonnie's room, Small Fry (shown before The Muppets), centering on Buzz being left in a fast-food restaurant, and Partysaurus Rex (shown before Finding Nemo 3D), centering on Rex partying with Bonnie's bath toys.
In January 2013, a fan-made live-action version of the film was posted on YouTube which has gone on to have 14,751,219 views before being taken down by Disney for copyright of the audio.
In October 2013, ABC aired Toy Story of Terror!, promoting it as Pixar's first television special. In the special, Mr. Potato Head disappears and Woody, Buzz and Rex have to find him.
On December 2, 2014, ABC aired Toy Story That Time Forgot. In the story, Woody, Buzz, Rex and Trixie (one of the toy characters introduced in Toy Story 3) are trapped in room with a group of humanoid dinosaur warrior toys called Battlesaurs who do not know that they are toys and must escape.
A fourth feature film will be released on June 15, 2018. It will be directed by John Lasseter, and will focus on the romance between Woody and Bo Peep.
Software and merchandise
Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story and Disney's Activity Center: Toy Story were released for Windows and Mac. Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story was the best selling software title of 1996, selling over 500,000 copies. Two console video games were released for the film: the Toy Story video game, for the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and PC as well as Toy Story Racer, for the PlayStation (which contains elements from Toy Story 2). Pixar created original animations for all of the games, including fully animated sequences for the PC titles.
Toy Story had a large promotion before its release, leading to numerous tie-ins with the film including images on food packaging. A variety of merchandise was released during the film's theatrical run and its initial VHS release including toys, clothing, and shoes, among other things. When an action figure for Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody was created it was initially ignored by retailers. However, after over 250,000 figures were sold for each character before the film's release, demand continued to expand, eventually reaching over 25 million units sold by 2007.
Theme park attractions
Toy Story and its sequels have inspired multiple attractions at the theme parks of Walt Disney World and Disneyland:
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin at the Magic Kingdom casts theme park guests as cadets in Buzz's Space Ranger Corps. Guests ride through various scenes featuring Emperor Zurg's henchmen, firing "laser cannons" at their Z symbols, scoring points for each hit.
Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters at Disneyland, is similar to Space Ranger Spin, except that the laser cannons are hand-held rather than mounted to the ride vehicle.
Buzz Lightyear's Astroblasters at Walt Disney World's DisneyQuest, despite the nearly identical name to the Disneyland attraction, is a bumper car style attraction in which guests compete against each other not only by ramming their ride vehicles into each other, but also by firing "asteroids" (playground balls) at each other.
Toy Story Mania at both Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland's Disney California Adventure features a series of interactive carnival-type games hosted by the Toy Story characters. Guests ride in vehicles while wearing 3-D glasses, and using a pull-string cannon to launch virtual rings, darts, baseballs, etc. Disney announced an update to the attraction to add characters from Toy Story 3 several months before the film's release date.
World of Color at Disney California Adventure is a large night time water and light show. Some of the scenes projected on the water screens feature animation from the Toy Story films.
Toy Story Playland at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland, opening in August 2010 and 2011 respectively. The area is designed to create the illusion of "shrinking the guest" down to the size of a toy, and to play in Andy's backyard in several themed rides.
Toy Story Character Greetings are located at almost all Disney Parks. Three of the main characters, Buzz Lightyear, Woody and Jessie are normally the characters you would meet. Sometimes you can even meet Bullseye, the Green Army Men and Mr. Potato Head.
Other influences
Toy Story's cast of characters forms the basis for the naming of the releases of the Debian computer operating system, from buzz in 1996 to stretch, the version currently (in 2015) being prepared for release.
In 2013 Pixar designed a "Gromit Lightyear" sculpture based on the Aardman Animations character Gromit for Gromit Unleashed which sold for £65,000.
See also
List of Academy Award records
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Notes
References
External links
Official Disney website
Official Pixar website
Category:1995 films
Category:1995 animated films
Category:1990s American animated films
Category:1990s comedy films
Category:1990s computer-animated films
Category:1990s fantasy films
Category:American 3D films
Category:American animated films
Category:American children's fantasy films
Category:American comedy films
Category:American films
Category:Animated duos
Category:Animated fantasy films
Category:Best Animated Feature Annie Award winners
Category:Buddy films
Category:Computer-animated films
Category:Directorial debut films
Category:Film scores by Randy Newman
Category:Films about toys
Category:Films adapted into television programs
Category:Films adapted into video games
Category:Films directed by John Lasseter
Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
Category:Films produced by Bonnie Arnold
Category:Films produced by Ralph Guggenheim
Category:Films using computer-generated imagery
Category:Pixar animated films
Category:Screenplays by Joel Cohen
Category:Screenplays by Pete Docter
Category:Screenplays by John Lasseter
Category:Screenplays by Joe Ranft
Category:Screenplays by Alec Sokolow
Category:Screenplays by Andrew Stanton
Category:Screenplays by Joss Whedon
Category:United States National Film Registry films
Category:Walt Disney Pictures films |
2016-01 | Capital_punishment-697215842 | Capital_punishment | Capital punishment
Capital punishment, death penalty or execution is government sanctioned punishment by death. The sentence is referred to as a death sentence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences, such as first degree murder, terrorism, and espionage. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading). There are many execution methods; one widely practiced form historically that is the most common modern method used in jurisdictions with capital punishment is hanging.
Capital punishment has, in the past, been practiced by most societies, as a punishment for criminals, and political or religious dissidents. Historically, the carrying out of the death sentence was often accompanied by torture, and executions were most often public.
Thirty-six countries actively practice capital punishment, 103 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, 6 have abolished it for ordinary crimes only (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 50 have abolished it de facto (have not used it for at least ten years and/or are under moratorium). No Western country still uses the death penalty except the United States.
Nearly all countries in the world prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes; since 2009, only Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan have carried out such executions. Executions of this kind are prohibited under international law.
Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In the European Union member states, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment. The Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, also prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members.
The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition. Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia.
History
Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime and to suppress political dissent. In most countries that practice capital punishment it is reserved for murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery, incest and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy in Islamic nations (the formal renunciation of the state religion). In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.
The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment and execution. Usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included an aformal apology, compensation or blood feuds.
A blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the emergence of an arbitration system based on state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour. "Acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies (as well as potential allies) that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished." However, in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest.
Severe historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation, scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun.
Ancient history
Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context and compensation system. Compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material (for example, cattle, slave) compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, or transfers of property or blood money or in some case an offer of a person for execution. The person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals. Blood feuds could be regulated at meetings, such as the Norsemen things. Systems deriving from blood feuds may survive alongside more advanced legal systems or be given recognition by courts (for example, trial by combat). One of the more modern refinements of the blood feud is the duel.
In certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics, monarchies or tribal oligarchies emerged. These nations were often united by common linguistic, religious or family ties. Moreover, expansion of these nations often occurred by conquest of neighbouring tribes or nations. Consequently, various classes of royalty, nobility, various commoners and slave emerged. Accordingly, the systems of tribal arbitration were submerged into a more unified system of justice which formalized the relation between the different "classes" rather than "tribes". The earliest and most famous example is Code of Hammurabi which set the different punishment and compensation, according to the different class/group of victims and perpetrators. The Torah (Jewish Law), also known as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament), lays down the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, magic, violation of the Sabbath, blasphemy, and a wide range of sexual crimes, although evidence suggests that actual executions were rare.
A further example comes from Ancient Greece, where the Athenian legal system was first written down by Draco in about 621 BC: the death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes, though Solon later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining only Draco's homicide statutes. The word draconian derives from Draco's laws. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offenses.
Tang dynasty
Although many are executed in the People's Republic of China each year in the present day, there was a time in the Tang dynasty when the death penalty was abolished. This was in the year 747, enacted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756). When abolishing the death penalty Xuanzong ordered his officials to refer to the nearest regulation by analogy when sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the prescribed punishment was execution. Thus depending on the severity of the crime a punishment of severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan region might take the place of capital punishment. However, the death penalty was restored only 12 years later in 759 in response to the An Lushan Rebellion. At this time in the Tang dynasty only the emperor had the authority to sentence criminals to execution. Under Xuanzong capital punishment was relatively infrequent, with only 24 executions in the year 730 and 58 executions in the year 736.
The two most common forms of execution in the Tang dynasty were strangulation and decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of execution for 144 and 89 offenses respectively. Strangulation was the prescribed sentence for lodging an accusation against one's parents or grandparents with a magistrate, scheming to kidnap a person and sell them into slavery and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation was the method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and sedition. Interestingly, and despite the great discomfort involved, most of the Tang Chinese preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional Tang Chinese belief that the body is a gift from the parents and that it is, therefore, disrespectful to one's ancestors to die without returning one's body to the grave intact.
Some further forms of capital punishment were practiced in the Tang dynasty, of which the first two that follow at least were extralegal. The first of these was scourging to death with the thick rod which was common throughout the Tang dynasty especially in cases of gross corruption. The second was truncation, in which the convicted person was cut in two at the waist with a fodder knife and then left to bleed to death. A further form of execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts, was used from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905.
When a minister of the fifth grade or above received a death sentence the emperor might grant him a special dispensation allowing him to commit suicide in lieu of execution. Even when this privilege was not granted, the law required that the condemned minister be provided with food and ale by his keepers and transported to the execution ground in a cart rather than having to walk there.
Nearly all executions under the Tang dynasty took place in public as a warning to the population. The heads of the executed were displayed on poles or spears. When local authorities decapitated a convicted criminal, the head was boxed and sent to the capital as proof of identity and that the execution had taken place.
Middle Ages
In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalized form of punishment. During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.
During early modern Europe, a massive moral panic regarding witchcraft swept across Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this period, there were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands of women were prosecuted and executed through the witch trials of the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries).
The death penalty also targeted sexual offenses such as sodomy. In England, the Buggery Act 1533 stipulated hanging as punishment for "buggery". James Pratt and John Smith were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835.
Despite the wide use of the death penalty, calls for reform were not unknown. The 12th century Jewish legal scholar, Moses Maimonides, wrote, "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death." He argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides' concern was maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission.
Islam on the whole accepts capital punishment, and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad, such as Al-Mu'tadid, were often cruel in their punishments. For hudud crimes such as zina (consensual extramarital or homosexual sex) and apostasy (leaving Islam and converting to another religion), Sharia requires capital punishment in public, while for crimes such as murder and manslaughter, the victim's family can either seek execution (Qisas) or can choose to spare the life of the killer in exchange for blood money restitution (Diyya).
Modern era
The last several centuries have seen the emergence of modern nation-states. Almost fundamental to the concept of nation state is the idea of citizenship. This caused justice to be increasingly associated with equality and universality, which in Europe saw an emergence of the concept of natural rights. Another important aspect is that emergence of standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. The argument that deterrence, rather than retribution, is the main justification for punishment is a hallmark of the rational choice theory and can be traced to Cesare Beccaria whose well-known treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), condemned torture and the death penalty and Jeremy Bentham who twice critiqued the death penalty. Moving executions there inside prisons and away from public view was prompted by official recognition of the phenomenon reported first by Beccaria in Italy and later by Charles Dickens and Karl Marx of increased violent criminality at the times and places of executions.
By 1820 in Britain, there were 160 crimes that were punishable by death, including crimes such as shoplifting, petty theft, stealing cattle, or cutting down trees in public place. The severity of the so-called Bloody Code, however, was often tempered by juries who refused to convict, or judges, in the case of petty theft, who arbitrarily set the value stolen at below the statutory level for a capital crime.
Contemporary era
The 20th century was a violent period. Tens of millions were killed in wars between nation-states as well as genocide perpetrated by nation states against political opponents (both perceived and actual), ethnic and religious minorities; the Turkish assault on the Armenians, Hitler's attempt to exterminate the European Jews, the Khmer Rouge decimation of Cambodia, the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, to cite four of the most notorious examples. A large part of execution was the summary execution of enemy combatants. In Nazi Germany there were three types of capital punishment; hanging, decapitation and death by shooting. Also, modern military organisations employed capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. The Soviets, for example, executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during World War II. In the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, looting, shirking under enemy fire and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death (see decimation and running the gauntlet). One method of execution, since firearms came into common use, has almost been firing squad, although some countries use execution with a single shot to the head or neck.
Various authoritarian states— for example those with fascist or communist governments—employed the death penalty as a potent means of political oppression. According to Robert Conquest, the leading expert on Stalin's purges, more than 1 million Soviet citizens were executed during the Great Terror of 1937–38, almost all by a bullet to the back of the head. Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949. Partly as a response to such excesses, civil rights organizations have started to place increasing emphasis on the concept of human rights and an abolition of the death penalty.
Among countries around the world, almost all European and many Pacific Area states (including Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished capital punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital punishment while some countries, such as Brazil, allow for capital punishment only in exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States (the federal government and 31 of the states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (for example, Japan and India) and Africa (for example, Botswana and Zambia) retain it. South Africa's Constitutional Court, in judgment of the case of State v Makwanyane and Another, unanimously abolished the death penalty on 6 June 1995.
Abolition was often adopted due to political change, as when countries shifted from authoritarianism to democracy, or when it became an entry condition for the European Union. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans on capital punishment for decades (the earliest is Michigan, where it was abolished in 1846), while others actively use it today. The death penalty there remains a contentious issue which is hotly debated.
In abolitionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders though few countries have brought it back after abolishing it. However, a spike in serious, violent crimes, such as murders or terrorist attacks, has prompted some countries (such as Sri Lanka and Jamaica) to effectively end the moratorium on the death penalty. In retention countries, the debate is sometimes revived when a miscarriage of justice has occurred though this tends to cause legislative efforts to improve the judicial process rather than to abolish the death penalty.
Modern-day public opinion
The public opinion on the death penalty varies considerably by country and by the crime in question, despite the evidence against its power as a deterrent. Countries where a majority of people are against execution include New Zealand, where 55 percent of the population oppose its use, Australia where only 23 percent support the death penalty, and Norway where only 25 percent are in favour. Most French, Finns and Italians also oppose the death penalty. A 2010 Gallup poll shows that 64% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, down from 65% in 2006 and 68% in 2001.
Use of capital punishment is growing in India in the 2010s due to both a growth in right wing politics and due to anger over several recent brutal cases of rape. While support for the death penalty for murder is still high in China, executions have dropped precipitously, with only 3000 executed in 2012 versus 12,000 in 2002. A poll in South Africa found that 76 percent of millennium generation South Africans support re-introduction of the death penalty, which is abolished in South Africa.
Movements towards less painful execution
Trends in most of the world have long been to move to less painful, or more humane, executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of the 18th century, while Britain banned drawing and quartering in the early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long drop "hanging" where the subject is dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. The Shah of Persia introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun as quick and painless alternatives to more torturous methods of executions used at that time. In the U.S., the electric chair and the gas chamber were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging, but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection, which in turn has been criticised as being too painful. Nevertheless, some countries still employ slow hanging methods, beheading by sword and stoning.
In early New England, public executions were a very solemn and sorrowful occasion, sometimes attended by large crowds, who also listened to a Gospel message and remarks by local preachers and politicians. The Connecticut Courant records one such public execution on 1 December 1803, saying, "The assembly conducted through the whole in a very orderly and solemn manner, so much so, as to occasion an observing gentleman acquainted with other countries as well as this, to say that such an assembly, so decent and solemn, could not be collected anywhere but in New England."
Abolition of capital punishment
Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Since World War II there has been a trend toward abolishing capital punishment. Capital punishment has been completely abolished by 103 countries, a further 6 have done so for all offences except under special circumstances and 50 more have abolished it in practice because they have not used it for at least 10 years or are under a moratorium.
The death penalty was banned in China between 747 and 759. In Japan, Emperor Saga abolished the death penalty in 818 under the influence of Shinto and it lasted until 1156.
In England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, written in 1395. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, debated the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form, coming to no firm conclusion. More recent opposition to the death penalty stemmed from the book of the Italian Cesare Beccaria Dei Delitti e Delle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), published in 1764. In this book, Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the injustice, but even the futility from the point of view of social welfare, of torture and the death penalty. Influenced by the book, Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg, famous enlightened monarch and future Emperor of Austria, abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first permanent abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto blocked capital executions (the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the instruments for capital execution in his land. In 2000, Tuscany's regional authorities instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event. The event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating Cities for Life Day.
The Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death penalty in 1854 and San Marino did so in 1865. The last execution in San Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals in 1852 and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867.
Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976 (except for some military offences, with complete abolition in 1998), in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973 (although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984). In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment".
In the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder (leaving only treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards and a number of wartime military offences as capital crimes) for a five-year experiment in 1965 and permanently in 1969, the last execution having taken place in 1964. It was abolished for all peacetime offences in 1998.
In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on 18 May 1846. The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia (death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability) and Roper v. Simmons (death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed). In the United States, 19 states and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment, with Nebraska the most recent state to ban the practice.
One of the latest countries to abolish the death penalty for all crimes was Gabon, in February 2010.
Abolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment". Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate, irreversible denial of Human Rights".
Contemporary use
Public execution
A public execution is a form of capital punishment in which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend". The standard definition normally excludes the presence of a limited number of "passive citizens" that "witness the event to assure executive accountability". While today the great majority of the world considers public executions to be uncivilized and distasteful and most countries have outlawed the practice, throughout much of history executions were performed publicly as a means for the state to demonstrate "its power before those who fell under its jurisdiction be they criminals, enemies, or political opponents". Additionally, it afforded the public a chance to witness "what was considered a great spectacle".
According to Amnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia". Public executions have also taken place in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Mass public executions in accordance with an arguably radical form of Sharia law, occur occasionally within the vast swathes of territory occupied by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Capital punishment by country
Most countries including almost all First World nations have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Notable exceptions are the United States, China, North Korea, Japan, and most Islamic states.
Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty; 36 countries have retained the death penalty in active use, 103 countries have abolished capital punishment altogether, six have done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 50 have abolished it in practice because they had not used it for at least ten years or are under a moratorium. According to Amnesty International, 22 countries are known to have performed executions in 2013. There are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea. At least 23,392 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the end of 2013.
The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some retentionist countries including Taiwan and Singapore. Indonesia carried out no executions between November 2008 and March 2013. Japan and the United States are the only developed countries that are classified by Amnesty International as 'retentionist' (South Korea is classified as 'abolitionist in practice'). Nearly all retentionist countries are situated in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. The only retentionist country in Europe is Belarus. The death penalty was overwhelmingly practised in poor and authoritarian states, which often employed the death penalty as a tool of political oppression. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America swelled the ranks of abolitionist countries.
This was soon followed by the fall of Communism in Europe. Many of the countries which restored democracy aspired to enter the EU. The European Union and the Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death penalty (see Capital punishment in Europe). Public support for the death penalty in the EU varies. The last execution on the present day territory of the Council of Europe has taken place in 1997 in Ukraine. On the other hand, rapid industrialisation in Asia has been increasing the number of developed retention countries. In these countries, the death penalty enjoys strong public support, and the matter receives little attention from the government or the media; in China there is a small but growing movement to abolish the death penalty altogether. This trend has been followed by some African and Middle Eastern countries where support for the death penalty is high.
Some countries have resumed practicing the death penalty after having suspended executions for long periods. The United States suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976, then again on 25 September 2007 to 16 April 2008; there was no execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its moratorium on the death penalty on 20 November 2004, although it has not yet performed any executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death penalty in 1993 after abolishing it in 1987, but abolished it again in 2006.
Japan and the US are the only developed countries to have carried out executions. The US is the only Western country in the Americas to have carried out executions. The federal government and 31 states in the United States carry out capital punishment. In 2012, there were 43 executions in the US, which have taken place in nine states: Arizona (6), Delaware (1), Florida (3), Idaho (1), Mississippi (6), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (6), South Dakota (2), Texas (15). Sixty-two prisoners are currently on the federal death row. Of the states where the death penalty is permitted, California has the largest number of inmates on death row. Texas has performed the most executions (since the US Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976, 40% of all US executions have taken place in Texas), and Oklahoma has had (through mid-2011) the highest per capita execution rate.
The most recent country to abolish the death penalty was Suriname in March 2015 .
Juvenile offenders
The death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the time of their crime) has become increasingly rare. Considering the Age of Majority is still not 18 in some countries, since 1990 nine countries have executed offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of China (PRC), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States (see List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States), and Yemen. The PRC, Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Iran have since raised the minimum age to 18. Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing their offenses as juveniles. The PRC does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have reportedly taken place.
Starting in 1642 within British America, an estimated 365 juvenile offenders were executed by the states and federal government of the United States. The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005). In addition, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the execution of individuals with an intellectual disability, in Atkins v. Virginia.
Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen were reported to have executed child offenders, the most being from Iran.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and ratified, except for Somalia and the United States (notwithstanding the latter's Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice). The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (whose Article 6.5 also states that "Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age...").
In Japan, the minimum age for the death penalty is 18 as mandated by the internationals standards. But under Japanese law, anyone under 20 is considered a juvenile. There are three men currently on death row for crimes they committed at age 18 or 19.
Iran
Iran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has received international condemnation; the country's record is the focus of the Stop Child Executions Campaign. But on 10 February 2012, Iran's parliament changed the controversial law of executing juveniles. In the new law, the age of 18 (solar year) would be for both genders considered and juvenile offenders will be sentenced on a separate law than of adults. Based on the Islamic law which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of lunar year (11 days shorter than a solar year) were fully responsible for their crimes.
Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently has roughly 140 people on death row for crimes committed as juveniles (up from 71 in 2007). The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni and Makwan Moloudzadeh became international symbols of Iran's child capital punishment and the judicial system that hands down such sentences.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offense. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime.
Somalia
There is evidence that child executions are taking place in the parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). In October 2008, a girl, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. The stoning occurred after she had allegedly pleaded guilty to adultery in a shariah court in Kismayo, a city controlled by the ICU. According to a local leader associated with the ICU, she had stated that she wanted shariah law to apply. However, other sources state that the victim had been crying, that she begged for mercy and had to be forced into the hole before being buried up to her neck in the ground. Amnesty International later learned that the girl was in fact 13 years old and had been arrested by the al-Shabab militia after she had reported being gang-raped by three men.
Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009 (reiterated in 2013) that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country.
Methods
The following methods of execution were used in 2010:
Beheading (Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
Electric chair (as an option in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma and Kentucky in the USA)
Gas chamber (California, Missouri and Arizona in the USA)
Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Malawi, Liberia, Chad, Washington in the USA)
Lethal injection (Guatemala, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, most states in the USA that are using capital punishment)
Shooting (the People's Republic of China), Republic of China, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, North Korea, Indonesia, Yemen, and in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Utah.
Capital crime
Murder
One crime which capital punishment is used for is murder. Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as for multiple murder, child murder, serial killing, torture murder, mass murder, terrorism, massacre or genocide. It is said that capital punishment for murder is and should be "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".
Drug trafficking
Some countries that retain the death penalty for murder and other violent crimes do not execute offenders for drug-related crimes. Countries that have statutory provisions for the death penalty for drug-related offences include:
Notes
* The capital punishment was not used in the last 10 years (or has a moratorium in effect)
Other offenses
Other crimes that are punishable by death include terrorism, adultery (Saudi Arabia, Iran), sodomy, religious offences such as apostasy (Saudi Arabia, Iran) and blasphemy (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), sorcery (Saudi Arabia), economic crimes (China), rape (Saudi Arabia), forms of aggravated robbery (Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Zambia), treason, acts against national security and other crimes against the state (Iran, Gambia, Kuwait, Lebanon, North Korea, Palestinian Authority, Somalia).
Controversy and debate
Capital punishment is controversial. Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane and criticize it for its irreversibility and assert that it lacks a deterrent effect, and debunking studies that claim to show a deterrent effect. There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International, and country-specific, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that have abolition of the death penalty as a fundamental purpose.
Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, is a good tool for police and prosecutors (in plea bargaining for example), makes sure that convicted criminals do not offend again and is a just penalty for atrocious crimes such as child murders, serial killers or torture murderers. Opponents of capital punishment argue that not all people affected by murder desire a death penalty, that execution discriminates against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a "culture of violence" and that it violates human rights.
Retribution
Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as for multiple homicide, child murderers, cop killers, torture murder and mass killing such as terrorism, massacre, or genocide. Some even argue that not applying death penalty in latter cases is patently unjust. This argument is strongly defended by New York Law School's Professor Robert Blecker, who says that the punishment must be painful in proportion to the crime. 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant sums it up as following;
Abolitionists argue that retribution is simply revenge and cannot be condoned. Others while accepting retribution as an element of criminal justice nonetheless argue that life without parole is a sufficient substitute. It is also argued that the punishing of a killing with another killing is a relatively unique punishment for a violent act, because in general violent crimes are not punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act (e.g. rapists are not punished by being sexually assaulted).
Human rights
Abolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment". Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate irreversible denial of Human Rights". Albert Camus wrote in a 1956 book called Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death:
In the classic doctrine of natural rights as expounded by for instance Locke and Blackstone, on the other hand, it is an important idea that the right to life can be forfeited. As John Stuart Mill explained in a speech against an amendment to abolish capital punishment for murder in 1868;
Wrongful execution
It is frequently argued that capital punishment leads to miscarriage of justice through the wrongful execution of innocent persons. Many people have been proclaimed innocent victims of the death penalty.
Some have claimed that as many as 39 executions have been carried out in the face of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt in the US from 1992 through 2004. Newly available DNA evidence prevented the pending execution of more than 15 death row inmates during the same period in the US, but DNA evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases. However, since the death penalty reinstatement in the United States during the 1970s, no inmate executed has been granted posthumous pardon.
Improper procedure may also result in unfair executions. For example, Amnesty International argues that in Singapore "the Misuse of Drugs Act contains a series of presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused. This conflicts with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty". This refers to a situation when someone is being caught with drugs. In this situation, in almost any jurisdiction, the prosecution has a prima facie case.
Racial, ethnic and social class bias
Opponents of the death penalty argue that this punishment is being used more often against perpetrators from racial and ethnic minorities and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, than against those criminals who come from a privileged background; and that the background of the victim also influences the outcome. Researchers have shown that white Americans are more likely to support the death penalty when told that it is mostly applied to African Americans, and that more stereotypically black-looking defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if the case involves a white victim.
International views
The United Nations introduced a resolution during the General Assembly's 62nd sessions in 2007 calling for a universal ban. The approval of a draft resolution by the Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights issues, voted 99 to 52, with 33 abstentions, in favour of the resolution on 15 November 2007 and was put to a vote in the Assembly on 18 December.
Again in 2008, a large majority of states from all regions adopted a second resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the UN General Assembly (Third Committee) on 20 November. 105 countries voted in favour of the draft resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.
A range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty countries were overwhelmingly defeated. It had in 2007 passed a non-binding resolution (by 104 to 54, with 29 abstentions) by asking its member states for "a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty".
A number of regional conventions prohibit the death penalty, most notably, the Sixth Protocol (abolition in time of peace) and the 13th Protocol (abolition in all circumstances) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The same is also stated under the Second Protocol in the American Convention on Human Rights, which, however has not been ratified by all countries in the Americas, most notably Canada and the United States. Most relevant operative international treaties do not require its prohibition for cases of serious crime, most notably, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This instead has, in common with several other treaties, an optional protocol prohibiting capital punishment and promoting its wider abolition.
Several international organizations have made the abolition of the death penalty (during time of peace) a requirement of membership, most notably the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe. The EU and the Council of Europe are willing to accept a moratorium as an interim measure. Thus, while Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and the death penalty remains codified in its law, it has not made use of it since becoming a member of the Council – Russia has not executed anyone since 1996. With the exception of Russia (abolitionist in practice), Kazakhstan (abolitionist for ordinary crimes only), and Belarus (retentionist), all European countries are classified as abolitionist.
Latvia abolished de jure the death penalty for war crimes in 2012, becoming the last EU member to do so.
The Protocol no.13 calls for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances (including for war crimes). The majority of European countries have signed and ratified it. Some European countries have not done this, but all of them except Belarus and Kazakhstan have now abolished the death penalty in all circumstances (de jure, and Russia de facto). Poland is the most recent country to ratify the protocol, on 28 August 2013.
The Protocol no.6 which prohibits the death penalty during peacetime has been ratified by all members of the European Council, except Russia (which has signed, but not ratified).
There are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has 81 parties; and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty (for the Americas; ratified by 13 states).
Turkey has recently, as a move towards EU membership, undergone a reform of its legal system. Previously there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey as the last execution took place in 1984. The death penalty was removed from peacetime law in August 2002, and in May 2004 Turkey amended its constitution in order to remove capital punishment in all circumstances. It ratified Protocol no. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights in February 2006. As a result, Europe is a continent free of the death penalty in practice, all states but Russia, which has entered a moratorium, having ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been lobbying for Council of Europe observer states who practise the death penalty, the U.S. and Japan, to abolish it or lose their observer status. In addition to banning capital punishment for EU member states, the EU has also banned detainee transfers in cases where the receiving party may seek the death penalty.
Sub-Saharan African countries that have recently abolished the death penalty include Burundi, which abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2009, and Gabon which did the same in 2010. On 5 July 2012, Benin became part of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits the use of the death penalty.
The newly created South Sudan is among the 111 UN member states that supported the resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly that called for the removal of the death penalty, therefore affirming its opposition to the practice. South Sudan, however, has not yet abolished the death penalty and stated that it must first amend its Constitution, and until that happens it will continue to use the death penalty.
Among non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are noted for their opposition to capital punishment. A number of such NGOs, as well as trade unions, local councils and bar associations formed a World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002.
Religious views
The world's major religions have mixed opinions on the death penalty, depending on the sect, the individual believer, and the time period.
Buddhism
There is disagreement among Buddhists as to whether or not Buddhism forbids the death penalty. The first of the Five Precepts (Panca-sila) is to abstain from destruction of life. Chapter 10 of the Dhammapada states:
Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore you do not kill or cause to be killed.
Chapter 26, the final chapter of the Dhammapada, states, "Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures. He neither kills nor helps others to kill." These sentences are interpreted by many Buddhists (especially in the West) as an injunction against supporting any legal measure which might lead to the death penalty. However, as is often the case with the interpretation of scripture, there is dispute on this matter. Historically, most states where the official religion is Buddhism have imposed capital punishment for some offenses. One notable exception is the abolition of the death penalty by the Emperor Saga of Japan in 818. This lasted until 1165, although in private manors executions continued to be conducted as a form of retaliation. Japan still imposes the death penalty, although some recent justice ministers have refused to sign death warrants, citing their Buddhist beliefs as their reason. Other Buddhist-majority states vary in their policy. For example, Bhutan has abolished the death penalty, but Thailand still retains it, although Buddhism is the official religion in both. Mongolia abolished the death penalty in 2012.
Many stories in Buddhist scripture stress the superior power of the Buddha's teaching to rehabilitate murderers and other criminals. The most well-known example is Angulimala in the Theravadan Pali canon who had killed 999 people and then attempted to kill his own mother and the Buddha, but under the influence of the Buddha he repented and entered the monkhood. The Buddha succeeded when the King and all his soldiers failed to eliminate the murderer by force.
Without one official teaching on the death penalty, Thai monks are typically divided on the issue with some favoring abolition of the death penalty while others see it as bad karma stemming from bad actions in the past.
In the edicts of the great Buddhist king Ashoka (ca. 304–232 BC) inscribed on great pillars around his kingdom, the King showed reverence for all life by giving up the slaughtering of animals and many of his subjects followed his example. King Ashoka also extended the period before execution of those condemned to death so they could make a final appeal for their lives.
A close reading of texts in the Pali canon reveals different attitudes towards violence and capital punishment. The Pali scholar Steven Collins finds Dhamma in the Pali canon divided into two categories according to the attitude taken towards violence. In Mode 1 Dhamma the use of violence is "context-dependent and negotiable". A King should not pass judgement in haste or anger but the punishment should fit the crime, with warfare and capital punishment acceptable in certain situations. In Mode 2 Dhamma the use of violence is "context-independent and non-negotiable" and the only advice to kings is to abdicate, renounce the world and leave everything to the law of karma. Buddhism is incompatible with any form of violence especially warfare and capital punishment.
In the world that humans inhabit there is a continual tension between these two modes of Dhamma. This tension is best exhibited in the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta (Digha Nikaya 26 of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon), the story of humanity's decline from a golden age in the past. A critical turning point comes when the King decides not to give money to a man who has committed theft but instead to cut off his head and also to carry out this punishment in a particularly cruel and humiliating manner, parading him in public to the sound of drums as he is taken to the execution ground outside the city. In the wake of this decision by the king, thieves take to imitating the King's actions and murder the people from whom they steal to avoid detection. Thieves turn to highway robbery and attacking small villages and towns far away from the royal capital where they won't be detected. A downwards spiral towards social disorder and chaos has begun.
Christianity
Views on the death penalty in Christianity run a spectrum of opinions, from complete condemnation of the punishment, seeing it as a form of revenge and as contrary to Christ's message of forgiveness, to enthusiastic support based primarily on Old Testament law.
Among the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, the message to his followers that one should "Turn the other cheek" and his example in the story Pericope Adulterae, in which Jesus intervenes in the stoning of an adulteress, are generally accepted as his condemnation of physical retaliation (though most scholars agree that the latter passage was "certainly not part of the original text of St John's Gospel") More militant Christians consider Romans 13:3–4 to support the death penalty. Many Christians have believed that Jesus' doctrine of peace speaks only to personal ethics and is distinct from civil government's duty to punish crime.
In the Old Testament, Leviticus provides a list of transgressions in which execution is recommended. Christian positions on these passages vary. The sixth commandment (fifth in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches) is translated as "Thou shalt not kill" by some denominations and as "Thou shalt not murder" by others. As some denominations do not have a hard-line stance on the subject, Christians of such denominations are free to make a personal decision.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity does not officially condemn or endorse capital punishment. It states that it is not a totally objectionable thing, but also that its abolition can be driven by genuine Christian values, especially stressing the need for mercy.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship and many other Christian esoteric schools condemn capital punishment in all circumstances.
Roman Catholic Church
St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, accepted the death penalty as a deterrent and prevention method but not as a means of vengeance. (See Aquinas on the death penalty.) The Roman Catechism stated this teaching thus:
Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.
In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II suggested that capital punishment should be avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question, opining that punishment "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent." The most recent edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church restates this view. That the assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul II is not binding on the faithful was confirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger when he wrote in 2004 that,
if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
The 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia suggested that Catholics must hold that "the infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians", but that the matter of "the advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations."
Protestants
Southern Baptists support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts, so long as it does not constitute as an act of personal revenge or discrimination.
The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops condemned the death penalty in 1988:
The United Methodist Church, along with other Methodist churches, also condemns capital punishment, saying that it cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking human life. The Church also holds that the death penalty falls unfairly and unequally upon marginalised persons including the poor, the uneducated, ethnic and religious minorities, and persons with mental and emotional illnesses. The General Conference of the United Methodist Church calls for its bishops to uphold opposition to capital punishment and for governments to enact an immediate moratorium on carrying out the death penalty sentence.
In a 1991 social policy statement, the ELCA officially took a stand to oppose the death penalty. It states that revenge is a primary motivation for capital punishment policy and that true healing can only take place through repentance and forgiveness.
Community of Christ, the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is opposed to capital punishment. The first stand against capital punishment was taken by the church's Presiding High Council in 1995. This was followed by a resolution of the World Conference in 2000. This resolution, WC 1273, states:
Several key leaders early in the Protestant Reformation, including Martin Luther and John Calvin, followed the traditional reasoning in favour of capital punishment, and the Lutheran Church's Augsburg Confession explicitly defended it. Some Protestant groups have cited Genesis 9:5–6, Romans 13:3–4, and
Leviticus 20:1–27 as the basis for permitting the death penalty.
Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Friends have opposed the death penalty since their founding, and continue to be strongly opposed to it today. These groups, along with other Christians opposed to capital punishment, have cited Christ's Sermon on the Mount (transcribed in Matthew Chapter 5–7) and Sermon on the Plain (transcribed in Luke 6:17–49). In both sermons, Christ tells his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies, which these groups believe mandates nonviolence, including opposition to the death penalty.
The Church of Scotland considers that capital punishment is unacceptable and does not provide an answer for even the most serious crimes.
In 2015, a large association representing over 30 U.S. Protestant denominations ceased promoting a pro-death penalty stance and announced its affirmation of Christians who oppose the death penalty as well as those who support it, and also affirmed both sides' ethical reasoning in doing so.
Mormonism
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints neither supports nor opposes capital punishment, although the church's founder, Joseph Smith, supported it. However, today the church officially states that it is a "matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law."
Hinduism
A basis can be found in Hindu teachings both for permitting and forbidding the death penalty. Hinduism preaches ahimsa (or ahinsa, non-violence), but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body. The soul is reborn into another body upon death (until Moksha), akin to a human changing clothes. The religious, civil and criminal law of Hindus is encoded in the Dharmaśāstras and the Arthasastra. The Dharmasastras describe many crimes and their punishments and call for the death penalty in several instances, including murder and righteous warfare.
Islam
Sharia, the religious law in Islam, requires capital punishment for certain crimes. For example, the Quran states,
Similarly, capital punishment by stoning for zina (extramarital sex) is prescribed in Hadiths, the books most trusted in Islam after Quran, particularly in Kitab Al-Hudud.
In the four primary schools of Sunni fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the two primary schools of Shi'a fiqh, certain types of crimes mandate capital punishment. Certain hudud crimes, for example, are considered crimes against Allah and require capital punishment in public. These include apostasy (leaving Islam to become an atheist or convert to another religion such as Christianity), fasad (mischief in the land, or moral corruption against Allah, social disturbance and creating disorder within the Muslim state) and zina (consensual heterosexual or homosexual relations not allowed by Islam).
Qisas is another category of sentencing where sharia permits capital punishment, for intentional or unintentional murder. In the case of death, sharia gives the murder victim's nearest relative or Wali () a right to, if the court approves, take the life of the killer.
Further, in case of Qisas-related capital punishment, sharia offers the victim's guardian the option of Diyya (monetary compensation). In several Islamic countries such as Sunni Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as Shia Iran, both hudud and qisas type capital punishment is part of the legal system and in use. In others, there is variation in the use of capital punishment.
Capital punishment for apostasy in Islam and stoning to death in Islam are controversial topics. Similarly, the discriminatory option between capital punishment and monetary compensation for crimes such as murder is controversial, where jurists have asked if poor offenders face trial and capital punishment while wealthy offenders avoid even a trial by paying off Qisas compensation. Another historic and continuing controversy is the discrimination between the death of a Muslim and a non-Muslim dhimmi, as well as discrimination between the death of a man and a woman, used in sharia-ruled states. Woman's life is considered half the worth of a man, while Christians and Jews are worth half of a Muslim, and the life of Buddhist, Hindu, folk religion or atheist is considered 1/16th the worth of a Muslim. This has led certain Islamic nations to discriminate between Muslims and non-Muslims while imposing capital punishment and compensation, for both intentional murder and manslaughter, depending on whether the victim is Muslim or non-Muslim, as well as based on the religion of the individual who has committed the crime.
Lethal stoning and beheading in public under sharia is controversial for being a cruel form of capital punishment. These forms of execution remain part of the religious law enforced in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Pakistan and Mauritania.
Judaism
The official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent. In practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical. A capital case could not be tried by a normal Beit Din of three judges, it can only be adjudicated by a Sanhedrin of a minimum of 23 judges. Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in approximately the year 70 CE, i.e. in approximately 30 CE, the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment, making it a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment, fitting in finality for God alone to use, not fallible people.
The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar, Maimonides said:
"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."
Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.
The state of Israel retains the death penalty only for Nazis convicted of crimes against humanity. The only execution in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was put to death after his trial in Jerusalem.
See also
Death in custody
Prisoner suicide
Eye for an eye
List of people who were beheaded
Mandatory death sentence
UN moratorium on the death penalty
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
List of death row inmates in the United States
Death by a Thousand Cuts (book)
The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints (2002) (book)
References
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
Curry, Tim. "Cutting the Hangman's Noose: African Initiatives to Abolish the Death Penalty." (Archive) American University Washington College of Law.
MacLean, Colonel French L. The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II, 2013, Schiffer Publishing, ISBN 9780764345777.
External links
About.com's Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty and Capital Punishment
1000+ Death Penalty links all in one place
Updates on the death penalty generally and capital punishment law specifically
Texas Department of Criminal Justice: list of executed offenders and their last statements
Death Penalty Worldwide: Academic research database on the laws, practice, and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world.
Answers.com entry on capital punishment
"How to Kill a Human Being", BBC Horizon TV programme documentary, 2008
U.S. and 50 State death penalty/capital punishment law and other relevant links Megalaw
Two audio documentaries covering execution in the United States: Witness to an Execution The Execution Tapes
Opposing
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Death Watch International International anti-death penalty campaign group
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Anti-Death Penalty Information: includes a monthly watchlist of upcoming executions and death penalty statistics for the United States.
The Death Penalty Information Center: Statistical information and studies
Amnesty International – Abolish the death penalty Campaign: Human Rights organisation
European Union: Information on anti-death penalty policies
IPS Inter Press Service International news on capital punishment
Death Penalty Focus: American group dedicated to abolishing the death penalty
Reprieve.org: United States based volunteer program for foreign lawyers, students, and others to work at death penalty defense offices
American Civil Liberties Union: Demanding a Moratorium on the Death Penalty
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
NSW Council for Civil Liberties: an Australian organisation opposed to the Death Penalty in the Asian region
Winning a war on terror: eliminating the death penalty
Electric Chair at Sing Sing, a 1900 photograph by William M. Vander Weyde, accompanied by a poem by Jared Carter.
Lead prosecutor apologizes for role in sending man to death row Shreveport Times, 2015
In favour
The REAL Death Penalty in the US: A Review
Studies showing the death penalty saves lives
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Keep life without parole and death penalty intact
Why the death penalty is needed
Pro Death Penalty.com
Pro Death Penalty Resource Page
119 Pro DP Links
The Death Penalty is Constitutional
The Paradoxes of a Death Penalty Stance by Charles Lane in the Washington Post
Clark County, Indiana, Prosecutor's Page on capital punishment
In Favor of Capital Punishment – Famous Quotes supporting Capital Punishment
Studies spur new death penalty debate
Religious views
The Dalai Lama – Message supporting the moratorium on the death penalty
Buddhism & Capital Punishment from The Engaged Zen Society
Orthodox Union website: Rabbi Yosef Edelstein: Parshat Beha'alotcha: A Few Reflections on Capital Punishment
Priests for Life – Lists several Catholic links
The Death Penalty: Why the Church Speaks a Countercultural Message by Kenneth R. Overberg, S.J., from AmericanCatholic.org
Wrestling with the Death Penalty by Andy Prince, from Youth Update on AmericanCatholic.org
Catholics Against Capital Punishment: offers a Catholic perspective and provides resources and links
Kashif Shahzada 2010: Why The Death Penalty Is un-Islamic?
Category:Ethically disputed practices
Category:Human rights
Category:Penology
Category:Violence
Category:Ethically disputed judicial practices |
2016-01 | December_25-697633369 | December_25 | December 25
Events
333 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great elevates his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar.
336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome.
350 – Vetranio meets Constantius II at Naissus (Serbia) and is forced to abdicate his title (Caesar). Constantius allows him to live as a private citizen on a state pension.
496 – Clovis I, king of the Franks, is baptized into the Catholic faith at Reims, by Saint Remigius.
597 – Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow-labourers baptise in Kent more than 10,000 Anglo-Saxons.
800 – The Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome.
1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
1025 – Coronation of Mieszko II Lambert as king of Poland.
1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.
1076 – Coronation of Bolesław II the Generous as king of Poland.
1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
1130 – Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first king of Sicily.
1261 – John IV Laskaris of the restored Eastern Roman Empire is deposed and blinded by orders of his co-ruler Michael VIII Palaiologos.
1492 – The carrack Santa María, commanded by Christopher Columbus, runs onto a reef off Haiti due to an improper watch.
1553 – Battle of Tucapel: Mapuche rebels under Lautaro defeat the Spanish conquistadors and executes the governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia.
1559 – Pope Pius IV is elected.
1643 – Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is found and named by Captain William Mynors of the English East India Company vessel, the Royal Mary.
1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.
1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumor.
1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.
1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance.
1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy concludes after beginning the previous evening.
1837 – Second Seminole War: American general Zachary Taylor leads 1100 troops against the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee.
1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.
1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.
1926 – Emperor Taishō of Japan dies. His son, Prince Hirohito, succeeds him as Emperor Shōwa.
1927 – The Vietnamese Nationalist Party is founded.
1932 – A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Gansu, China kills 275 people.
1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
1941 – World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.
1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.
1946 – The first European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union's F-1 nuclear reactor.
1947 – The Constitution of the Republic of China goes into effect.
1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.
1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
1963 – Turkish Cypriot Bayrak Radio begins transmitting in Cyprus after Turkish Cypriots are forcibly excluded from Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
1965 – The Yemeni Nasserist Unionist People's Organisation is founded in Ta'izz
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
1968 – Kilvenmani massacre, 44 Dalits (untouchables) are burnt to death in Kizhavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit laborers.
1974 – Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory Australia.
1974 – Marshall Fields drives a vehicle through the gates of the White House, resulting in a four-hour standoff.
1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with its president Anwar Sadat.
1989 – Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, First-Deputy Prime-Minister Elena Ceaușescu are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine's referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.
2000 – Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a bill into law that officially establishes a new National Anthem of Russia, with music adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union that was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.
2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing.
2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005.
2005 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil MP Joseph Pararajasingham is shot dead as he attends midnight mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, Batticaloa.
2009 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab unsuccessfully attempts a terrorist attack against the US while on board a flight to Detroit Metro Airport Northwest Airlines Flight 253
2012 – An Antonov An-72 plane crashes close to the city of Shymkent, killing 27 people.
Births
1250 – John IV Laskaris, Byzantine emperor (d. 1305)
1461 – Christina of Saxony (d. 1521)
1505 – Christine of Saxony (d. 1549)
1583 – Orlando Gibbons, English organist and composer (d. 1625)
1584 – Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain (d. 1611)
1628 – Noël Coypel, French painter and educator (d. 1707)
1642 – Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician (d. 1726/7)
1652 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician, anatomist, and scholar (d. 1713)
1665 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish-English poet and songwriter (d. 1746)
1667 – Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal (d. 1743)
1674 – Thomas Halyburton, Scottish minister and theologian (d. 1712)
1686 – Giovanni Battista Somis, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1763)
1696 – Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar (d. 1715)
1700 – Leopold II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (d. 1758)
1711 – Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, French violinist and composer (d. 1772)
1716 – Johann Jakob Reiske, German physician and scholar (d. 1774)
1717 – Pope Pius VI (d. 1799)
1728 – Johann Adam Hiller, German composer and conductor (d. 1804)
1730 – Philip Mazzei, Italian-American physician and philosopher (d. 1816)
1742 – Charlotte von Stein, German assistant of Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (d. 1827)
1745 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Caribbean-French violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1799)
1757 – Benjamin Pierce, American general and politician, 17th Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1839)
1763 – Claude Chappe, French engineer (d. 1805)
1771 – Dorothy Wordsworth, English author and poet (d. 1855)
1776 – Sydney, Lady Morgan, Irish-English author and poet (d. 1859)
1817 – John Hewitt Jellett, Irish priest and academic (d. 1888)
1821 – Clara Barton, American nurse and humanitarian, founded the American Red Cross (d. 1912)
1825 – Stephen F. Chadwick, American lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Oregon (d. 1895)
1829 – Patrick Gilmore, Irish-American composer and bandleader (d. 1892)
1856 – Pud Galvin, American baseball player and manager (d. 1902)
1856 – Hans von Bartels, German painter and academic (d. 1913)
1860 – Manwel Dimech, Maltese journalist, author, and philosopher (d. 1921)
1861 – Madan Mohan Malaviya, Indian educator, lawyer, and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (d. 1946)
1864 – Thomas Cahill, American soccer player and coach (d. 1951)
1865 – Evangeline Booth, English 4th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1950)
1869 – Charles Finger, English-American journalist and author (d. 1941)
1870 – Helena Rubinstein, Polish-American businesswoman and philanthropist (d. 1965)
1871 – Katherine McKinley, American daughter of William McKinley (d. 1875)
1873 – Otto Frederick Hunziker, Swiss-American agriculturalist and educator (d. 1959)
1874 – Lina Cavalieri, Italian soprano and actress (d. 1944)
1875 – Francis Aveling, Canadian psychologist and priest (d. 1941)
1875 – Theodor Innitzer, Austrian cardinal (d. 1955)
1876 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Indian-Pakistani lawyer and politician, 1st Governor-General of Pakistan (d. 1948)
1876 – Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
1878 – Louis Chevrolet, Swiss-American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Chevrolet (d. 1941)
1878 – Noëlle, Countess of Rothes (d. 1956)
1878 – Joseph M. Schenck, Russian-American film producer (d. 1961)
1883 – Hugo Bergmann, Czech-Israeli philosopher and academic (d. 1975)
1883 – Hana Meisel, Belarusian-Israeli agronomist and politician (d. 1972)
1884 – Samuel Berger, American boxer (d. 1925)
1884 – Evelyn Nesbit, American model and actress (d. 1967)
1886 – Malak Hifni Nasif, Egyptian poet and activist (d. 1918)
1886 – Kid Ory, American trombonist and bandleader (d. 1973)
1887 – Conrad Hilton, American businessman, founded the Hilton Hotels & Resorts (d. 1979)
1889 – Octave Garnier, French criminal (d. 1912)
1889 – Lila Bell Wallace, American publisher and philanthropist, co-founded Reader's Digest (d. 1984)
1890 – Noel Odell, English geologist and mountaineer (d. 1987)
1890 – Robert Ripley, American anthropologist and publisher, founded Ripley's Believe It or Not! (d. 1949)
1891 – Kenneth Arthur Noel Anderson, Indian-English general and politician, Governor of Gibraltar (d. 1959)
1891 – Clarrie Grimmett, New Zealand-Australian cricketer (d. 1980)
1899 – Humphrey Bogart, American actor and singer (d. 1957)
1901 – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (d. 2004)
1902 – Barton MacLane, American actor, singer, and playwright (d. 1969)
1902 – William Bell, American tuba player and educator (d. 1971)
1903 – Antiochos Evangelatos, Greek composer and conductor (d. 1981)
1904 – Gerhard Herzberg, German-Canadian physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
1906 – Lew Grade, Baron Grade, Ukrainian-English film producer (d. 1998)
1906 – Ernst Ruska, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1988)
1907 – Cab Calloway, American singer-songwriter and bandleader (The Cab Calloway Orchestra) (d. 1994)
1907 – Mike Mazurki, Ukrainian-American wrestler and actor (d. 1990)
1907 – Glenn McCarthy, American businessman, founded the Shamrock Hotel (d. 1988)
1908 – Quentin Crisp, English actor, author, and illustrator (d. 1999)
1908 – Ernest L. Massad, American general (d. 1993)
1908 – Jo-Jo Moore, American baseball player (d. 2001)
1909 – Zora Arkus-Duntov, Belgian-American engineer (d. 1996)
1911 – Louise Bourgeois, French-American sculptor and painter (d. 2010)
1913 – Candy Candido, American singer, bass player, and voice actor (d. 1999)
1913 – Tony Martin, American singer and actor (d. 2012)
1913 – Henri Nannen, German journalist and publisher (d. 1966)
1914 – James Muir Cameron Fletcher, New Zealand businessman (d. 2007)
1915 – Pete Rugolo, Italian-American composer and producer (d. 2011)
1916 – Ahmed Ben Bella, Algerian soldier and politician, 1st President of Algeria (d. 2012)
1917 – Lincoln Verduga Loor, Ecuadorian journalist and politician (d. 2009)
1918 – Anwar Sadat, Egyptian lieutenant and politician, 3rd President of Egypt, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
1919 – Naushad Ali, Indian composer and director (d. 2006)
1919 – Paul David, Canadian cardiologist and politician, founded the Montreal Heart Institute (d. 1999)
1919 – Noele Gordon, English actress (d. 1985)
1921 – Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah, Indian-Pakistani journalist and author (d. 2000)
1921 – Steve Otto, Polish-Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1989)
1922 – William Demby, American author (d. 2013)
1923 – René Girard, French-American historian, philosopher, and critic (d. 2015)
1923 – Louis Lane, American conductor and educator
1924 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer, created The Twilight Zone (d. 1975)
1924 – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Indian poet and politician, 10th Prime Minister of India
1925 – Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-American anthropologist and author (d. 1998)
1925 – Ned Garver, American baseball player
1925 – Sam Pollock, Canadian businessman (d. 2007)
1926 – Enrique Jorrín, Cuban violinist and composer (d. 1987)
1927 – Nellie Fox, American baseball player and coach (d. 1975)
1927 – Leo Kubiak, American basketball and baseball player
1927 – Ram Narayan, Indian sarangi player
1928 – Dick Miller, American actor, director, and screenwriter
1929 – Stuart Hall, English radio and television host
1929 – Christine M. Jones, American educator and politician (d. 2013)
1929 – Chris Kenner, American singer-songwriter (d. 1976)
1930 – Emmanuel Agassi, Iranian-American boxer and coach
1930 – Armenak Alachachian, Armenian basketball player and coach
1930 – Salah Jahin, Egyptian poet and illustrator (d. 1986)
1932 – Mabel King, American actress and singer (d. 1999)
1933 – Basil Heatley, English runner
1935 – Sadiq al-Mahdi, Sudanese politician, Prime Minister of Sudan
1935 – Stephen Barnett, American scholar and academic (d. 2009)
1935 – Jeanne Hopkins Lucas, American educator and politician (d. 2007)
1935 – Anne Roiphe, American author and activist
1936 – Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy
1936 – Ismail Merchant, Indian-English director and producer (d. 2005)
1937 – O'Kelly Isley, Jr., American singer-songwriter (The Isley Brothers) (d. 1986)
1938 – Duane Armstrong, American painter
1938 – David Borden, American composer and academic
1938 – Noel Picard, Canadian ice hockey player
1939 – Royce D. Applegate, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2003)
1939 – Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, Pakistani businessman and politician
1939 – Bob James, American keyboard player, songwriter, and producer (Fourplay)
1939 – Akong Rinpoche, Tibetan-Chinese spiritual leader (d. 2013)
1940 – Pete Brown, English singer-songwriter and poet
1940 – Hilary Spurling, English journalist and author
1941 – Kenneth Calman, Scottish physician and academic
1942 – Françoise Dürr, French tennis player and coach
1942 – Barbara Follett, Jamaican-English politician
1942 – Barry Goldberg, American keyboard player, songwriter, and producer (The Electric Flag, Steve Miller Band, and The Rides)
1942 – Enrique Morente, Spanish singer-songwriter (d. 2010)
1943 – Wilson Fittipaldi Júnior, Brazilian race car driver and businessman
1943 – Hanna Schygulla, German actress and singer
1944 – Jairzinho, Brazilian footballer and manager
1944 – Kenny Everett, English comedian, actor, and radio host (d. 1995)
1944 – Nigel Starmer-Smith, English rugby player and journalist
1944 – Henry Vestine, American guitarist (Canned Heat and The Mothers of Invention) (d. 1997)
1945 – Rick Berman, American screenwriter and producer
1945 – Eve Pollard, English journalist and author
1945 – Mike Pringle, Zambian-Scottish lawyer and politician
1945 – Noel Redding, English singer-songwriter and bass player (The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Fat Mattress, Road, and The Noel Redding Band) (d. 2003)
1945 – Gary Sandy, American actor
1945 – Ken Stabler, American football player and sportscaster (d. 2015)
1946 – Jimmy Buffett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor
1946 – Larry Csonka, American football player and sportscaster
1946 – Christopher Frayling, English author and academic
1946 – Gene Lamont, American baseball player and manager
1946 – Stuart Wilson, English actor
1947 – Twink Caplan, American actress and producer
1948 – Alia al-Hussein, Egyptian wife of Hussein of Jordan (d. 1977)
1948 – Barbara Mandrell, American singer-songwriter and actress
1948 – Joel Santana, Brazilian footballer and manager
1949 – Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira, Brazilian singer
1949 – Nawaz Sharif, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan
1949 – Sissy Spacek, American actress and singer
1949 – Joe Louis Walker, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer
1950 – Peter Boardman, English mountaineer and author (d. 1982)
1950 – Yehuda Poliker, Israeli singer-songwriter and guitarist
1950 – Karl Rove, American journalist and diplomat, White House Deputy Chief of Staff
1950 – Manny Trillo, Venezuelan baseball player and manager
1952 – Desireless, French singer
1952 – Tolossa Kotu, Ethiopian runner and coach
1952 – C. C. H. Pounder, Guyanese-American actress
1953 – Kaarlo Maaninka, Finnish runner
1954 – Annie Lennox, Scottish singer-songwriter and pianist (The Tourists and Eurythmics)
1954 – Steve Wariner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1955 – Brett Vroman, American basketball player
1957 – Chris Kamara, English footballer and sportscaster
1957 – Shane MacGowan, English-Irish singer-songwriter (The Pogues, The Nips, and Shane MacGowan and The Popes)
1958 – Cheryl Chase, American voice actress and singer
1958 – Hanford Dixon, American football player, coach, and sportscaster
1958 – Rickey Henderson, American baseball player and coach
1958 – Konstantin Kinchev, Russian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Alisa)
1958 – Alannah Myles, Canadian singer-songwriter and actress
1959 – Michael P. Anderson, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2003)
1959 – Ramdas Athawale, Indian poet and politician
1960 – Ron Bottitta, English actor
1961 – Íngrid Betancourt, Colombian political scientist and politician
1962 – Dean Cameron, American actor
1964 – Ian Bostridge, English tenor
1964 – Gary McAllister, Scottish footballer and manager
1964 – Tim Royes, American director and editor (d. 2007)
1964 – Bob Stanley, English keyboard player, songwriter, producer, and journalist (Saint Etienne)
1965 – Ed Davey, English politician, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
1965 – David Rath, Czech physician and politician
1966 – Toshi Arai, Japanese race car driver
1967 – Jason Thirsk, American bass player (Pennywise and Humble Gods) (d. 1996)
1968 – Helena Christensen, Danish model and actress
1968 – Jim Dowd, American ice hockey player
1969 – Frederick Onyancha, Kenyan runner
1970 – Nagma, Indian actress
1970 – Emmanuel Amunike, Nigerian footballer and manager
1970 – Rodney Dent, American basketball player
1971 – Dido, English singer-songwriter
1971 – Noel Hogan, Irish guitarist and producer (The Cranberries, Mono Band, and Arkitekt)
1971 – Justin Trudeau, Canadian educator and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada
1972 – Josh Freese, American drummer and songwriter (The Vandals and Devo)
1972 – Mac Powell, American singer-songwriter and producer (Third Day)
1972 – Qu Yunxia, Chinese runner
1973 – Robbie Elliott, English footballer and coach
1973 – Chris Harris, American wrestler
1973 – Daisuke Miura, Japanese baseball player and coach
1973 – Alexandre Trudeau, Canadian journalist and director
1974 – Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, Mexican drug lord (d. 2012)
1975 – Rob Mariano, American reality show contestant, winner of Survivor: Redemption Island
1975 – Daniel Mustard, American singer-songwriter
1975 – Hideki Okajima, Japanese baseball player
1975 – Choi Sung-yong, South Korean footballer and manager
1975 – Marcus Trescothick, English cricketer
1976 – Tuomas Holopainen, Finnish keyboard player, songwriter, and producer (Nightwish and For My Pain...)
1976 – Tim James, American basketball player and coach
1976 – Atko Väikmeri, Estonian footballer
1976 – Armin van Buuren, Dutch DJ and producer
1977 – Uhm Ji-won, South Korean actress
1977 – Priya Anjali Rai, Indian-American porn actress and model
1977 – Israel Vázquez, Mexican boxer
1977 – Ali Tandoğan, Turkish footballer
1978 – Simon Jones, Welsh cricketer
1978 – Joel Porter, Australian footballer and manager
1978 – Bridgetta Tomarchio, American actress and model
1979 – Ferman Akgül, Turkish singer-songwriter and actor (Manga)
1979 – Laurent Bonnart, French footballer
1979 – Robert Huff, English race car driver
1979 – Hyun Young-min, South Korean footballer
1980 – Kahi, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (After School)
1980 – Joanna Angel, American porn actress, director, and producer
1980 – Reika Hashimoto, Japanese model and actress
1980 – Laura Sadler, English actress (d. 2003)
1980 – Marcus Trufant, American football player
1981 – Trenesha Biggers, American wrestler and model
1981 – Christian Holst, Danish-Faroese footballer
1981 – Willy Taveras, Dominican baseball player
1981 – Katie Wright, American actress
1982 – Dev, Indian actor, singer, and politician
1982 – Shawn Andrews, American football player
1982 – Rob Edwards, Welsh footballer
1982 – Ethan Kath, Canadian keyboard player, songwriter and producer (Crystal Castles and Kïll Cheerleadër)
1982 – Chris Rene, American singer-songwriter and producer
1984 – Locó, Angolan footballer
1984 – Chris Cahill, Samoan footballer
1984 – Alastair Cook, English cricketer
1984 – Georgia Moffett, English actress
1984 – Jessica Origliasso, Australian singer-songwriter and actress (The Veronicas)
1984 – Lisa Origliasso, Australian singer-songwriter and actress (The Veronicas)
1984 – Chris Richard, American basketball player
1985 – Martin Mathathi, Kenyan runner
1985 – Leon Pisani, Welsh singer-songwriter (V)
1985 – Alexander Rusev, Bulgarian-American wrestler
1985 – Perdita Weeks, Welsh actress
1986 – Aya Suzaki, Japanese voice actress and singer
1987 – Ceyhun Gülselam, Turkish footballer
1987 – Julian Lage, American guitarist and composer
1987 – Jorgie Porter, English actress
1987 – Ma Qinghua, Chinese race car driver
1987 – LJ Reyes, Filipino actress and dancer
1987 – Justin Sweeney, Australian footballer
1987 – Demaryius Thomas, American football player
1988 – Joãozinho, Brazilian footballer
1988 – Heather Cooke, American soccer player
1988 – Eric Gordon, American basketball player
1988 – Lukas Hinds-Johnson, German rugby player
1989 – Djameleddine Benlamri, Algerian footballer
1989 – Michael Green, American soccer player
1989 – Shahzaib Hasan, Pakistani cricketer
1989 – Keri Wong, American tennis player
1989 – Adrian von Ziegler, Swiss composer and producer
1990 – Conny Perrin, Swiss tennis player
1993 – Emi Takei, Japanese model, actress, and singer
1995 – Mimmi Sandén, Swedish singer and actress
Deaths
795 – Pope Adrian I (b. 700)
820 – Leo V the Armenian, Byzantine emperor (b. 775)
940 – Makan ibn Kaki, Iranian general
1156 – Peter the Venerable, French abbot and saint (b. 1092)
1505 – George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent, English politician (b. 1454)
1553 – Pedro de Valdivia, Spanish-Chilean explorer and politician, 1st Royal Governor of Chile (b. 1500)
1635 – Samuel de Champlain, French soldier, geographer, and explorer (b. 1567)
1676 – William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire (b. 1592)
1676 – Matthew Hale, English lawyer and jurist, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (b. 1609)
1683 – Kara Mustafa Pasha, Ottoman general and politician, 111th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1634)
1758 – James Hervey, English priest and author (b. 1714)
1763 – Suraj Mal, Indian ruler (b. 1707)
1784 – Yosa Buson, Japanese poet and painter (b. 1716)
1824 – Barbara von Krüdener, German mystic and author (b. 1764)
1868 – Linus Yale, Jr., American engineer and businessman (b. 1821)
1875 – Young Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (b. 1851)
1880 – Fridolin Anderwert, Swiss lawyer and politician, President of the Swiss National Council (b. 1828)
1916 – Albert Chmielowski, Polish saint, founded the Albertine Brothers (b. 1845)
1921 – Vladimir Korolenko, Russian journalist, author, and activist (b. 1853)
1925 – Karl Abraham, German psychoanalyst and author (b. 1877)
1926 – Emperor Taishō of Japan (b. 1879)
1928 – Miles Burke, American boxer (b. 1885)
1930 – Jakob Mändmets, Estonian journalist and author (b. 1871)
1933 – Francesc Macià i Llussà, Catalan colonel and politician, 122nd President of Catalonia (b. 1859)
1935 – Paul Bourget, French author and critic (b. 1852)
1938 – Karel Čapek, Czech author and playwright (b. 1890)
1940 – Agnes Ayres, American actress (b. 1898)
1941 – Richard S. Aldrich, American lawyer and politician (b. 1884)
1944 – George Steer, South African-English journalist and author (b. 1909)
1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, juggler, and screenwriter (b. 1880)
1947 – Gaspar G. Bacon, American lawyer and politician, 51st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1886)
1949 – Leon Schlesinger, American animator and producer, founded Warner Bros. Cartoons (b. 1884)
1950 – Neil Francis Hawkins, English politician (b. 1903)
1952 – Margrethe Mather, American photographer (b. 1886)
1953 – Patsy Donovan, Irish-American baseball player and manager (b. 1865)
1953 – William Haselden, Spanish-English cartoonist (b. 1872)
1954 – Johnny Ace, American singer and pianist (b. 1929)
1956 – Robert Walser, Swiss author and playwright (b. 1878)
1957 – Charles Pathé, French record producer, founded Pathé Records (b. 1863)
1961 – Owen Brewster, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 54th Governor of Maine (b. 1888)
1961 – Otto Loewi, German-American pharmacologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1873)
1963 – Tristan Tzara, Romanian-French poet, playwright, painter, and critic (b. 1896)
1970 – Michael Peto, Hungarian-English photographer and journalist (b. 1908)
1973 – İsmet İnönü, Turkish general and politician, 2nd President of Turkey (b. 1884)
1973 – Gabriel Voisin, French pilot and engineer (b. 1880)
1975 – Gaston Gallimard, French publisher, founded Éditions Gallimard (b. 1881)
1975 – Gunnar Kangro, Estonian mathematician and author (b. 1913)
1977 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director (b. 1889)
1979 – Joan Blondell, American actress and singer (b. 1906)
1979 – Jordi Bonet, Canadian painter and sculptor (b. 1932)
1983 – Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1893)
1988 – Shōhei Ōoka, Japanese author and critic (b. 1909)
1988 – Edward Pelham-Clinton, 10th Duke of Newcastle, English entomologist and lepidopterist (b. 1920)
1989 – Benny Binion, American poker player and businessman (b. 1904)
1989 – Elena Ceaușescu, Romanian politician, First Lady of Romania (b. 1916)
1989 – Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanian general and politician, 1st President of Romania (b. 1918)
1989 – Betty Garde, American actress (b. 1905)
1989 – Frederick F. Houser, American judge and politician, 34th Lieutenant Governor of California (b. 1905)
1989 – Billy Martin, American baseball player and manager (b. 1928)
1989 – Florică Murariu, Romanian rugby player and soldier (b. 1955)
1989 – Robert Pirosh, American director and screenwriter (b. 1910)
1989 – Wally Ris, American swimmer (b. 1924)
1992 – Monica Dickens, English-American nurse and author (b. 1915)
1993 – Pierre Victor Auger, French physicist and academic (b. 1899)
1994 – Zail Singh, Indian politician, 7th President of India (b. 1916)
1995 – Emmanuel Levinas, Lithuanian-French philosopher and academic (b. 1906)
1995 – Dean Martin, American singer and actor (b. 1917)
1996 – Bill Hewitt, Canadian sportscaster (b. 1928)
1997 – Anatoli Boukreev, Kazakh mountaineer and explorer (b. 1958)
1997 – Denver Pyle, American actor, singer, and director (b. 1920)
1998 – Bryan MacLean, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Love) (b. 1946)
1998 – John Pulman, English snooker player and sportscaster (b. 1926)
1999 – Peter Jeffrey, English actor (b. 1929)
2000 – Neil Hawke, Australian cricketer and footballer (b. 1939)
2000 – Willard Van Orman Quine, American philosopher and academic (b. 1908)
2001 – Alfred A. Tomatis, French otolaryngologist and academic (b. 1920)
2002 – William T. Orr, American actor and producer (b. 1917)
2003 – Nicholas Mavroules, American politician (b. 1929)
2004 – Robert Elliott, American actor (b. 1944)
2004 – Gennadi Strekalov, Russian engineer and astronaut (b. 1940)
2005 – Derek Bailey, English guitarist (b. 1930)
2005 – Robert Barbers, Filipino police officer, lawyer, and politician, 15th Filipino Secretary of the Interior (b. 1944)
2005 – Birgit Nilsson, Swedish soprano and actress (b. 1918)
2005 – Joseph Pararajasingham, Sri Lankan journalist, businessman, and politician (b. 1934)
2006 – James Brown, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (The Famous Flames) (b. 1933)
2006 – Hiroaki Hidaka, Japanese serial killer (b. 1962)
2007 – Des Barrick, English cricketer (b. 1927)
2007 – Jim Beauchamp, American baseball player and coach (b. 1939)
2007 – Mighty King Kong, Kenyan singer (b. 1973)
2008 – Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress (b. 1927)
2009 – Vic Chesnutt, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Brute and The Undertow Orchestra) (b. 1964)
2010 – Carlos Andrés Pérez, Venezuelan politician, 66th President of Venezuela (b. 1922)
2011 – Giorgio Bocca, Italian journalist (b. 1920)
2011 – Ben Breedlove, American blogger (b. 1993)
2011 – Jim Sherwood, American saxophonist (The Mothers of Invention) (b. 1942)
2011 – Simms Taback, American author and illustrator (b. 1932)
2012 – Sita bint Fahd Al Damir, Saudi Arabian wife of Khalid of Saudi Arabia (b. 1922)
2012 – Erico Aumentado, Filipino journalist, lawyer, and politician (b. 1940)
2012 – Frank Calabrese, Sr., American mobster (b. 1937)
2012 – Halfdan Hegtun, Norwegian radio host and politician (b. 1918)
2012 – Joe Krivak, American football player and coach (b. 1935)
2012 – Turki bin Sultan, Saudi Arabian politician (b. 1959)
2013 – Anthony J. Bryant, American historian and author (b. 1961)
2013 – David R. Harris, English geographer, anthropologist, archaeologist and academic (b. 1930)
2013 – Wayne Harrison, English footballer (b. 1967)
2013 – Mike Hegan, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1942)
2013 – Mel Mathay, Filipino politician, 8th Mayor of Quezon City (b. 1932)
2013 – Adnan Şenses, Turkish singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1935)
2014 – Alberta Adams, American singer (b. 1917)
2014 – N. L. Balakrishnan, Indian actor and photographer (b. 1943)
2014 – Ricardo Porro, Cuban-French architect (b. 1925)
2014 – Geoff Pullar, English cricketer (b. 1935)
2014 – David Ryall, English actor (b. 1935)
2014 – Gleb Yakunin, Russian priest and activist (b. 1934)
2015 – Zahran Alloush, Syrian commander (b. 1971)
2015 – George Clayton Johnson, American author and screenwriter (b. 1929)
2015 – Sadhana Shivdasani, Indian actress (b. 1941)
2015 – Robert Spitzer, American psychiatrist and academic (b. 1932)
Holidays and observances
Christian feast day:
Anastasia of Sirmium (Catholic Church)
December 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Children's Day (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Republic of Congo)
Christmas Day, Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus. (International)
Constitution Day (Taiwan)
Good Governance Day (India)
Malkh-Festival (Nakh peoples of Chechnya and Ingushetia)
Newtonmas Day, observed by some atheists to commemorate the birthday of Sir Issac Newton born Dec 25th, 1642 (Julian Calendar used in England at that time), usually making reference to "Reason´s Greetings"
Quaid-e-Azam's Day (Pakistan)
Takanakuy (Chumbivilcas Province, Peru)
External links
BBC: On This Day
On This Day in Canada
Category:Days of the year
Category:December |
2016-01 | BDSM-697300706 | BDSM | BDSM
BDSM is a variety of erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves as practicing BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture is usually dependent on self-identification and shared experience. Interest in BDSM can range from one-time experimentation to a lifestyle.
The term BDSM is first recorded in a Usenet posting from 1991, and is interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM is used today (2015) as a catch-all phrase covering a wide range of activities, forms of interpersonal relationships, and distinct subcultures. BDSM communities generally welcome anyone with a non-normative streak who identifies with the community; this may include cross-dressers, body modification enthusiasts, animal roleplayers, latex or rubber aficionados, and others.
Unlike the usual "power neutral" relationships and play styles commonly followed by couples, activities and relationships within a BDSM context are often characterized by the participants' taking on complementary, but unequal roles; thus, the idea of informed consent of both the partners becomes essential. Participants who exert sexual dominance over their partners are known as dominants or tops, while participants who take the passive, receiving, or obedient role are known as submissives or bottoms.
Individuals are also sometimes abbreviated when referred to in writing, so a dominant person may be referred to as a "dom" for a man or a woman. Sometimes a woman may choose to use the female specific term "Domme". Both terms are pronounced the same when spoken. Individuals who can change between top/dominant and bottom/submissive roles—whether from relationship to relationship or within a given relationship—are known as switches. The precise definition of roles and self-identification is a common subject of debate within the community.
Fundamentals
BDSM has become an umbrella term for certain kinds of erotic behavior between consenting adults. There are distinct subcultures under this umbrella term. Terminology for roles varies widely among the subcultures. Top and dominant are widely used for those partner(s) in the relationship or activity who are, respectively, the physically active or controlling participants. Bottom and submissive are widely used for those partner(s) in the relationship or activity who are, respectively, the physically receptive or controlled participants. The interaction between tops and bottoms—where physical or mental control of the bottom is surrendered to the top—is sometimes known as "power exchange", whether in the context of an encounter or a relationship.
BDSM actions can often take place during a specific period of time agreed to by both parties, referred to as "play", a "scene", or a "session". Participants usually derive pleasure from this, even though many of the practices—such as inflicting pain or humiliation or being restrained—would be unpleasant under other circumstances. Explicit sexual activity, such as sexual penetration, may occur within a session, but is not essential. Such explicit sexual interaction is, for legal reasons, seen only rarely in public play spaces, and it is sometimes specifically banned by the rules of a party or playspace. Whether it is a public "playspace"—ranging from a party at an established community dungeon to a hosted play "zone" at a nightclub or social event—the parameters of allowance can vary. Some have a policy of panties/nipple tape for women (underwear for men) and some allow full nudity with explicit sexual interaction allowed.
The fundamental principles for the exercise of BDSM require that it should be performed with the informed consent of all involved parties. Since the 1980s, many practitioners and organizations have adopted the motto (originally from the statement of purpose of GMSMA—a gay SM activist organization) "safe, sane and consensual", commonly abbreviated as "SSC", which means that everything is based on safe activities, that all participants be of sufficiently sound/sane mind to consent, and that all participants do consent. It is mutual consent that makes a clear legal and ethical distinction between BDSM and such crimes as sexual assault or domestic violence.
Some BDSM practitioners prefer a code of behavior that differs from "SSC" and is described as "risk-aware consensual kink" (RACK), indicating a preference for a style in which the individual responsibility of the involved parties is emphasized more strongly, with each participant being responsible for his or her own well-being. Advocates of RACK argue that SSC can hamper discussion of risk because no activity is truly "safe", and that discussion of even low-risk possibilities is necessary for truly informed consent. They further argue that setting a discrete line between "safe" and "not-safe" activities ideologically denies consenting adults the right to evaluate risks vs rewards for themselves; that some adults will be drawn to certain activities regardless of the risk; and that BDSM play—particularly higher-risk play or edgeplay—should be treated with the same regard as extreme sports, with both respect and the demand that practitioners educate themselves and practice the higher-risk activities to decrease risk. RACK may be seen as focusing primarily upon awareness and informed consent, rather than accepted safe practices. Consent is the most important criterion here. The consent and compliance for a sadomasochistic situation can be granted only by people who can judge the potential results. For their consent, they must have relevant information (extent to which the scene will go, potential risks, if a safeword will be used, what that is, and so on) at hand and the necessary mental capacity to judge. The resulting consent and understanding is occasionally summarized in a written "contract", which is an agreement of what can and cannot take place.
In general, BDSM play is usually structured such that it is possible for the consenting partner to withdraw his or her consent during a scene; for example, by using a safeword that was agreed on in advance. Use of the agreed safeword (or occasionally a "safe symbol" such as dropping a ball or ringing a bell, especially when speech is restricted) is seen by some as an explicit withdrawal of consent. Failure to honor a safeword is considered serious misconduct and could even change the sexual consent situation into a crime, depending on the relevant law, since the bottom has explicitly revoked his or her consent to any actions that follow the use of the safeword (see Legal status). For other scenes, particularly in established relationships, a safeword may be agreed to signify a warning ("this is getting too intense") rather than explicit withdrawal of consent; and a few choose not to use a safeword at all. This is sometimes the case for "punishment scenes" between master/slave couples or for some extreme or edgeplay scenes which may include abductions, rape play, or interrogation. This scene dynamic may be referred to as "consensual nonconsent". In some scenes or relationships it may be impossible for consent to be withdrawn in the middle of a scene, or the bottom may have the ability to revoke consent for a relationship as a whole, but not for a particular scene.
Terminology and subtypes
The initialism BDSM includes psychological and physiological facets:
Bondage and Discipline (B&D)
Dominant and submissive (D/s)
Sadism and Masochism (or sadomasochism) (S&M)
This model for differentiating among these aspects of BDSM is increasingly used in literature today. Nevertheless, it is only an attempt at phenomenological differentiation. Individual tastes and preferences in the area of sexuality may overlap among these areas, which are discussed separately here.
Bondage and discipline are two aspects of BDSM that do not seem to relate to each other because of the type of activities involved, but they have conceptual similarities, and that is why they appear jointly. Contrary to the other two types, B&D does not define the tops and bottoms itself, and is used to describe the general activities with either partner being the receiver and the giver.
The term bondage describes the practice of physical restraint. Bondage is usually, but not always, a sexual practice. While bondage is a very popular variation within the larger field of BDSM, it is nevertheless sometimes differentiated from the rest of this field. Studies among BDSM practitioners in the US have shown that about half of all men find the idea of bondage to be erotic; and many women do as well. Strictly speaking, bondage means binding the partner by tying their appendages together; for example, by the use of handcuffs or ropes, or by lashing their arms to an object. Bondage can also be achieved by spreading the appendages and fastening them with chains or ropes to a St. Andrew's cross or spreader bars.
The term discipline describes psychological restraining, with the use of rules and punishment to control overt behavior. Punishment can be pain caused physically (such as caning), humiliation caused psychologically (such as a public flagellation) or loss of freedom caused physically (for example, chaining the submissive partner to the foot of a bed). Another aspect is the structured training of the bottom.
"Dominance and submission" (also known as D&s, Ds or D/s) is a set of behaviors, customs and rituals relating to the giving and accepting of control of one individual over another in an erotic or lifestyle context. It explores the more mental aspect of BDSM. This is also the case in many relationships not considering themselves as sadomasochistic; it is considered to be a part of BDSM if it is practiced purposefully. The range of its individual characteristics is thereby wide.
Often, "contracts" are set out in writing to record the formal consent of the parties to the power exchange, stating their common vision of the relationship dynamic. The purpose of this kind of agreement is primarily to encourage discussion and negotiation in advance, and then to document that understanding for the benefit of all parties. Such documents have not been recognized as being legally binding, nor are they intended to be. These agreements are binding in the sense that the parties have the expectation that the negotiated rules will be followed. Often other friends and community members may witness the signing of such a document in a ceremony, and so parties violating their agreement can result in loss of face, respect or status with their friends in the community.
In general, as compared to conventional relationships, BDSM participants go to great lengths to negotiate the important aspects of their relationships in advance, and to take great care in learning about and following safe practices.
In D/S, the dominant is the top and the submissive is the bottom. In S/M, the sadist is usually the top and the masochist the bottom, but these roles are frequently more complicated or jumbled (as in the case of being dominant, masochists who may arrange for their submissive to carry out S/M activities on them). As in B/D, the declaration of the top/bottom may be required, though sadomasochists may also play without any power exchange at all, with both partners equally in control of the play.
Etymology
The term sadomasochism is derived from the words sadism and masochism. These terms differ somewhat from the same terms used in psychology, since those require that the sadism or masochism cause significant distress or involve non-consenting partners. Sadomasochism refers to the aspects of BDSM surrounding the exchange of physical or emotional pain. Sadism describes sexual pleasure derived by inflicting pain, degradation, humiliation on another person or causing another person to suffer. On the other hand, the masochist enjoys being hurt, humiliated, or suffering within the consensual scenario. Sadomasochistic scenes sometimes reach a level that appear more extreme or cruel than other forms of BDSM—for example, when a masochist is brought to tears or is severely bruised—and is occasionally unwelcome at BDSM events or parties. Sadomasochism does not imply enjoyment through causing or receiving pain in other situations (for example, accidental injury, medical procedures).
The terms sadism and masochism are derived from the names of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, based on the content of the authors' works. Although the names of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch are attached to the terms sadism and masochism respectively, the scenes described in de Sade's works do not meet modern BDSM standards of informed consent. BDSM is solely based on consensual activities, and based on its system and laws, the concepts presented by de Sade are not agreed upon the BDSM culture, even though they are sadistic in nature. In 1843 the Ruthenian physician Heinrich Kaan published Psychopathia sexualis ("Psychopathy of Sex"), a writing in which he converts the sin conceptions of Christianity into medical diagnoses. With his work the originally theological terms "perversion", "aberration" and "deviation" became part of the scientific terminology for the first time. The German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft Ebing introduced the terms "sadism" and "masochism" to the medical community in his work Neue Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Psychopathia sexualis ("New research in the area of Psychopathy of Sex") in 1890.
In 1905, Sigmund Freud described "sadism" and "masochism" in his Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie ("Three papers on Sexual theory") as diseases developing from an incorrect development of the child psyche and laid the groundwork for the scientific perspective on the subject in the following decades. This led to the first time use of the compound term sado-masochism (German sado-masochismus) by the Viennese psychoanalytic Isidor Isaak Sadger in their work, Über den sado-masochistischen Komplex ("Regarding the sadomasochistic complex") in 1913.
In the later 20th century, BDSM activists have protested against these conceptual models. Not only were these models were derived from the philosophies of two singular historical figures. Both Freud and Krafft-Ebing were psychiatrists. Their observations on sadism and masochism were dependent on psychiatric patients, and their models were built on the assumption of psychopathology. BDSM activists argue that it is illogical to attribute human behavioural phenomena as complex as sadism and masochism to the 'inventions' of two historic individuals. Advocates of BDSM have sought to distinguish themselves from widely held notions of antiquated psychiatric theory by the adoption of the initialized term, "BDSM" as a distinction from the now common usage of those psychological terms, abbreviated as "S&M".
Behavioral aspects
On a physical level, BDSM is commonly misconceived to be "all about pain". Most often, though, BDSM practitioners are primarily concerned with power, humiliation, and pleasure. Of the three categories of BDSM, only sadomasochism specifically requires pain, but this is typically a means to an end, as a vehicle for feelings of humiliation, dominance, etc. The aspects of D/S and B/D may not include physical suffering at all, but include the sensations inherited by different emotions of the mind. Dominance & submission of power is an entirely different experience, and is not always psychologically associated with physical pain. Many BDSM activities might not involve any kind of pain or humiliation, but just the exchange of Powers (Power Exchange). During the activities, the practitioners may feel endorphins comparable to the so-called "runner's high" or to the afterglow of orgasm. The corresponding trance-like mental state is also known as "subspace" for the submissive, or "topspace" for the dominant. Some use the term "body stress" to describe this physiological sensation. This experience of algolagnia is important, but is not the only motivation for many BDSM practitioners. The philosopher Edmund Burke defines this sensation of pleasure derived from pain by the word sublime. There is a wide array of BDSM practitioners who take part in sessions for which they do not receive any personal gratification. They enter such situations solely with the intention to allow their partners to fulfill their own needs or fetishes. Professional doms and dommes do this in exchange of money for the session activities, but non-professionals do it for the sake of their partners.
In some BDSM sessions, the top exposes the bottom to a wide range of sensual impressions, for example: pinching, biting, scratching with fingernails, spanking or the use of objects such as crops, whips, liquid wax, ice cubes, Wartenberg wheels, erotic electrostimulation devices. Fixation by handcuffs, ropes or chains may be used as well. The repertoire of possible "toys" is limited only by the imagination of both partners. To some extent, everyday items like clothes-pins, wooden spoons or plastic wrap are used as pervertables. It is commonly considered that a pleasurable BDSM experience during a session is very strongly dependent upon the top's competence and experience and the bottom's physical and mental state at the time of the session. Trust and sexual arousal help the partners enter a shared mindset. Some BDSM practitioners compare related sensations with musical compositions and representation, in which single sensual impressions are the musical notes of the situation. From this point of view, different sensuous impressions are combined to create a total experience leaving a lasting impression.
Types of play
Some types of BDSM play include, but are not limited to:
Bondage
Cock and ball torture (CBT)
Control
Erotic electrostimulation
Edgeplay
Flogging
Golden showers (urinating)
Medical play
Predicament bondage
Sexual roleplay
Spanking
Suspension
Torture
Tickle torture
Wax play
Safety
Aside from the general advice related to safe sex, BDSM sessions often require a wider array of safety precautions than vanilla sex (sexual behaviour without BDSM elements). In theory, to ensure consent related to BDSM activity, pre-play negotiations are commonplace, especially among partners who do not know each other very well. In practice, pick-up scenes at clubs or parties may sometimes be low in negotiation (much as pick-up sex from singles bars may not involve much negotiation or disclosure). These negotiations concern the interests and fantasies of each partner and establish a framework of both acceptable and unacceptable activities. This kind of discussion is a typical "unique selling proposition" of BDSM sessions and quite commonplace. Additionally, safewords are often arranged to provide for an immediate stop of any activity if any participant should so desire.
Safewords are words or phrases that are called out when things are either not going as planned or have crossed a threshold one cannot handle. They are something both parties can remember and recognize and are, by definition, not words commonly used playfully during any kind of scene. Words such as no, stop, and don't, are often inappropriate as a safeword if the roleplaying aspect includes the illusion of non-consent. The most commonly used safewords are red and yellow, with red meaning that play must stop immediately, and yellow meaning that the activity needs to slow down. At most clubs and group-organized BDSM parties and events, dungeon monitors (DMs) provide an additional safety net for the people playing there, ensuring that house rules are followed and safewords respected.
BDSM participants are expected to understand practical safety aspects. For instance, they are expected to recognize that parts of the body can be damaged, such as nerves and blood vessels by contusion, or that skin that can be scarred. Using crops, whips, or floggers, the top's fine motor skills and anatomical knowledge can make the difference between a satisfying session for the bottom and a highly unpleasant experience that may even entail severe physical harm. The very broad range of BDSM "toys" and physical and psychological control techniques often requires a far-reaching knowledge of details related to the requirements of the individual session, such as anatomy, physics, and psychology. Despite these risks, BDSM activities usually result in far less severe injuries than sports like boxing and football, and BDSM practitioners do not visit emergency rooms any more often than the general population.
It is necessary to be able to identify each person's psychological "squicks" or triggers in advance to avoid them. Such losses of emotional balance due to sensory or emotional overload are a fairly commonly discussed issue. It is important to follow participants' reactions empathetically and continue or stop accordingly. For some players, sparking "freakouts" or deliberately using triggers may be a desired outcome. Safewords are one way for BDSM practices to protect both parties. However, partners should be aware of each other's psychological states and behaviors to prevent instances where the "freakouts" prevent the use of safewords.
Social aspects
Roles
Top and bottom
At one end of the spectrum are those who are indifferent to, or even reject physical stimulation. At the other end of the spectrum are bottoms who enjoy discipline and erotic humiliation but are not willing to be subordinate to the person who applies it. The bottom is frequently the partner who specifies the basic conditions of the session and gives instructions, directly or indirectly, in the negotiation, while the top often respects this guidance. Other bottoms often called "brats" try to incur punishment from their tops by provoking them or "misbehaving". Nevertheless, a purist "school" exists within the BDSM community, which regards such "topping from the bottom" as rude or even incompatible with the standards of BDSM relations.
Types of relationships
Play
BDSM practitioners sometimes regard the practice of BDSM in their sex life as roleplaying and so often use the terms "play" and "playing" to describe activities where in their roles. Play of this sort for a specified period of time is often called a "session", and the contents and the circumstances of play are often referred to as the "scene". It is also common in personal relationships to use the term "kink play" for BDSM activities, or more specific terms for the type of activity. The relationships can be of varied types.
Long term
Early writings on BDSM both by the academic and BDSM community spoke little of long-term relationships with some in the gay leather community suggesting short-term play relationships to be the only feasible relationship models, and recommending people to get married and "play" with BDSM outside of marriage. In recent times though writers of BDSM and sites for BDSM have been more focused on long-term relationships.
A 2003 study, the first to look at these relationships, fully demonstrated that "quality long-term functioning relationships" exist among practitioners of BDSM, with either sex being the top or bottom (homosexual couples were not looked at). Respondents in the study expressed their BDSM orientation to be built into who they are, but considered exploring their BDSM interests an ongoing task, and showed flexibility and adaptability in order to match their interests with their partners. The "perfect match" where both in the relationship shared the same tastes and desires was rare, and most relationships required both partners to take up or put away some of their desires. The BDSM activities that the couples partook in varied in sexual to nonsexual significance for the partners who reported doing certain BDSM activities for "couple bonding, stress release, and spiritual quests". The most reported issue amongst respondents was not finding enough time to be in role with most adopting a lifestyle wherein both partners maintain their dominant or submissive role throughout the day.
Amongst the respondents it was typically the bottoms who wanted to play harder, and be more restricted into their roles when there was a difference in desire to play in the relationship. The author of the study, Bert Cutler, speculated that tops may be less often in the mood to play due to the increased demand for responsibility on their part: being aware of the safety of the situation and prepared to remove the bottom from a dangerous scenario, being conscious of the desires and limits of the bottom, and so on. The author of the study stressed that successful long-term BDSM relationships came after "early and thorough disclosure" from both parties of their BDSM interests.
Many of those engaged in long-term BDSM relationships learned their skills from larger BDSM organizations and communities There was a lot of discussion by the respondents on the amount of control the top possessed in the relationships with almost non-existent discussion of the top "being better, or smarter, or of more value" than the bottom.
Couples were generally of the same mind of whether or not they were in an ongoing relationship, but in such cases the bottom was not locked up constantly, but that their role in the context of the relationship was always present, even when the top was doing non-dominant activities such as household chores, or the bottom being in a more dominant position. In its conclusion the study states:
The respondents valued themselves, their partners, and their relationships. All couples expressed considerable good will toward their partners. The power exchange between the cohorts appears to be serving purposes beyond any sexual satisfaction, including experiencing a sense of being taken care of and bonding with a partner.
The study further goes on to list three aspects that made the successful relationships work: early disclosure of interests and continued transparency, a commitment to personal growth, and the use of the dominant/submissive roles as a tool to maintain the relationship. In his closing remarks the author of the study theorizes that due to the serious potential for harm that couples in BDSM relationships develop increased communication that may be higher than in mainstream relationships
Professional services
A professional dominatrix or professional dominant, often referred to within the culture as a "pro-dom(me)", offers services encompassing the range of bondage, discipline, and dominance in exchange for money. The term "dominatrix" is little-used within the non-professional BDSM scene. A non-professional dominant woman is more commonly referred to simply as a "domme", "dominant", or "femdom". There are also services provided by professional female submissives ("pro-subs"). A professional submissive consents to her client's dominant behavior within negotiated limits, and often works within a professional dungeon. Professional submissives, although far more rare, do exist. Most of the people who work as subs normally have tendencies towards such activities, especially when sadomasochism is involved. Males also work as professional "tops" in BDSM, and are called "masters" or "doms". However it is much more rare to find a male in this profession. A male "pro-dom" typically only works with male clientele.
Scenes
In BDSM, a scene is the stage or setting where BDSM activity takes place, as well as the activity itself. The physical place where a BDSM activity takes place is usually called a dungeon, though some prefer less dramatic terms, including "playspace", or "club". A BDSM activity can, but need not, involve sexual activity or sexual roleplay. A characteristic of many BDSM relationships is the power exchange from the bottom to the dominant partner, and bondage features prominently in BDSM scenes and sexual roleplay.
'The Scene' (note the use of the definite article 'the') is also used in the BDSM community to refer to the BDSM community as a whole. Thus someone who is on 'the Scene', and prepared to play in public, might take part in 'a scene' at a public play party.
A scene can take place in private between two or more people, and can involve a domestic arrangement, such as servitude or a casual or committed lifestyle master/slave relationship. BDSM elements may involve settings of slave training or punishment for breaches of instructions.
A scene can also take place in a club, where the play can be viewed by others. When a scene takes place in a public setting, it may be because the participants enjoy being watched by others, or because of the equipment available, or because having third parties present adds safety for play partners who have only recently met.
Etiquette
Standard social etiquette rules still apply when at a BDSM event, such as not intimately touching someone you do not know, not touching someone else's belongings (including toys), and abiding by dress codes. Many events open to the public also have rules addressing alcohol consumption, recreational drugs, cell phones, and photography.
A specific scene takes place within the general conventions and etiquette of BDSM, such as requirements for mutual consent and agreement as to the limits of any BDSM activity. This agreement can be incorporated into a formal contract. In addition, most clubs have additional rules which regulate how onlookers may interact with the actual participants in a scene.
Parties and clubs
BDSM parties are events on which BDSM practitioners and other similarly interested people meet in order to communicate, share experiences and knowledge, and to "play" in an erotic atmosphere. The parties show similarities with ones in the dark culture, being based on a more or less strictly enforced dress code; most often clothing made of latex, leather or vinyl/PVC, lycra and so on., emphasizing the body's shape and the primary and secondary sexual characteristic. The requirement for such dress codes differ. While some events have none, others have a policy in order to create a more coherent atmosphere and to prevent voyeurs from taking part.
At these parties, BDSM can be publicly performed on a stage, or more privately in separate "dungeons". A reason for the relatively fast spread of this kind of event is the opportunity to use a wide range of "playing equipment", which in most apartments or houses is unavailable. Slings, St. Andrew's crosses (or similar restraining constructs), spanking benches, and punishing supports or cages are often made available. The problem of noise disturbance is also lessened at these events, while in the home setting many BDSM activities can be limited by this factor. In addition, such parties offer both exhibitionists and voyeurs a forum to indulge their inclinations without social criticism. Sexual intercourse is not permitted within most public BDSM play spaces or not often seen in others, because it is not the emphasis of this kind of play. In order to ensure the maximum safety and comfort for the participants certain standards of behavior have evolved; these include aspects of courtesy, privacy, respect and safewords. Today BDSM parties are taking place in most of the larger cities in the Western world.
This scene appears particularly on the Internet, in publications, and in meetings such as SM parties, gatherings called munches, and erotic fairs. The annual Folsom Street Fair is the world's largest BDSM event. It has its roots in the gay leather movement. There are also conventions such as Living in Leather, Shibaricon, Spankfest, and Black Rose. North American cities that have large BDSM communities include New York City, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Minneapolis, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. European cities with large BDSM communities include London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Moscow and Rome.
Psychology
It has been claimed that BDSM stems from childhood abuse: research indicates that there is no evidence for this claim.
There are a number of reasons commonly given for why a sadomasochist finds the practice of S&M enjoyable, and the answer is largely dependent on the individual. For some, taking on a role of compliance or helplessness offers a form of therapeutic escape; from the stresses of life, from responsibility, or from guilt. For others, being under the power of a strong, controlling presence may evoke the feelings of safety and protection associated with childhood. They likewise may derive satisfaction from earning the approval of that figure (see: Servitude (BDSM)). A sadist, on the other hand, may enjoy the feeling of power and authority that comes from playing the dominant role, or receive pleasure vicariously through the suffering of the masochist. It is poorly understood, though, what ultimately connects these emotional experiences to sexual gratification, or how that connection initially forms.
Dr. Joseph Merlino, author and psychiatry adviser to the New York Daily News, said in an interview that a sadomasochistic relationship, as long as it is consensual, is not a psychological problem:
It is agreed on by some psychologists that experiences during early sexual development can have a profound effect on the character of sexuality later in life. Sadomasochistic desires, however, seem to form at a variety of ages. Some individuals report having had them before puberty, while others do not discover them until well into adulthood. According to one study, the majority of male sadomasochists (53%) developed their interest before the age of 15, while the majority of females (78%) developed their interest afterwards (Breslow, Evans, and Langley 1985). The prevalence of sadomasochism within the general population is unknown. Despite female sadists being less visible than males, some surveys have resulted in comparable amounts of sadistic fantasies between females and males. The results of such studies demonstrate that one's sex does not determine preference for sadism.
Prevalence
BDSM is practiced in all social strata and is common in both heterosexual and homosexual men and women in varied occurrences and intensities. The spectrum ranges from couples with no connections to the subculture outside of their bedrooms or homes, without any awareness of the concept of BDSM, playing "tie-me-up-games", to public scenes on St. Andrew's crosses at large events such as the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. Estimation on the overall percentage of BDSM related sexual behaviour vary but it is no longer assumed to be uncommon.
Alfred Kinsey stated in his 1953 nonfiction book Sexual Behavior in the Human Female that 12% of females and 22% of males reported having an erotic response to a sadomasochistic story. In that book erotic responses to being bitten were given as:
A non-representative survey on the sexual behaviour of American students published in 1997 and based on questionnaires had a response rate of about 8–9%. Its results showed 15% of homosexual and bisexual males, 21% of lesbian and female bisexual students, 11% of heterosexual males and 9% of female heterosexual students committed to BDSM related fantasies. In all groups the level of practical BDSM experiences were around 6%. Within the group of openly lesbian and bisexual females the quote was significantly higher, at 21%. Independent of their sexual orientation, about 12% of all questioned students, 16% of lesbians and female bisexuals and 8% of heterosexual males articulated an interest in spanking. Experience with this sexual behaviour was indicated by 30% of male heterosexuals, 33% of female bisexuals and lesbians, and 24% of the male gay and bisexual men and female heterosexual women. Even though this study was not considered representative, other surveys indicate similar dimensions in a differing target groups.
A representative study done from 2001 to 2002 in Australia found that 1.8% of sexually active people (2.2% men, 1.3% women but no significant sex difference) had engaged in BDSM activity in the previous year. Of the entire sample, 1.8% men and 1.3% women had been involved in BDSM. BDSM activity was significantly more likely among bisexuals and homosexuals of both sexes. But among men in general, there was no relationship effect of age, education, language spoken at home, or relationship status. Among women, in this study, activity was most common for those between 16 and 19 years of age and least likely for females over 50 years. Activity was also significantly more likely for women who had a regular partner they did not live with, but was not significantly related with speaking a language other than English or education.
Another representative study, published in 1999 by the German Institut für rationale Psychologie, found that about 2/3 of the interviewed women stated a desire to be at the mercy of their sexual partners from time to time. 69% admitted to fantasies dealing with sexual submissiveness, 42% stated interest in explicit BDSM techniques, 25% in bondage. A 1976 study in the general US population suggests three percent have had positive experiences with Bondage or master-slave roleplaying. Overall 12% of the interviewed females and 18% of the males were willing to try it. A 1990 Kinsey Institute report stated that 5% to 10% of Americans occasionally engage in sexual activities related to BDSM. 11% of men and 17% of women reported trying bondage. Some elements of BDSM have been popularized through increased media coverage since the middle 1990s. Thus both black leather clothing, sexual jewellery such as chains and dominance roleplay appear increasingly outside of BDSM contexts.
According to yet another survey of 317,000 people in 41 countries, about 20% of the surveyed have at least used masks, blindfolds or other bondage utilities once, and 5% explicitly connected themselves with BDSM. In 2004, 19% mentioned spanking as one of their practices and 22% confirmed the use of blindfolds or handcuffs.
A 1985 study found 52 out of 182 female respondents (28%) were involved in sadomasochistic activities.
Recent surveys
A 2009 study on two separate samples of male undergraduate students in Canada found that 62 to 65%, depending on the sample, had entertained sadistic fantasies, and 22 to 39% engaged in sadistic behaviors during sex. The figures were 62 and 52% for bondage fantasies, and 14 to 23% for bondage behaviors. A 2014 study involving a mixed sample of Canadian college students and online volunteers, both male and female, reported that 19% of male samples and 10% of female samples rated the sadistic scenarios described in a questionnaire as being at least "slightly arousing" on a scale that ranged from "very repulsive" to "very arousing"; the difference was statistically significant. The corresponding figures for the masochistic scenarios were 15% for male students and 17% for female students, a non-significant difference. In a 2011 study on 367 middle-aged and elderly men recruited from the broader community in Berlin, 21.8% of the men self-reported sadistic fantasies and 15.5% sadistic behaviors; 24.8% self-reported any such fantasy and/or behavior. The corresponding figures for self-reported masochism were 15.8% for fantasy, 12.3% for behavior, and 18.5% for fantasy and/or behavior. In a 2008 study on gay men in Puerto Rico, 14.8% of the over 425 community volunteers reported any sadistic fantasy, desire or behavior in their lifetime; the corresponding figure for masochism was 15.7%.
Medical categorization
The current version of the American Psychiatric Association's manual, DSM-5, excludes consensual BDSM from diagnosis when the sexual interests cause no harm or distress. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) indicates that "mild degrees of sadomasochistic stimulation are commonly used to enhance otherwise normal sexual activity."
In Europe, an organization called ReviseF65 has worked to remove sadomasochism from the ICD. In 1995, Denmark became the first European Union country to have completely removed sadomasochism from its national classification of diseases. This was followed by Sweden in 2009, Norway in 2010 and Finland 2011. Recent surveys on the spread of BDSM fantasies and practices show strong variations in the range of their results. Nonetheless, researchers assume that 5 to 25 percent of the population practices sexual behavior related to pain or dominance and submission. The population with related fantasies is believed to be even larger.
Coming out
Some people who feel attracted by the situations usually compiled under the term BDSM reach a point where they decide to come out of the closet, though many sadomasochists keep themselves closeted. Even so, depending upon a survey's participants, about 5 to 25 percent of the US population show affinity to the subject. Other than a few artists and writers, practically no celebrities are publicly known as sadomasochists.
Public knowledge of one's BDSM lifestyle can have devastating vocational and social effects (persona non grata) for sadomasochists. The reason for this is seen by some authors as primarily a lack of public educational advertising, exacerbated by overly lurid and sensationalized media coverage. People also face severe professional consequences if they are exposed, either voluntarily or involuntarily, as sadomasochists.
Within feminist circles the discussion has been split roughly into two camps: some who see BDSM as an aspect or reflection of oppression (for example, Alice Schwarzer) and, on the other side, pro-BDSM feminists, often grouped under the banner of sex-positive feminism (see Samois); both of them can be traced back to the 1970s.
Some feminists have criticized BDSM for eroticizing power and violence, and for reinforcing misogyny. They argue that women who engage in BDSM are making a choice that is ultimately bad for women. Feminist defenders of BDSM argue that consensual BDSM activities are enjoyed by many women and validate the sexual inclinations of these women. They argue that feminists should not attack other woman's sexual desires as being "anti-feminist", and point out that there is no connection between consensual kinky activities and sex crimes. The main point of feminism is giving an individual woman free choices in her life; that includes her sexual desire. While some radical feminists suggest connections between consensual BDSM scenes and non-consensual rape and sexual assault, sex-positive feminists may tend to find this insulting to women.
It is often mentioned that in BDSM, roles are not fixed to gender, but personal preferences. The dominant partner in a heterosexual relationship may be the woman rather than the man; or BDSM may be part of male/male or female/female sexual relationships. Finally, some people switch, taking either a dominant or submissive role on different occasions. Several studies on the correlation of BDSM pornography and the violence against women recapitulate that there is no correlation. Japan is a useful example: a country which has the lowest rate of sexual crimes of all industrialized nations while being well known for its comprehensive BDSM and bondage pornography (see Pornography in Japan). In 1991 a lateral survey came to the conclusion that between 1964 and 1984, despite the increase in amount and availability of sadomasochistic pornography in the US, Germany, Denmark and Sweden there is no correlation with the national number of rapes to be found.
Operation Spanner in the UK proves that BDSM practitioners still run the risk of being stigmatized as criminals. In 2003, the media coverage of Jack McGeorge showed that simply participating and working in BDSM support groups poses risks to one's job, even in countries where no law restricts it. Here a clear difference can be seen to the situation of homosexuality. The psychological strain appearing in some individual cases is normally neither articulated nor acknowledged in public. Nevertheless, it leads to a difficult psychological situation in which the person concerned can be exposed to high levels of emotional stress.
In the stages of "self awareness", he or she realizes their desires related to BDSM scenarios or decides to be open for such. Some authors call this internal coming-out. Two separate surveys on this topic independently came to the conclusion that 58 percent and 67 percent of the sample respectively, had realized their disposition before their 19th birthday. Other surveys on this topic show comparable results. Independent of age, coming-out can potentially result in a difficult life crisis, sometimes leading to thoughts or acts of suicide. While homosexuals have created support networks in the last decades, sadomasochistic support networks are just starting to develop in most countries. In German speaking countries they are only moderately more developed. The Internet is the prime contact point for support groups today, allowing for local and international networking. In the US Kink Aware Professionals (KAP) a privately funded, non-profit service provides the community with referrals to psychotherapeutic, medical, and legal professionals who are knowledgeable about and sensitive to the BDSM, fetish, and leather community. In the US and the UK, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation & Federation, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) and Sexual Freedom Coalition (SFC) have emerged to represent the interests of sadomasochists. The German Bundesvereinigung Sadomasochismus e.V. is committed to the same aim of providing information and driving press relations. In 1996 the website and mailing list Datenschlag went online in German and English providing the largest bibliography, as well as one of the most extensive historical collections of sources related to BDSM.
Social (non-medical) research
Richters et al. (2008) study also found that people who engaged in BDSM were more likely to have experienced a wider range of sexual practices (e.g. oral or anal sex, more than one partner, group sex, phone sex, viewed pornography, used a sex toy, fisting, rimming, etc.). They were, however, not any more likely to have been coerced, unhappy, anxious, or experiencing sexual difficulties. On the contrary, men who had engaged in BDSM scored lower on a psychological distress scale than men who did not.
There have been few studies on the psychological aspects of BDSM using modern scientific standards. Psychotherapist Charles Moser said there is no evidence for the theory that BDSM has common symptoms or any common psychopathology, emphasizing that there is no evidence that BDSM practitioners have any special psychiatric other problems based on their sexual preferences.
Problems do sometimes occur in the area of self classification by the person concerned. During the phase of the "coming-out", self questioning related to one's own "normality" is quite common. According to Moser, the discovery of BDSM preferences can result in fear of the current non-BDSM relationship's destruction. This, combined with the fear of discrimination in everyday life, leads in some cases to a double life which can be highly burdensome. At the same time, the denial of BDSM preferences can induce stress and dissatisfaction with one's own "vanilla"-lifestyle, feeding the apprehension of finding no partner. Moser states that BDSM practitioners having problems finding BDSM partners would probably have problems in finding a non-BDSM partner as well. The wish to remove BDSM preferences is another possible reason for psychological problems since it is not possible in most cases. Finally, the scientist states that BDSM practitioners seldom commit violent crimes. From his point of view, crimes of BDSM practitioners usually have no connection with the BDSM components existing in their life. Moser's study comes to the conclusion that there is no scientific evidence, which could give reason to refuse members of this group work- or safety certificates, adoption possibilities, custody or other social rights or privileges. The Swiss psychoanalyst Fritz Morgenthaler shares a similar perspective in his book, Homosexuality, Heterosexuality, Perversion (1988). He states that possible problems result not necessarily from the non-normative behavior, but in most cases primarily from the real or feared reactions of the social environment towards their own preferences. In 1940 psychoanalyst Theodor Reik reached implicitly the same conclusion in his standard work Aus Leiden Freuden. Masochismus und Gesellschaft.
Moser's results are further supported by Richters et al.'s (2008) study on the demographic and psychosocial features of participants in BDSM done in Australia. Richters et al. (2008) found that BDSM practitioners were no more likely to have experienced sexual assault than the control group, and were not more likely to feel unhappy or anxious. The BDSM males reported higher levels of psychological well-being than the controls. It was concluded that "BDSM is simply a sexual interest or subculture attractive to a minority, not a pathological symptom of past abuse or difficulty with 'normal' sex."
Gender observances in research
Not much empirical research has been done on gender differences or prevalence rates of categorized roles within BDSM. Though, one Australian demographic study found higher rates of female participants than males, it can not be generalized.
Gender differences in masochistic scripts
One common misconception of BDSM and kink is that women are more likely to take on masochistic roles than men. Roy Baumeister (2010) actually had more male masochists in his study than female, and fewer male dominants than female. The fact that neither of these gender differences were significant, suggests no assumptions should be made regarding gender and masochistic roles in BDSM. One explanation why we might think otherwise lies in our social and cultural ideals about femininity; masochism may emphasize certain stereotypically feminine elements through activities like feminization of men and ultra-feminine clothing for women. But such tendencies of the submissive masochistic role should not be interpreted as a connection between it and the stereotypical female role—many masochistic scripts do not include any of these tendencies.
Baumeister (2010) found that masochistic males experienced greater: severity of pain, frequency of humiliation (status-loss, degrading, oral), partner infidelity, active participation by other persons, and cross dressing. Trends also suggested that male masochism included more bondage and oral sex than female (though the data was not significant). Female masochists, on the other hand, experienced greater: frequency in pain, pain as punishment for 'misdeeds' in the relationship context, display humiliation, genital intercourse, and presence of non-participating audiences. The exclusiveness of dominant males in a heterosexual relationship should be noted because, historically, men in power preferred multiple partners. Finally, Baumeister (2010) observes a contrast between the 'intense sensation' focus of male masochism to a more 'meaning and emotion' centred female masochistic script.
Prior argues that although some of these women may appear to be engaging in traditional subordinate or submissive roles, BDSM allows women in both dominant and submissive roles to express and experience personal power through their sexual identities. In a study that she conducted in 2013, she found that the majority of the women she interviewed identified as bottom, submissive, captive, or slave. In turn, Prior was able to answer whether or not these women found an incongruity between their sexual identities and feminist identity. Her research found that these women saw little to no incongruity, and in fact felt that their feminist identity supported identities of submissive and slave. For them these are sexually and emotionally fulfilling roles and identities that, in some cases, feed other aspects of their lives. Prior contends that third wave feminism provides a space for women in BDSM communities to express their sexual identities fully, even when those identities seem counter-intuitive to the ideals of feminism. Furthermore, women who do identify as submissive, sexually or otherwise, find a space within BDSM where they can fully express themselves as integrated, well-balanced, and powerful women.
Women in S/M culture
Levitt, Moser, & Jamison's 1994 study provides a general, if outdated, description of characteristics of women in the sadomasochistic (S/M) subculture. They state that women in S/M tend to have higher education, become more aware of their desires as a young adult, are less likely to be married than the general population. The researchers found the majority of females identified as heterosexual and submissive, a substantial minority were versatile—able to switch between dominant and submissive roles—and a smaller minority identified with the dominant role exclusively. Oral sex, bondage and master-slave script were among the most popular activities, while feces/watersports were the least popular.
Orientation observances in research
Though BDSM in itself can be considered a sexual orientation or identity, and is considered one by some of its practitioners, the BDSM and kink scene is more often seen as a diverse pansexual community. Often this is a non-judgmental community where gender, sexuality, orientation, preferences are accepted as is or worked at to become something a person can be happy with. In research, studies have focused on bisexuality and its parallels with BDSM, as well as gay-straight differences between practitioners.
Differences and similarities between gay and straight men in S/M
Demographically, Nordling et al.'s (2006) study found no differences in age, but 43% of gay male respondents compared to 29% of straight males had university level education. The gay men also had higher incomes than the general population, and tended to work in white collar jobs while straight men tended toward blue collar ones. Because there were not enough female respondents (22), no conclusions could be drawn from them.
Sexually speaking, the same 2006 study by Nordling et al. found that gay males were aware of their S/M preferences and took part in them at an earlier age, preferring leather, anal sex, rimming, dildos and special equipment or uniform scenes. In contrast, straight men preferred verbal humiliation, mask and blindfolds, gags, rubber/latex outfits, caning, vaginal sex, and cross-dressing among other activities. From the questionnaire, researchers were able to identify four separate sexual themes: hyper-masculinity, giving and receiving pain, physical restriction (i.e. bondage), and psychological humiliation. Gay men preferred activities that tended towards hyper-masculinity while straight men showed greater preference for humiliation. Though there were not enough female respondents to draw a similar conclusion with, the fact that there is a difference in gay and straight men suggests strongly that S/M (and BDSM in general) can not be considered a homogenous phenomenon. As Nordling et al. (2006) puts it, "People who identify as sadomasochists mean different things by these identifications." (54)
Bisexuality
In Steve Lenius' original 2001 paper he explored the acceptance of bisexuality in a supposedly pansexual BDSM community. The reasoning behind this is that 'coming-out' had become primarily the territory of the gay and lesbian, with bisexuals feeling the push to be one or the other (and being right only half the time either way). What he found in 2001, was that people in BDSM were open to discussion about the topic of bisexuality and pansexuality and all controversies they bring to the table, but personal biases and issues stood in the way of actively using such labels. A decade later, Lenius (2011) looks back on his study and considers if anything has changed. He concluded that the standing of bisexuals in the BDSM and kink community was unchanged, and believed that positive shifts in attitude were moderated by society's changing views towards different sexualities and orientations. But Lenius (2011) does emphasize that the pansexual promoting BDSM community helped advance greater acceptance of alternative sexualities.
Brandy Lin Simula (2012), on the other hand, argues that BDSM actively resists gender conforming and identified three different types of BDSM bisexuality: gender-switching, gender-based styles (taking on a different gendered style depending on gender of partner when playing), and rejection of gender (resisting the idea that gender matters in their play partners). Simula (2012) explains that practitioners of BDSM routinely challenge our concepts of sexuality by pushing the limits on pre-existing ideas of sexual orientation and gender norms. For some, BDSM and kink provides a platform in creating identities that are fluid, ever-changing.
History of psychotherapy and current recommendations
Psychiatry has an insensitive history in the area of BDSM. There have been many involvements by institutions of political power to marginalize subgroups and sexual minorities. Mental health professionals have a long history of holding negative assumptions and stereotypes about the BDSM community. Beginning with the DSM-II, Sexual Sadism and Sexual Masochism have been listed as sexually deviant behaviours. Sadism and masochism were also found in the personality disorder section. This negative assumption has not changed significantly which is evident in the continued inclusion of Sexual Sadism and Sexual Masochism as paraphilias in the DSM-IV-TR. These said biases and misinformation can result in pathologizing and unintentional harm to clients who identify as sadists and/or masochists.
According to Kolmes et al. (2006), major themes of biased and inadequate care to BDSM clients are:
Considering BDSM to be unhealthy
Requiring a client to give up BDSM activities in order to continue in treatment
Confusing BDSM with abuse
Having to educate the therapist about BDSM
Assuming that BDSM interests are indicative of past family/spousal abuse
Therapists misrepresenting their expertise by stating that they are BDSM-positive when they are not actually knowledgeable about BDSM practices
These same researchers suggested that therapists should be open to learning more about BDSM, to show comfort in talking about BDSM issues, and to understand and promote "safe, sane, consensual" BDSM.
History of behavioral treatment
Both terms were introduced to the medical field by German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his 1886 compilation of case studies Psychopathia Sexualis. Pain and physical violence are not essential in Krafft-Ebing's conception, and he defined "masochism" (German masochismus) entirely in terms of control. Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst and a contemporary of Krafft-Ebing, noted that both were often found in the same individuals, and combined the two into a single dichotomous entity known as "sadomasochism" (German sadomasochismus, often abbreviated as S&M or S/M). This observation is commonly verified in both literature and practice; many sadists and masochists define themselves as "switchable"—capable of taking pleasure in either role. However it has also been argued (Deleuze, Coldness and Cruelty) that the concurrence of sadism and masochism in Freud's model should not be taken for granted.
Freud introduced the terms "primary" and "secondary" masochism. Though this idea has come under a number of interpretations, in a primary masochism the masochist undergoes a complete, not just a partial, rejection by the model or courted object (or sadist), possibly involving the model taking a rival as a preferred mate. This complete rejection is related to the death drive (todestrieb) in Freud's psychoanalysis. In a secondary masochism, by contrast, the masochist experiences a less serious, more feigned rejection and punishment by the model. Secondary masochism, in other words, is the relatively casual version, more akin to a charade, and most commentators are quick to point out its contrivedness.
Rejection is not desired by a primary masochist in quite the same sense as the feigned rejection occurring within a mutually consensual relationship—or even where the masochist happens to be the one having actual initiative power (this is the confusion of the distinctions of casual appearance and discrete motives which underlies the analyses of Deleuze and Sartre, for example). In Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, René Girard attempts to resuscitate and reinterpret Freud's distinction of primary and secondary masochism, in connection with his own philosophy.
Both Krafft-Ebing and Freud assumed that sadism in men resulted from the distortion of the aggressive component of the male sexual instinct. Masochism in men, however, was seen as a more significant aberration, contrary to the nature of male sexuality. Freud doubted that masochism in men was ever a primary tendency, and speculated that it may exist only as a transformation of sadism. Sadomasochism in women received comparatively little discussion, as it was believed that it occurred primarily in men. Both also assumed that masochism was so inherent to female sexuality that it would be difficult to distinguish as a separate inclination.
Havelock Ellis, in Studies in the Psychology of Sex, argued that there is no clear distinction between the aspects of sadism and masochism, and that they may be regarded as complementary emotional states. He also made the important point that sadomasochism is concerned only with pain in regard to sexual pleasure, and not in regard to cruelty, as Freud had suggested. In other words, the sadomasochist generally desires that the pain be inflicted or received in love, not in abuse, for the pleasure of either one or both participants. This mutual pleasure may even be essential for the satisfaction of those involved.
Here, Ellis touches upon the often paradoxical nature of widely reported consensual S&M practices. It is described as not simply pain to initiate pleasure, but violence—"or the simulation of involuntary violent acts"—said to express love. This irony is highly evident in the observation by many, that not only are popularly practiced sadomasochistic activities usually performed at the express request of the masochist, but that it is often the designated masochist who may direct such activities, through subtle emotional cues perceived or mutually understood and consensually recognized by the designated sadist.
In his essay Coldness and Cruelty, (originally Présentation de Sacher-Masoch, 1967) Gilles Deleuze rejects the term "sadomasochism" as artificial, especially in the context of the quintessentially modern masochistic work, Sacher-Masoch's Venus In Furs. Deleuze's counterargument is that the tendency toward masochism is based on intensified desire brought on or enhanced by the acting out of frustration at the delay of gratification. Taken to its extreme, an intolerably indefinite delay is 'rewarded' by punitive perpetual delay, manifested as unwavering coldness. The masochist derives pleasure from, as Deleuze puts it, the "Contract": the process by which he can control another individual and turn the individual into someone cold and callous. The sadist, in contrast, derives pleasure from the "Law": the unavoidable power that places one person below another. The sadist attempts to destroy the ego in an effort to unify the id and super-ego, in effect gratifying the most base desires the sadist can express while ignoring or completely suppressing the will of the ego, or of the conscience. Thus, Deleuze attempts to argue that masochism and sadism arise from such different impulses that the combination of the two terms is meaningless and misleading. A masochist's perception of their own self-subjugating sadistic desires and capacities are treated by Deleuze as reactions to prior experience of sadistic objectification. {E.g. in terms of psychology, compulsively defensive appeasement of pathological guilt feelings as opposed to the volition of a strong free will.} The epilogue of Venus In Furs shows the character of Severin has become embittered by his experiment in the alleged control of masochism, and advocates instead the domination of women.
Before Deleuze, however, Sartre had presented his own theory of sadism and masochism, at which Deleuze's deconstructive argument, which took away the symmetry of the two roles, was probably directed. Because the pleasure or power in looking at the victim figures prominently in sadism and masochism, Sartre was able to link these phenomena to his famous philosophy of the "Look of the Other". Sartre argued that masochism is an attempt by the "For-itself" (consciousness) to reduce itself to nothing, becoming an object that is drowned out by the "abyss of the Other's subjectivity". By this Sartre means that, given that for the "for-itself" desire to attain a point of view in which it is both subject and object, one possible strategy is to gather and intensify every feeling and posture in which the self appears as an object to be rejected, tested, and humiliated; and in this way the for-itself strives toward a point of view in which there is only one subjectivity in the relationship, which would be both that of the abuser and the abused. Conversely, Sartre held sadism to be the effort to annihilate the subjectivity of the victim. That means that the sadist is exhilarated by the emotional distress of the victim because they seek a subjectivity that views the victim as both subject and object.
This argument may appear stronger if it is understood that this "look of the other" theory is either only an aspect of the faculties of desire, or somehow its primary faculty. This does not account for the turn that Deleuze took for his own theory of these matters, but the premise of "desire as 'look'" is associated with theoretical distinctions always detracted by Deleuze, in what he regarded as its essential error to recognize "desire as lack"—which he identified in the philosophical temperament of Plato, Socrates, and Lacan. For Deleuze, insofar as desire is a lack it is reducible to the "look".
Finally, after Deleuze, René Girard included his account of sado-masochism in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of The World, originally Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde, 1978, making the chapter on masochism a coherent part of his theory of mimetic desire. In this view of sado-masochism, the violence of the practices are an expression of a peripheral rivalry that has developed around the actual love-object. There is clearly a similarity to Deleuze, since both in the violence surrounding the memory of mimetic crisis and its avoidance, and in the resistance to affection that is focused on by Deleuze, there is an understanding of the value of the love object in terms of the processes of its valuation, acquisition and the test it imposes on the suitor.
Clinical issues
Nichols (2006) compiled some common clinical issues: countertransference, non-disclosure, coming-out, partner/families, and bleed-through.
Countertransference is a common problem in clinical settings. Despite having no evidence, therapists may find themselves believing that their client’s pathology is "self-evident". Therapists may feel intense disgust and aversive reactions. Feelings of countertransference can interfere with therapy. Another common problem is when clients conceal their sexual preferences from their therapists. This can compromise any therapy. To avoid non-disclosure, therapists are encouraged to communicate their openness in indirect ways with literatures and artworks in the waiting room. Therapists can also deliberately bring up BDSM topics during the course of therapy. With less informed therapists, sometimes they over-focus on clients’ sexuality which detracts from original issues such as family relationships, depression, etc. A special subgroup that needs counselling is the "newbie". Individuals just coming out might have internalized shame, fear, and self-hatred about their sexual preferences. Therapists need to provide acceptance, care, and model positive attitude; providing reassurance, psychoeducation, and bibliotherapy for these clients is crucial. The average age when BDSM individuals realize their sexual preference is around 26 years. Many people hide their sexuality until they can no longer contain their desires. However, they may have married or had children by this point. Therefore, therapists need to facilitate couple's counselling and disclosure. It is important for therapists to consider fairness to partner and family of clients. In situations when boundaries between roles in the bedroom and roles in the rest of the relationship blurs, a "bleed-through" problem has occurred. Therapists need to help clients resolve distress and deal with any underlying problems that led to the initial bleed-through.
History
Origins
Practices of BDSM survive from some of the oldest textual records in the world, associated with rituals to the Goddess Inanna (Ishtar in Akkadian). Academic historian and archaeologist Anne O Nomis has undertaken research revealing cuneiform texts dedicated to Inanna which incorporate domination rituals. In particular she points to ancient writings such as Inanna and Ebih (in which the Goddess dominates Ebih), and Hymn to Inanna describing cross-dressing transformations and rituals "imbued with pain and ecstasy, bringing about initation and journeys of altered states of consciousness; punishment, moaning, ecstasy, lament and song, participants exhausting themselves in weeping and grief."
During the ninth century BC, ritual flagellations were performed in Artemis Orthia, one of the most important religious areas of ancient Sparta, where the Cult of Orthia, a preolympic religion, was practiced. Here ritual flagellation called diamastigosis took place, in which young adolescent men were whipped in a ceremony overseen by the priestess. These are referred to by a number of ancient authors, including Pausanius (III, 16: 10-11).
One of the oldest graphical proofs of sadomasochistic activities is found in the Etruscan Tomb of the Whipping near Tarquinia, which dates to the fifth century BC. Inside the tomb there is fresco which portrays two men who flagellate a woman with a cane and a hand during an erotic situation. Another reference related to flagellation is to be found in the sixth book of the Satires of the ancient Roman Poet Juvenal (1st–2nd century A.D.), further reference can be found in Petronius's Satyricon where a delinquent is whipped for sexual arousal. Anecdotal narratives related to humans who have had themselves voluntary bound, flagellated or whipped as a substitute for sex or as part of foreplay reach back to the third and fourth century.
In Pompeii, a Whipstress figure with wings is depicted on the wall of the Villa of Mysteries, as part of an initiation of a young woman into the Mysteries. Nomis notes that the Whipstress role drove the sacred initiation of ceremonial death and rebirth. The archaic Greek Aphrodite may too once have been armed with an implement, with archaeological evidence of armed Aphrodites known as hoplismene known from a number of locations in Cythera, Acrocorinth and Sparta, and which based on Nomis's study on Eastern Goddesses she notes may well have been a whip.
The Kama Sutra of India describes four different kinds of hitting during lovemaking, the allowed regions of the human body to target and different kinds of joyful "cries of pain" practiced by bottoms. The collection of historic texts related to sensuous experiences explicitly emphasizes that impact play, biting and pinching during sexual activities should only be performed consensually since only some women consider such behavior to be joyful. From this perspective the Kama Sutra can be considered as one of the first written resources dealing with sadomasochistic activities and safety rules. Further texts with sadomasochistic connotation appear worldwide during the following centuries on a regular basis.
There are anecdotal reports of people willingly being bound or whipped, as a prelude to or substitute for sex, during the 14th century. The medieval phenomenon of courtly love in all of its slavish devotion and ambivalence has been suggested by some writers to be a precursor of BDSM. Some sources claim that BDSM as a distinct form of sexual behavior originated at the beginning of the 18th century when Western civilization began medically and legally categorizing sexual behavior (see Etymology).
The professional occupation of the Dominatrix has been traced by academic historian Anne O. Nomis from British Library Rare Book sources, which reveals flagellation practiced within an erotic setting recorded from at least the 1590s evidenced by a John Davies epigram, and other references to flogging schools in Shadwell's 'Virtuoso' (1676) and Troth's 'Knavery of Astrology' (1680). Visual evidence such as mezzotints and print media is also identified revealing scenes of flagellation, such as "The Cully Flaug'd" from the British Museum collection.
John Cleland's novel Fanny Hill, published in 1749, incorporates a flagellation scene between the character's protagonist Fanny Hill and Mr Barville. A large number of flagellation publications followed, including "Fashionable Lectures Delivered With Birch Discipline" (c1761), promoting the names of ladies offering the service in a lecture room with rods and cat o' nine tails.
Other sources give a broader definition, citing BDSM-like behavior in earlier times and other cultures, such as the medieval flagellates and the physical ordeal rituals of some Native American societies.
BDSM ideas and imagery have existed on the fringes of Western culture throughout the twentieth century. Robert Bienvenu attributes the origins of modern BDSM to three sources, which he names as "European Fetish" (from 1928), "American Fetish" (from 1934), and "Gay Leather" (from 1950). Another source are the sexual games played in brothels, which go back into the 19th century if not earlier. Irving Klaw, during the 1950s and 1960s, produced some of the first commercial film and photography with a BDSM theme (most notably with Bettie Page) and published comics by the now-iconic bondage artists John Willie and Eric Stanton.
Stanton's model Bettie Page became at the same time one of the first successful models in the area of fetish photography and one of the most famous pin-up girls of American mainstream culture. Italian author and designer Guido Crepax was deeply influenced by him, coining the style and development of European adult comics in the second half of the twentieth century. The artists Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe are the most prominent examples of the increasing use of BDSM-related motives in modern photography and the public discussions still resulting from this.
Alfred Binet first coined the term erotic fetishism in his 1887 book, Du fétichisme dans l’amour
Richard von Krafft-Ebing saw BDSM interests as the end of a continuum.
Leather movement
Leather has been a predominantly gay male term to refer to one fetish, but it can stand for many more. Members of the gay male leather community may wear leathers such as Motorcycle leathers, or may be attracted to men wearing leather. Leather and BDSM are seen as two parts of one whole. Much of the BDSM culture can be traced back to the gay male leather culture, which formalized itself out of the group of men who were soldiers returning home after World War II (1939–1945). WWII was the setting where countless homosexual men and women tasted the life among homosexual peers. Post-war, homosexual individuals congregated in larger cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. They formed leather clubs and bike clubs, some were fraternal services. The establishment of Mr. Leather Contest and Mr. Drummer Contest were made around this time. This was the genesis of the gay male leather community. Many of the members were attracted to extreme forms of sexuality, for which peak expression was in the pre-AIDS 1970s. This subculture is epitomized by the Leatherman's Handbook by Larry Townsend, published in 1972, which describes in detail the practices and culture of gay male sadomasochists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In the early 1980s, lesbians also joined the leathermen as a recognizable element of the gay leather community. They also formed leather clubs, but there were some gender differences such as the absence of leatherwomen’s bar. In 1981, the publication of Coming to Power by lesbian-feminist group Samois led to a greater knowledge and acceptance of BDSM in the lesbian community. By the 1990s, the gay men's and women's leather communities were no longer underground and played an important role in the kink community.
Today the Leather Movement is generally seen as a part of the BDSM-culture instead of as a development deriving from gay subculture, even if a huge part of the BDSM-subculture was gay in the past. In the 1990s the so-called New Guard leather subculture evolved. This new orientation started to integrate psychological aspects into their play.
Internet
In the late-eighties, the Internet provided a way of finding people with specialized interests around the world as well as on a local level, and communicating with them anonymously. This brought about an explosion of interest and knowledge of BDSM, particularly on the usenet group alt.sex.bondage. When that group became too cluttered with spam, the focus moved to soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm.
In addition to traditional sex shops, which sell sex paraphernalia, there has also been an explosive growth of online adult toy companies that specialize in leather/latex gear and BDSM toys. Once a very niche market, there are now very few sex toy companies that do not offer some sort of BDSM or fetish gear in their catalog. Kinky elements seem to have worked their way into "vanilla" markets. The former niche expanded to an important pillar of the business with adult accessories. Today practically all suppliers of sex toys do offer items which originally found usage in the BDSM subculture. Padded handcuffs, latex and leather garments, as well as more exotic items like soft whips for fondling and TENS for erotic electro stimulation can be found in catalogs aiming on classical vanilla target groups, indicating that former boundaries increasingly seem to shift.
During the last years the Internet also provides a central platform for networking among individuals who are interested in the subject. Besides countless private and commercial choices there is an increasing number of local networks and support groups emerging. These groups often offer comprehensive background and health related information for people who have been unwillingly outed as well as contact lists with information on psychologists, physicians and lawyers who are familiar with BDSM related topics.
Legal status
Austria
§90 of the criminal code declares bodily injury (§§ 83, 84) or the endangerment of physical security (§89) to not be subject to penalty in cases in which the "victim" has consented and the injury or endangerment does not offend moral sensibilities. Case law from the Austrian Supreme Court has consistently shown that bodily injury is only offensive to moral sensibilities, thus it is only punishable when a "serious injury" (a damage to health or an employment disability lasting more than 24 days) or the death of the "victim" results. A light injury is generally considered permissible when the "victim" has consented to it. In cases of threats to bodily well-being the standard depends on the probability that an injury will actually occur. If serious injury or even death would be a likely result of a threat being carried out, then even the threat itself is considered punishable.
Canada
In 2004 a judge in Canada ruled that videos seized by the police featuring BDSM activities were not obscene, and did not constitute violence, but a "normal and acceptable" sexual activity between two consenting adults.
In 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. J.A. that a person must have an active mind during the specific sexual activity in order to legally consent. The Court ruled that it is a criminal offence to perform a sexual act on an unconscious person—whether or not that person consented in advance.
Germany
According to §194 the charge of insult (slander) can only be prosecuted if the defamed person chooses to press charges. False imprisonment can be charged if the victim—when applying an objective view—can be considered to be impaired in his or her rights of free movement. According to §228 of the German criminal code a person inflicting a bodily injury on another person with that person's permission violates the law only in cases where the act can be considered to have violated good morals in spite of permission having been given. On 26 May 2004 the Criminal Panel No. 2 of the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court) ruled that sado-masochistically motivated physical injuries are not per se indecent and thus subject to §228.
Following cases in which sado-masochistic practices had been repeatedly used as pressure tactics against former partners in custody cases, the Appeals Court of Hamm ruled in February 2006 that sexual inclinations toward sado-masochism are no indication of a lack of capabilities for successful child-raising.
Italy
In Italian law BDSM is right on the border between crime and legality, and everything lies in the interpretation of the legal code by the judge. This concept is that anyone willingly causing "injury" to another person is to be punished. In this context though "injury" is legally defined as "anything causing a condition of illness", and "illness" is ill-defined itself in two different legal ways. The first is "any anatomical or functional alteration of the organism" (thus technically including little scratches and bruises too); The second is "a significant worsening of a previous condition relevant to organic and relational processes, requiring any kind of therapy". This could make it somewhat risky to play with someone as later the "victim" may call foul play citing even an insignificant mark as evidence against the partner. Also any injury requiring over 20 days of medical care must be denounced by the professional medic who discovers it, leading to automatic indictment of the person who caused it.
Nordic countries
In September 2010 a Swedish court acquitted a 32-year-old man of assault for engaging in consensual BDSM play with a 16-year-old woman (the age of consent in Sweden is 15). Norway's legal system has likewise taken a similar position, that safe and consensual BDSM play should not be subject to criminal prosecution. This parallels the stance of the mental health professions in the Nordic countries which have removed sadomasochism from their respective lists of psychiatric illnesses.
Switzerland
The age of consent in Switzerland is 16 years which also applies for BDSM play. Minors (i.e. those under 16) are not subject to punishment for BDSM play as long as the age difference between them is less than three years. Certain practices however require granting consent for light injuries with only those over 18 permitted to give consent. On 1 April 2002 Articles 135 and 197 of the Swiss Criminal Code were tightened to make ownership of "objects or demonstrations [...] which depict sexual acts with violent content" a punishable offense. This law amounts to a general criminalization of sado-masochism since nearly every sado-masochist will have some kind of media which fulfills this criterion. Critics also object to the wording of the law which puts sado-masochists in the same category as pedophiles and pederasts.
United Kingdom
In British law, consent is an absolute defence to common assault, but not necessarily to actual bodily harm, where courts may decide that consent is not valid, as occurred in the case of R v Brown. Accordingly, consensual activities in the UK may not constitute "assault occasioning actual or grievous bodily harm" in law. The Spanner Trust states that this is defined as activities which have caused injury "of a lasting nature" but that only a slight duration or injury might be considered "lasting" in law. The decision contrasts with the later case of R v Wilson in which conviction for non-sexual consensual branding within a marriage was overturned, the appeal court ruling that R v Brown was not an authority in all cases of consensual injury and criticizing the decision to prosecute.
Following Operation Spanner the European Court of Human Rights ruled in January 1999 in Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v. United Kingdom that no violation of Article 8 occurred because the amount of physical or psychological harm that the law allows between any two people, even consenting adults, is to be determined by the jurisdiction the individuals live in, as it is the State's responsibility to balance the concerns of public health and well-being with the amount of control a State should be allowed to exercise over its citizens. In the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007, the British Government cited the Spanner case as justification for criminalizing images of consensual acts, as part of its proposed criminalization of possession of "extreme pornography". Another contrasting case was that of Stephen Lock in 2013, who was cleared of actual bodily harm on the grounds that the woman consented. In this case, the act was deemed to be sexual.
United States
The United States Federal law does not list a specific criminal determination for consensual BDSM acts. Many BDSM practitioners cite the legal decision of People v. Jovanovic, 95 N.Y.2d 846 (2000), or the "Cybersex Torture Case", which was the first U.S. appellate decision to hold (in effect) that one does not commit assault if the victim consents. However, many individual states do criminalize specific BDSM actions within their state borders. Some states specifically address the idea of "consent to BDSM acts" within their assault laws, such as the state of New Jersey, which defines "simple assault" to be "a disorderly persons offense unless committed in a fight or scuffle entered into by mutual consent, in which case it is a petty disorderly persons offense".
Oregon Ballot Measure 9 was a ballot measure in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1992, concerning sadism, masochism, gay rights, pedophilia, and public education, that drew widespread national attention. It would have added the following text to the Oregon Constitution:
It was defeated in the November 3, 1992 general election with 638,527 votes in favor, 828,290 votes against.
The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom collects reports about punishment for sexual activities engaged in by consenting adults, and about its use in child custody cases.
Cultural aspects
Today the BDSM culture exists in most western countries. This offers BDSM practitioners the opportunity to discuss BDSM relevant topics and problems with like-minded people. This culture is often viewed as a subculture, mainly because BDSM is often still regarded as "unusual" by some of the public. Many people hide their leaning from society since they are afraid of the incomprehension and of social exclusion. It is commonly known in the BDSM culture that there are practitioners living on all continents, but there is no documented evidence for many countries (due to restrictive laws and censorship motivated by politics or religion) except their presence in online BDSM communities and dating sites.
In contrast to frameworks seeking to explain sadomasochism through psychological, psychoanalytic, medical or forensic approaches, which seek to categorize behaviour and desires and find a root "cause", Romana Byrne suggests that such practices can be seen as examples of "aesthetic sexuality", in which a founding physiological or psychological impulse is irrelevant. Rather, sadism and masochism may be practiced through choice and deliberation, driven by certain aesthetic goals tied to style, pleasure, and identity. These practices, in certain circumstances and contexts, can be compared with the creation of art.
Symbols
One of the most commonly-used symbols of the BDSM community is a derivation of a triskelion shape within a circle. Various forms of triskele have had many uses and many meanings in many cultures; its BDSM usage derives from the Ring of O in the classic book Story of O. The BDSM Emblem Project claims copyright over one particular specified form of the triskelion symbol; other variants of the triskelion are free from such copyright claims.
The leather pride flag is a symbol for the leather subculture and also widely used within BDSM. In continental Europe, the Ring of O is widespread among BDSM practitioners.
The BDSM rights flag, shown to the right, is intended to represent the belief that people whose sexuality or relationship preferences include BDSM practises deserve the same human rights as everyone else, and should not be discriminated against for pursuing BDSM with consenting adults.
The flag is inspired by the leather pride flag and BDSM emblem, but is specifically intended to represent the concept of BDSM rights and to be without the other symbols' restrictions against commercial use. It is designed to be recognisable by people familiar with either the leather pride flag or BDSM triskelion (or triskele) as "something to do with BDSM"; and to be distinctive whether reproduced in full colour, or in black and white (or another pair of colours).
BDSM and fetish items and styles have been spread widely in western societies' everyday life by different factors, such as avant-garde fashion, heavy metal, goth subculture, and science fiction TV series, and are often not consciously connected with their BDSM roots by many people. While it was mainly confined to the Punk and BDSM subcultures in the 1990s, it has since spread into wider parts of western societies.
Theatre
Although it would be possible to establish certain elements related to BDSM in classical theater, not until the emergence of contemporary theatre would some plays have BDSM as the main theme. Exemplifying this are two works: one Austrian, one German, in which BDSM is not only incorporated, but integral to the storyline of the play.
Worauf sich Körper kaprizieren, Austria. Peter Kern directed and wrote the script for this comedy which is a present-day adaption of Jean Genet's 1950 film, Un chant d'amour. It is about a marriage in which the wife (film veteran Miriam Goldschmidt) submits her husband (Heinrich Herkie) and the butler (Günter Bubbnik) to her sadistic treatment, until two new characters take their places.
Ach, Hilde (Oh, Hilda), Germany. This play by Anna Schwemmer premiered in Berlin. A young Hilde becomes pregnant, and after being abandoned by her boyfriend she decides to become a professional dominatrix to earn money. The play carefully crafts a playful and frivolous picture of the field of professional dominatrices.
Literature
Although examples of literature catering to BDSM and fetishistic tastes were created in earlier periods, BDSM literature as it exists today cannot be found much earlier than World War II. However, such work as The Trial of Gilles de Rais that dates to 1440 with expressions that coincide with S&M refers as easily to sadist and masochist as to slave and master... a revealing and leveling equation: sadist-slave, masochist-master, both alternating as victims.
A central work in BDSM literature is undoubtedly the Story of O (1954) by Anne Desclos under the pseudonym Pauline Réage.
Other notable works include 9 ½ weeks (1978) by Elizabeth McNeill, some works of the writer Anne Rice (Exit to Eden, and her Claiming of Sleeping Beauty series of books), Jeanne de Berg (L'Image (1956) dedicated to Pauline Réage). Works from the Gor series by John Norman, and naturally all the works of Patrick Califia, Gloria Brame, the group Samois and many of the writer Georges Bataille (Histoire de l'oeil-Story of the Eye, Madame Edwarda, 1937), as well as Bob Flanagan: Slave Sonnets (1986), Fuck Journal (1987), A Taste of Honey (1990). A common part of many of the poems of Pablo Neruda is a reflection on feelings and sensations arising from the relations of EPE or erotic exchange of power.
Art
In photography: Eric Kroll and Irving Klaw (with Bettie Page, the first well-known bondage model), and Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi, whose works are exhibited in several major art museums, galleries and private collections, such as the Baroness Marion Lambert, the world's largest holder of contemporary photographic art. Also Robert Mapplethorpe , whose most controversial work is that of the underground BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York. The homoeroticism of this work fuelled a national debate over the public funding of controversial artwork.
In music: the Romanian singer-songwriter Navi featured BDSM and Shibari scenes in her music video "Picture Perfect" (2014). The video was banned in Romania for its explicit content.
Comic book drawings: Guido Crepax with Histoire d'O (1975), Justine (1979) and Venere in Pelliccia (1984); inspired by the work of Pauline Réage, Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. John Willie and the Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline (1984) which was the basis for the film Gwendoline.
In graphic design: Eric Stanton and his work on dominance and female bondage, as well as Hajime Sorayama and Robert Bishop
In art deco sculpture: Bruno Zach produced perhaps his best known sculpture—called "The Riding Crop" (c. 1925)—which features a scantily clad dominatrix wielding a riding crop.
See also
Index of BDSM articles
Autosadism
Algolagnia
Consent
Contract
Dominance and submission
Dominance hierarchy
FetLife
Fifty Shades of Grey
Gayle Rubin
Glossary of BDSM
Kink.com
Limits
List of BDSM equipment
Nexus Books
Paraphilia
Outline of BDSM
Sadism and masochism in fiction
SMJG
Trevor Jacques
Vulnerability and care theory of love
References
Further reading
Sensual, Erotic, and Sexual Behaviors of Women from the "Kink" Community Sensual, Erotic, and Sexual Behaviors of Women from the "Kink" Community, Articles of Sexual Behavior, International Academy of Sex Research
Baldwin, Guy. Ties That Bind: SM/Leather/Fetish Erotic Style: Issues, Communication, and Advice, Daedalus Publishing, 1993. ISBN 978-1-881943-09-9.
Brame, Gloria G., Brame, William D., and Jacobs, Jon. Different Loving: An Exploration of the World of Sexual Dominance and Submission Villard Books, New York, 1993. ISBN 978-0-679-40873-4
Brame, Gloria. Come Hither: A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex, Fireside, 2000. ISBN 978-0-684-85462-5.
Califia, Pat. Sensuous Magic. New York, Masquerade Books, 1993. ISBN 978-1-56333-131-2
Dollie Llama. Diary of an S&M Romance., PEEP! Press (California), 2006, ISBN 978-0-9705392-5-0
Henkin, Wiliiam A., Sybil Holiday. Consensual Sadomasochism: How to Talk About It and How to Do It Safely, Daedalus Publishing, 1996. ISBN 978-1-881943-12-9.
Henryson, Dean (2014). ″Girl Fighting Exposed.″ Createspace. ISBN 978-1493767496.
Janus, Samuel S., and Janus, Cynthia L. The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior, John Wiley & Sons, 1994. ISBN 978-0-471-01614-4
Masters, Peter. This Curious Human Phenomenon: An Exploration of Some Uncommonly Explored Aspects of BDSM. The Nazca Plains Corporation, 2008. ISBN 978-1-934625-68-2
Phillips, Anita. A Defence of Masochism, Faber and Faber, New edition 1999. ISBN 978-0-571-19697-5
Newmahr, Staci (2011). Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk and Intimacy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-22285-0.
Nomis, Anne O (2013) The History & Arts of the Dominatrix Mary Egan Publishing & Anna Nomis Ltd, UK. ISBN 978-0-9927010-0-0
Rinella, Jack. The Complete Slave: Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive Lifestyle, Daedalus Publishing, 2002. ISBN 978-1-881943-13-6.
Saez, Fernando y Viñuales, Olga, Armarios de Cuero, Ed. Bellaterra, 2007. ISBN 978-84-7290-345-6
Larry Townsend. Leatherman's Handbook First edition 1972 (This was the first book to publicize BDSM to the general public—it was a paperback book widely available on newsstands and at bookstores throughout the United States.)
Wiseman, Jay. SM 101: A Realistic Introduction (1st ed., 1992); 2nd ed. Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-9639763-8-3
Byrne, Romana (2013) Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasochism, New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4411-0081-8
External links
BDSM Glossary
London fetish scene—a dedicated BDSM wiki
"Pain and the erotic" by Lesley Hall
Category:Sexual orientation
Category:Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures |
2016-01 | 911_conspiracy_theories-695623098 | 911_conspiracy_theories | 9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories attribute the planning and execution of the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda or claim there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials. Government investigations and independent reviews have found no evidence for the theories. Proponents of these conspiracy theories claim there are inconsistencies in the official conclusions, or evidence which was either ignored or overlooked.
The most prominent conspiracy theory is that the collapse of the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center were the result of a controlled demolition rather than structural failure due to impact and fire. Another prominent belief is that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government or that a commercial airliner was allowed to do so via an effective stand-down of the American military. Possible motives claimed by conspiracy theorists for such actions include justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (even though the U.S. government admitted Iraq was not involved in the attacks) to advance their geostrategic interests, such as plans to construct a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Other conspiracy theories revolve around authorities having advance knowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignoring or assisting the attackers.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the technology magazine Popular Mechanics have investigated and rejected the claims made by 9/11 conspiracy theories. The civil engineering community accepts that the impacts of jet aircraft at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, not controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers. This also was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission, chaired by Governor Thomas Kean.
Terminology
Within the context of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the terms "mainstream account", "official account" and "official conspiracy theory" all refer to:
The reports from government investigations – the 9/11 Commission Report (which incorporated intelligence information from the earlier FBI investigation (PENTTBOM) and the Joint Inquiry of 2002), and the studies into building performance carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Investigations by non-government organizations that support the accepted account – such as those by scientists at Purdue University.
Articles supporting these facts and theories appearing in magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and Time.
Similar articles in news media throughout the world, including The Times of India, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and The Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.
U.S. President Barack Obama's June 2009 speech to the Muslim world where he said "I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day."
These sources concluded that al-Qaeda crashed United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The impact and resulting fires caused the collapse of the Twin Towers and the destruction and damage of other buildings in the World Trade Center complex. The Pentagon was severely damaged by the impact of the airliner and the resulting fire. The hijackers also crashed a fourth plane into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the passengers and flight crew attempted to regain control of the aircraft.
The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that pre-attack warnings of varying detail of the planned attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda were ignored due to a lack of communication between various law enforcement and intelligence personnel. For the lack of interagency communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws passed in the 1970s to prevent abuses that caused scandals during that era. The report faulted the Clinton and the Bush administrations with "failure of imagination."
History
Since the attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have been put forward in Web sites, books, and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11 conspiracy theories identify as part of the 9/11 Truth movement. Within six hours of the attack, a suggestion appeared on an Internet chat room suggesting that the collapse of the towers looked like an act of controlled demolition. "If, in a few days, not one official has mentioned anything about the controlled demolition part," the author wrote, "I think we have a REALLY serious problem." The first theories that emerged focused primarily on various perceived anomalies in the publicly available evidence, and proponents later developed more specific theories about an alleged plot. One false allegation that was widely circulated by e-mail and on the Web is that not a single Jew had been killed in the attack and that therefore the attacks must have been the work of the Mossad, not Islamic terrorists.
The first elaborated theories appeared in Europe. One week after the attacks, the "inside job" theory was the subject of a thesis by a researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research published in Le Monde. Other theories sprang from the far corners of the globe within weeks. Six months after the attacks, Thierry Meyssan's piece on 9/11, L'Effroyable Imposture, topped the French bestseller list. Its publication in English (as 9/11: The Big Lie) received little attention, but it remains one of the principal sources for "trutherism". 2003 saw the publication of The CIA and September 11 by former German state minister Andreas von Bülow and Operation 9/11 by the German journalist Gerhard Wisnewski; both books are published by Mathias Bröckers, who was at the time an editor at the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung.
While these theories were popular in Europe, they were treated by the U.S. media with either bafflement or amusement, and they were dismissed by the U.S. government as the product of anti-Americanism. In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories [...] that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."
The 9/11 conspiracy theories started out mostly in the political left but have broadened into what New York Magazine describes as "terra incognita where left and right meet, fusing sixties countercultural distrust with the don’t-tread-on-me variety".
By 2004, conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks began to gain ground in the United States. One explanation is that the rise in popularity stemmed more from growing criticism of the Iraq War and the newly re-elected President George W. Bush than from any discovery of new or more compelling evidence or an improvement in the technical quality of the presentation of the theories. Knight Ridder news theorized that revelations that weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq, the belated release of the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, and reports that NORAD had lied to the 9/11 Commission, may have fueled the conspiracy theories.
Between 2004 and the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2006, mainstream coverage of the conspiracy theories increased. The U.S. government issued a formal analysis by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the collapse of the World Trade Center. To address the growing publicity of the theories, the State Department revised a webpage in 2006 to debunk them. A 2006 national security strategy paper declared that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda." Al-Qaeda has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, with chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri accusing Shia Iran and Hezbollah of denigrating Sunni successes in hurting America by intentionally starting rumors that Israel carried out the attacks.
Some of the conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks do not involve representational strategies typical of many conspiracy theories that establish a clear dichotomy between good and evil, or guilty and innocent; instead, they call up gradations of negligence and complicity. Matthias Bröckers, an early proponent of such theories, dismisses the official account of the September 11 attacks as being itself a conspiracy theory that seeks "to reduce complexity, disentangle what is confusing," and "explain the inexplicable".
Just before the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11 conspiracy theories, with an article in Time stating that "[t]his is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality." Several surveys have included questions about beliefs related to the September 11 attacks. An August 2007 Zogby poll commissioned by 911Truth.org found that 63.6% of Americans believe that Arab fundamentalists were responsible for 9/11 while 26.4% believed that "certain elements in the U.S. government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic reasons" and 4.8% believe that "certain U.S. Government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks". In 2008, 9/11 conspiracy theories topped a "greatest conspiracy theory” list compiled by The Daily Telegraph. The list was ranked by following and traction.
In 2010, the "International Center for 9/11 Studies," a private organization that is said to be sympathetic to conspiracy theories, successfully sued for the release of videos collected by NIST of the attacks and aftermath. According to the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the videos which were published shortly before the ninth anniversary of the attacks provide "new food for conspiracy theorists." Many of the videos show images of 7 World Trade Center, a skyscraper in the vicinity of the WTC towers that also collapsed on September 11, 2001. Eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported explosions happening before the collapse of both of the towers, while experts consider these theories to be unreasonable.
9/11 truth figures Steven E. Jones and Mike Berger have further added that the death of Osama bin Laden did not change their questions about the attacks, nor provide closure.
According to writer Jeremy Stahl, since Bush left office, the overall number of believers in 9/11 conspiracy theories has dipped, while the number of people who believe in the most "radical" theories has held fairly steady.
Types of conspiracy
The most prominent conspiracy theories can be broadly divided into three main forms:
LIHOP ("Let it happen on purpose") – suggests that key individuals within the government had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored it or actively weakened United States' defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted. Similar allegations were made about Pearl Harbor.
MIHOP ("Make/Made it happen on purpose") – that key individuals within the government planned the attacks and collaborated with, or framed, al-Qaeda in carrying them out. There is a range of opinions about how this might have been achieved.
Others – who reject the accepted account of the September 11 attacks are not proposing specific theories, but try to demonstrate that the U.S. government's account of the events is wrong. This, according to them, would lead to a general call for a new official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. According to Jonathan Kay, managing editor for comment at the Canadian newspaper National Post and author of the Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground, "They feel their job is to show everybody that the official theory of 9/11 is wrong. And then, when everybody is convinced, then the population will rise up and demand a new investigation with government resources, and that investigation will tell us what actually happened."
Theories
Foreknowledge
Conspiracy theorists claim that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. For example, Michael Meacher, former British environment minister and member of Tony Blair's Cabinet said that the United States knowingly failed to prevent the attacks.
Suspected insider trading
Just before 9/11 there was an "extraordinary" amount of put options placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks. Some conspiracy theorists maintain that trading insiders may have known in advance of the coming events of 9/11 and placed their bets accordingly. An analysis into the possibility of insider trading on 9/11 concludes that:
A measure of abnormal long put volume was also examined and seen to be at abnormally high levels in the days leading up to the attacks. Consequently, the paper concludes that there is evidence of unusual option market activity in the days leading up to September 11 that is consistent with investors trading on advance knowledge of the attacks.
—Allen M. Poteshman, The Journal of Business
On the days leading up to 9/11, two airlines saw a rise in their put to call ratio. These two airlines were United Airlines and American Airlines, the two airlines whose planes were hijacked on 9/11. Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 "put" option contracts in UAL versus 396 call options. On September 10, more trading in Chicago saw the purchase of 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. No other airline companies saw anomalies in their put to call ratio in the days leading up to the attacks.
American Airlines however, had just released a major warning about possible losses.
Insurance companies saw anomalous trading activities as well. Citigroup Inc., which has estimated that its Travelers Insurance unit may pay $500 million in claims from the World Trade Center attack, had about 45 times the normal volume during three trading days before the attack for options that profit if the stock falls below $40. Citigroup shares fell $1.25 in late trading to $38.09. Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors at the World Trade Center, experienced bigger-than-normal pre-attack trading of options that profit when stock prices fall. Other companies that were directly affected by the tragedy had similar jumps.
Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options trading on September 10. A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day.
The initial options were bought through at least two brokerage firms, including NFS, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, and TD Waterhouse. It was estimated that the trader or traders would have realized a five million dollar profit. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation in which Osama bin Laden was a suspect after receiving information from at least one Wall Street Firm.
The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that "Exhaustive investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI, and other agencies have uncovered no evidence that anyone with advance knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions." The report further stated:
Air defense stand down theory
A common claim among conspiracy theorists is that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a stand down order or deliberately scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to reach their targets without interference. According to this theory, NORAD had the capability of locating and intercepting planes on 9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government conspiracy to allow the attacks to occur. The Web site emperors-clothes.com argues that the U.S. military failed to do their job. StandDown.net's Mark R. Elsis says, "There is only one explanation for this ... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."
One of the first actions taken by the hijackers on 9/11 was to turn off or disable each of the four aircraft's on board transponders. Without these transponder signals to identify the airplane's tail number, altitude, and speed, the hijacked airplanes would have been only blips among 4,500 other blips on NORAD’s radar screens, making them very difficult to track.
On 9/11, only 14 fighter jets were on alert in the contiguous 48 states. There was no automated method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert NORAD. A passenger airline had not been hijacked in the U.S. since 1979. "They had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Only one civilian planea chartered Learjet 35 with golfer Payne Stewart and five others on boardwas intercepted by NORAD over North America in the decade prior to 9/11, which took one hour and 19 minutes.
Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic flight on intercepts. Before 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says FAA spokesman Bill Schumann. After 9/11, the FAA and NORAD increased cooperation. They set up hotlines between command centers while NORAD increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch airspace over the continent.
The longest warning NORAD received of the hijackings was some eight minutes for American Airlines Flight 11, the first flight hijacked. The FAA alerted NORAD to the hijacked Flight 175 at just about the same time it was crashing into the World Trade Center's South Tower. The FAA notified NORAD of the missing – not hijacked – Flight 77 three minutes before it struck the Pentagon. NORAD received no warning of the hijack of United Flight 93 until three minutes after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.
Israeli agents
It has been claimed that Israeli agents may have had foreknowledge of the attacks. Four hours after the attack, the FBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an apartment building, for "puzzling behavior". The Israelis were videotaping the events, and one bystander said they acted in a suspicious manner: "They were like happy, you know ... They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange." While The Forward, a New York Jewish news magazine, reported that the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in the United States said that they had not been involved in any intelligence operation in the United States. The FBI eventually concluded that the five Israelis had no foreknowledge of the attacks.
World Trade Center
The plane crashes and resulting fires caused the collapse of the World Trade Center. Controlled demolition conspiracy theories say the collapse of the North Tower, South Tower, or of 7 World Trade Center was caused by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.
Demolition theory proponents, such as Brigham Young University physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional factors weakening the structures.
In the article "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", which appeared in the Open Chemical Physics Journal, authors Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry, Jeffrey Farrer of Brigham Young University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, Steven E. Jones, and others state that thermite and nano-thermite composites in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which they conclude to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings. The article contained no scientific rebuttal and the editor in chief of the publication subsequently resigned.
Jones has not explained how the amount of explosive needed to do this could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention, but mentioned efforts to research the buildings' maintenance activity in the weeks prior to the event. Federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them, but Jones disputed this, saying that he and others were investigating "superthermite". Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America", who corresponded with Jones, states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also said that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites.
Jones also said that molten steel found in the rubble was evidence of explosives, as an ordinary airplane fire would not generate enough heat to produce this, citing photographs of red debris being removed by construction equipment, but Blanchard said that if there had been any molten steel in the rubble any excavation equipment encountering it would have been immediately damaged. Other sampling of the pulverized dust by United States Geological Survey and RJ Lee did not report any evidence of thermite or explosives. It has been theorized the "thermite material" found was primer paint. Dave Thomas of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermitic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas said that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when Jesse Ventura hired New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal position.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded the accepted version was more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the buildings. NIST and many scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists because they feel it would give those theories unwarranted credibility. Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings without the use of explosives. As a result, NIST said that it did not perform any test for the residue of explosive compounds of any kind in the debris.
Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published that the towers had collapsed due to heat melting the steel.
Knowledge that the burning temperatures of jet fuel would not melt the steel support structure of the WTC contributed to the belief among skeptics that the towers would not have collapsed without external interference (something other than the planes). NIST does not claim that the steel was melted, but rather that the weakened steel, together with the damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused the collapses. NIST reported that a simulation model based on the assumption that combustible vapors burned immediately upon mixing with the incoming oxygen showed that "at any given location, the duration of [gas] temperatures near 1,000 °C was about 15 to 20 [minutes]. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were 500 °C or below."
The Pentagon
Political activist Thierry Meyssan and filmmaker Dylan Avery claim that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssan’s book, L’Effroyable Imposture (published in English as 9/11: The Big Lie) became available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by both the mainstream French and American press, and later, from within the 9/11 Truth movement by researchers such as Hoffman and websites such as oilempire.us. The French newspaper Liberation called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation."
In response to the conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon, Mete Sozen, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University argues that: "A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns." According to ArchitectureWeek, the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated. (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the 1980s, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated.)
Evidence contradicting some conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile's hitting the Pentagon have been described by researchers within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman, in his essay "The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows", and by others broadly refuting the role of other conspiracies in the attacks. The evidence refuting missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, and an intact cockpit seat were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis. Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters. Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon.
The public interest group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004 to force the government to release video recordings from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. On May 16, 2006, the government released the Pentagon security camera videos to Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch reports that the video shows American Airlines flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. The image of American Airlines Flight 77 which appears in the videos has been described as "[a] white blob" and "a white streak" (by the BBC), "a thin white blur" (by The Associated Press), and "a silver speck low to the ground" (in The Washington Post). A sequence of five frames from one of the videos already appeared in the media in 2002. Some conspiracy theorists believe the new video does not answer their questions.
Flight 93
The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day, Flight 93 was the only one not to reach its target.
One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. David Ray Griffin and Alex Jones say that large parts of the plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. A posting on Rense.com claimed that the main body of the engine was found miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner.
According to some theories, the plane had to be shot down by the government because passengers had found out about the alleged plot.
According to Phil Molé of Skeptic magazine, "[this] claim rests largely on unsupported assertions that the main body of the engine and other large parts of the plane turned up miles from the main wreckage site, too far away to have resulted from an ordinary crash. This claim is incorrect, because the engine was found only 300 yards from the main crash site, and its location was consistent with the direction in which the plane had been traveling." Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, says that, at very high velocities of 500 mph or more, it would only take a few seconds to move or tumble across the ground for 300 yards.
Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Lake by local residents are accurate. CNN reported that investigators found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site, including in New Baltimore. However, according to CNN, this debris was all very light material that the wind would have easily blown away, and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from September 14, 2001 describes the material as "mostly papers", "strands of charred insulation", and an "endorsed paycheck". The same article quotes FBI agent Bill Crowley that, "Lighter, smaller debris probably shot into the air on the heat of a fireball that witnesses said shot several hundred feet into the air after the jetliner crashed. Then, it probably rode a wind that was blowing southeast at about 9 m.p.h." Also, the distance between the crash site and Indian Lake was misreported in some accounts. According to the BBC, "In a straight line, Indian Lake is just over a mile from the crash site. The road between the two locations takes a roundabout route of 6.9 miles—accounting for the erroneous reports."
Some conspiracy theorists believe a small white jet seen flying over the crash area may have fired a missile to shoot down Flight 93. However, government agencies such as the FBI assert this small plane was a Dassault Falcon business jet asked to descend to an altitude of around 1,500 ft to survey the impact. Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.
Some internet videos, such as Loose Change, speculate that Flight 93 safely landed in Ohio, and a substituted plane was involved in the crash in Pennsylvania. Often cited is a preliminary news report that Flight 93 landed at a Cleveland airport; it was later learned that Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93, and the report was retracted as inaccurate. Several websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim, citing the wreckage at the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for another, and claim that such "hoax theories ... appear calculated to alienate victims' survivors and the larger public from the 9/11 truth movement". The editor of the article has since written a rebuttal to the claims.
Valencia McClatchey, a local woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from the impact of Flight 93 seconds after it hit the ground, says she has been harassed over the telephone and in person by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked the photo. The FBI, the Somerset County authorities, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Service’s Flight 93 National Memorial staff have all examined the photograph as well as the film negatives and they consider the photo to be authentic.
While some conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Flight 93 and/or Flight 77, were murdered or that they were relocated, with the intent that they never be found, others within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, refute such claims.
Hijackers
During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers. Some of the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked. The BBC explained that the initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names. In response to a request from the BBC, the FBI said that it was confident to have identified all nineteen hijackers, and that none of the other inquiries had raised the issue of doubt about their identities. The New York Times also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken identity.
According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of Arab News in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September 14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were quickly resolved. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."
According to Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, "Sixteen of the nineteen shouldn't have gotten into the United States in any way at all because there was something wrong with their visas, something wrong with their passports. They should simply have been stopped at the border. That was sixteen of the nineteen. Obviously, if even half of those people had been stopped, there never would have been a plot."
Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi had both been identified as al-Qaeda agents by the CIA, but that information was not shared with the FBI or U.S. Immigration, so both men were able to legally enter the U.S. to prepare for the 9/11 attacks.
Foreign governments
There are allegations that individuals within the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may have played an important role in financing the attacks. There are also claims that other foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks. General Hamid Gul, a former head of ISI, believes the attacks were an “inside job” originating in the United States, perpetrated by Israel or neo-conservatives. Francesco Cossiga, former President of Italy from 1985 until his 1992 resignation over Operation Gladio, said that it is common knowledge among the Italian center-left that the 9/11 attacks were a joint operation of the CIA and the Mossad. Subsequent reports indicated that he did not actually believe this.
Israel
A conspiracy theory documented by the Anti-Defamation League, Thom Burnett and others is that the state of Israel was involved in the attacks, and may have planned them. A variety of motives are suggested, including: to cause the United States to attack enemies of Israel; to divert public attention away from Israel's treatment of Palestinians; to help Zionists take control of world affairs; and to persuade Americans to support Israel. Variants of the theory contend that the attack was organized by Ariel Sharon, Mossad, or the government of Israel. Kevin Barrett, a former lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, is a leading advocate for the theory that Mossad orchestrated the attacks.
Some proponents of this believe that Jewish employees were forewarned by Israeli intelligence to skip work on September 11, resulting in no Jewish deaths at the World Trade Center. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists put this number as high as 4,000 Jewish people skipping work. This was first reported on September 17 by the Lebanese Hezbollah-owned satellite television channel Al-Manar and is believed to be based on the September 12 edition of the The Jerusalem Post that said "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attacks."
The number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400. The lower figure tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than should have been present at the time. Five Israeli citizens died in the attack.
Antisemitism in conspiracy theories
In 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report attacking "hateful conspiracy theories" that the 9/11 attacks were carried about by Israelis and Jews, saying they had the potential to "rationalize and fuel global anti-Semitism." It found that such theories were widely accepted in the Arab and Muslim world, as well as in Europe and the United States.
The ADL's report found that "The Big Lie has united American far-right extremists and white supremacists and elements within the Arab and Muslim world". It asserted that many of the theories were modern manifestation of the 19th century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to map out a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. The ADL has characterized the Jeff Rense website as carrying anti-Semitic materials, such as "American Jews staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks for their own financial gain and to induce the American people to endorse wars of aggression and genocide on the nations of the Middle East and the theft of their resources for the benefit of Israel".
Pedro A. Sanjuan, a former United Nations diplomat, alleged that antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy theories were quite common at high levels of the UN following 9/11.
Saudi Arabia
British investigative journalists Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan claimed in their 2011 book The Eleventh Hour that the Saudi Royal Family provided material and financial support to the hijackers and that the Bush Administration covered this up as well as their own alleged incompetence. The authors claim the 9/11 Truth movement helped this coverup by deflecting attention away from these actions. In September 2011 a "Lloyd's insurance syndicate" began legal action against Saudi Arabia demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks. A number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family were accused of being "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state that "knowingly" provided funding to Al Qaeda and encouraged anti Western sentiment. Former Florida Senator Bob Graham believes there was a coverup on Saudi aid to Mohammad Atta in Sarasota, Florida. Conspiracy theories revolve around the 28 pages withheld from the 9/11 Commission Report.
No-planes theory
Nico Haupt and former chief economist within the Labor Department under the Bush administration, Morgan Reynolds, argue that no planes were used in the attacks. Reynolds claims it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes of Flights 11 and 175 could have penetrated the steel frames of the Towers, and that digital compositing was used to depict the plane crashes in both news reports and subsequent amateur video. "There were no planes, there were no hijackers", Reynolds insists. "I know, I know, I'm out of the mainstream, but that's the way it is". According to David Shayler, "the only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes", he says. "Watch footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center". Some truth movement veterans have repeatedly refuted the "no-plane" claims. In fact, discussion of no-plane theories has been banned from certain conspiracy theory websites and advocates have sometimes been threatened with violence by posters at other conspiracy theory websites.
Cover-up allegations
Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the accepted account.
Paul Zarembka, in his book, The Hidden History of 9/11, states that the debris from ground zero was removed without a proper forensic investigation.
Cockpit recorders
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the cockpit voice recorders (CVR) or flight data recorders (FDR), or "black boxes", from Flights 11 and 175 were not recovered from the remains of the WTC attack; however, two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi, who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, said in the book Behind-The-Scenes: Ground Zero that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners:
At one point, I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV. There were a total of four black boxes. We found three.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.
Bin Laden tapes
A series of interviews, audio and videotapes were released in the years following the 9/11 attacks that have were reported to be from Osama bin Laden. In the first of these the speaker denied responsibility for the attacks. On September 17, 2001, in a statement issued to Al Jazeera, Bin Laden is quoted as saying, "The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it. I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons."
In a tape released in December 2001 known as 'the Jalalabad tape', the speaker is alleged to have foreknowledge of the attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency claimed the tape was probably from Osama bin Laden. Some observers, especially people in the Muslim world, doubted the authenticity of the tape. On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast an analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program Monitor, two independent translators and an expert on Oriental Studies found the White House's translation to be both inaccurate and manipulative, stating, "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic", and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg, said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
Some members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth believe that the man in this videotape is not Osama bin Laden at all, citing differences in weight and facial features, along with his wearing of a gold ring, which is forbidden by Muslim law, and writing with his right hand although bin Laden was left-handed.
In an audiotape released in November 2007, Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks and denied the Taliban and the Afghan government or people had any prior knowledge of the attacks. In an interview with al-Jazeera, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two of al-Qaeda's alleged masterminds of the attacks, also confessed their involvement in the attacks. However, according to Andrew Brown, the means of interrogation, including waterboarding, put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession into question.
Hiding of CIA recruitment efforts
Richard Clarke, who headed the government's anti-terrorism efforts in 2001, theorized CIA director George Tenet ordered the agency to withhold information about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar from the rest of the government in an effort to cover up the agency's recruitment of the two. George Tenet released a statement denying the agency deliberately withheld information about the pair and noted Clarke himself said he had no proof.
Motives
Pax Americana
In 2006, members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth argued that a group of US neo-conservatives called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which included Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, was set on US world dominance and orchestrated the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to hit Iraq, Afghanistan and later Iran. In September 2000 the PNAC released a strategic treatise entitled Rebuilding America's Defences. David Ray Griffin in his 2004 book The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 argued that the treatise may have been the blueprint for 9/11 attacks. Specifically the language in the paper that read "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" was describing an alleged motive.
The Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, was drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. This was described as "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony" by Andrew Bacevich in his book American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy.
Matt Taibbi argued in his book The Great Derangement that conspiracy theorists have taken what is written in the paper "completely out of context", and that the "transformation" referenced in the paper is explicitly said to be a decades-long process to turn the Cold War-era military into a "new, modern military" which could deal with more localized conflicts. He said that, for this to be evidence of motive, either those responsible would have decided to openly state their objectives, or would have read the paper in 2000 and quickly laid the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks using it as inspiration.
Invasions
Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether The Oil Factor and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place. For instance, Andreas von Bülow, a former research minister in the German government, has argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Former Malaysian premiere Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying that there was "strong evidence" that the attacks were faked so the United States could go to war against Muslims. In spite of these allegations, the Bush administration specifically rejected proposals to immediately attack Iraq in response to 9/11, and acknowledged that there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks.
Conspiracy theorists suggest that the attack on Afghanistan was motivated to construct a natural gas pipeline through that country, pointing out that the Unocal Corporation and U.S. officials had shown great interest in constructing such a pipeline in the 1990s. The Taliban were leaning toward making a deal with Unocal in 1998 but the company suspended work on the project following the U.S. cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan in response to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and completely pulled out in December 1998.
New World Order
Alex Jones and other personalities hold that 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such New World Order conspiracy theories predate 9/11.
Suggested historical precedents
Conspiracy theorists often point to Operation Northwoods as a model for the 9/11 attacks, theorizing the attacks were carried out by the U.S. government as a false flag operation and then blamed on Islamic extremists. Operation Northwoods was an unimplemented, apparently rejected, plan approved by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. One proposal in the plan suggested that covert operatives commit multiple acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and blame Cuba thus providing a pretext for invasion.
Time magazine contrasted events which inspired past conspiracy theories with those that inspire 9/11 conspiracy theories such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Time called the public assassination of Kennedy a "private, intimate affair" when compared with the attack on the World Trade Center, which was witnessed by millions of people and documented by hundreds of videographers; and said, "there is no event so plain and clear that a determined human being can't find ambiguity in it."
Proponents
Many individuals and organizations that support or discuss 9/11 conspiracy theories consider themselves to be part of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Prominent adherents of the movement include, among others, radio talk show host Alex Jones, theologian David Ray Griffin, physicist Steven E. Jones, software engineer Jim Hoffman, architect Richard Gage, film producer Dylan Avery, former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives Cynthia McKinney, actors Daniel Sunjata, Ed Asner, and Charlie Sheen, political science professor Joseph Diaferia and journalist Thierry Meyssan. Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement come from diverse social backgrounds. The movement draws adherents from people of diverse political beliefs including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians.
Among the organizations that actively discuss and promote such theories are Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group that focuses on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings; 9/11 Truth, founded in 2004; Scholars for 9/11 Truth, founded in 2005, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group that split from Scholars for 9/11 Truth in 2007 and runs the online publication Journal of 9/11 Studies; 9/11 Citizens Watch, which was already formed in 2002; and the Hispanic Victims Group. Several of these groups have collected signatures on petitions asking for further investigation of the September 11 attacks.
In 2004, John Buchanan ran for president on a 9/11 Truth platform.
9/11 Conspiracy theory critic Jonathan Kay asserts that for the most part proponents are not out for financial gain and in some cases have left lucrative careers to become activists.
Dr Michael Wood and Dr Karen Douglas University of Kent psychologists who specialize in conspiracy theories examined the comments sections of over 2000 news articles relating to the collapse of World Trade Center 7. They found that proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories were more likely to try and debunk the mainstream account than promote their own theories and also were more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories. Proponents of the mainstream account tended to argue for that account and showed a greater hostility toward conspiracy theory proponents.
Dissecting the 9/11 Truth movement community
According to a 2011 analysis in a Skeptical Inquirer article, people involved in this movement, which seemingly is a disparate group with very diversified backgrounds, could be classified into three groups. They join the movement for different reasons, loosely self-assemble to fill different roles and are united by their shared mistrust in experts and the establishment (government and reputable sources of knowledge), and conspiratorial stance. Through their engagement, they each find their own fulfillment and satisfaction. Together, they contribute to the persistence, resilience and exaggerated claims of acceptance (in general public) of the movement. These three groups are:
Hard Core: The organizers and active members of the various 9/11 Truth Movement organizations. They produce the information, spot the anomalies and technical inconsistencies, provide the technical base and form the theories. While they claim to be only interested in facts and to use scientific method, they commit the logical fallacy of ‘confirmation bias’ by pre-determining the outcome, then searching for corroborating evidence while ignoring the vast body of peer-reviewed, independent, consensual research which contradict their theories. They supply the physical structure of the movement by organizing events, seminars, discussions, marches and distributing flyers and pamphlets. Their numbers are relatively small but they are tight-knit and highly connected. Their worldview favors ‘super-conspiracy’, a master plan that is behind conspiracies which they believe they are uncovering.
Critically turned: They are the young students and political activists whose affiliation with the 9/11 Truth Movement often is rooted from their dissatisfaction and anger at the established political and social order. Their sense of justice and idealism propels them to activism against perceived oppression and social injustice. Their penchant to use Internet, especially social media, and tech savvy make them the propaganda machine for the movement. They produce YouTube videos and films with cool, countercultural content, make good use of pop culture parody and eye-catching graphics. The countercultural street cred of their productions buy them broad appeal and exposure to millions of people.
Illiterati: They are the movement's mass membership backbone, a large, diffuse group which give the movement exaggerated claims of popularity and influence. Participation in the 9/11 Truth Movement, to this group of people, is as much a social and recreational pursuit as the quest for truth. Their partaking is mostly through web 2.0 social networking and YouTube. Their commentaries often are emotional and they make no pretense to be accurate, balanced or to show genuine intent to find truth. Involvement with the movement that fit their worldview gives them a sense of identity and belonging, which they find more appealing than the facts and evidences of the 9/11 terrorist attack itself.
Media reaction
While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to Internet pages, books, documentary films, and conversation, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue.
The Norwegian version of the July 2006 Le Monde diplomatique sparked interest when they ran, on their own initiative, a three-page main story on the 9/11 attacks and summarized the various types of 9/11 conspiracy theories (which were not specifically endorsed by the newspaper, only recensed). The Voltaire Network, which has changed position since the September 11 attacks and whose director, Thierry Meyssan, became a leading proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theory, explained that although the Norwegian version of Le Monde diplomatique had allowed it to translate and publish this article on its website, the mother-house, in France, categorically refused it this right, thus displaying an open debate between various national editions. In December 2006, the French version published an article by Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of CounterPunch, which strongly criticized the alleged endorsement of conspiracy theories by the U.S. left-wing, alleging that it was a sign of "theoretical emptiness."
Also, on the Canadian website for CBC News: The Fifth Estate, a program titled, "Conspiracy Theories: uncovering the facts behind the myths of Sept. 11, 2001" was broadcast on October 29, 2003, stating that what they found may be more surprising than any theories. On November 27, 2009, The Fifth Estate aired a documentary entitled The Unofficial Story where several prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement made their case.
An article in the September 11, 2006 edition of Time magazine comments that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories “depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses”, and enjoy continued popularity because “the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting”. It concludes that “conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events” and constitute “an American form of national mourning.”
Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an article titled "The CIA couldn't have organised this ..." which said "The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass" and "if there is a nefarious plot in all this bad planning, it is one improvised by a confederacy of dunces". This article mainly attacked a group of scientists led by Professor Steven E. Jones, now called Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. They said "most of them aren't scientists but instructors ... at second-rate colleges".
The Daily Telegraph also published an article in May 2007 that was highly critical of Loose Change 2, a movie which presents a 9/11 conspiracy theory.
Doug MacEachern in a May 2008 column for The Arizona Republic wrote that while many "9/11 truthers" are not crackpots that espouse "crackpot conspiracy theories", supporters of the theories fail to take into account both human nature and that nobody has come forward claiming they were participants in the alleged conspiracies. This view was seconded by Timothy Giannuzzi, a Calgary Herald op-ed columnist specializing in foreign policy.
On June 7, 2008, The Financial Times Magazine published a lengthy article on the 9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Charlie Brooker, a British comedian and multimedia personality, in a July 2008 column published by The Guardian as part of its "Comment is free" series agreed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists fail to take in account human fallacies and added that believing in these theories gives theorists a sense of belonging to a community that shares privileged information thus giving the theorists a delusional sense of power. The commentary generated over 1700 online responses, the largest in the history of the series. In a September 2009 piece, The Guardian were more supportive of 9/11 conspiracy theories however, asking, "when did it become uncool to ask questions? When did questioners become imbeciles?"
On September 12, 2008, Russian State Television broadcast in prime time a documentary made by Member of the European Parliament Giulietto Chiesa entitled Zero, sympathetic to those who question the accepted account of the attacks according to Chiesa. According to Thierry Meyssan in conjunction with the documentary, Russian State Television aired a debate on the subject. The panel consisted of members from several countries including 12 Russians who hold divergent views. The motive of Russian State Television in broadcasting the documentary was questioned by a commentator from The Other Russia who noted that Russian State Television had a history of broadcasting programs involving conspiracy theories involving the United States government.
Nasir Mahmood in a commentary printed by the Pakistan Observer wrote favorably about a 9/11 truth lecture and film festival held in California and quoted a Jewish speaker at that festival who said that none of the 19 suspected hijackers had been proven guilty of anything and compared racism against Muslims resulting from what he called false accusations to the racism against Jews in the Nazi era.
On November 10, 2008, ITN broadcast a story summarizing various 9/11 conspiracy theories.
The emergence of the birther movement in 2009 has led to comparisons between that movement and the 9/11 Truth movement, with both movements seen in a very negative light. Moon landing conspiracy theories have also been compared to the birther and 9/11 conspiracy theories. James Borne, a journalist for The New York Times who covered the September 11 Attacks, described his assignment covering a 9/11 truth meeting "Perhaps the most intellectually scary assignment I have had in recent years".
On August 31, 2009, the National Geographic Channel aired the program 9/11 Science and Conspiracy, in which the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center tested some of the claims frequently made by those who question the accepted 9/11 account. Specifically, the experiments concluded that burning jet fuel alone can sufficiently raise the temperature of a steel support column to the point of structural failure, that a controlled demolition using conventional techniques would leave clear evidence that was not found at Ground Zero, that using thermite is not an effective technique to melt a steel column, and that even if thermite chemical signatures were found, it would be impossible to tell if thermite was actually used or if the traces came from the reaction of aircraft aluminum with other substances in the fire. The testing also concluded that the type of hole found at the Pentagon was consistent with the standard scenario, and that damage from a bombing or missile attack would differ from the damage that occurred. In the program, several prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorists viewed rough edits of the experiments, and expressed their disagreement with the findings.
The British left wing magazine New Statesman listed David Ray Griffin as the 41st most important person who matters today. The magazine said that Griffin's "books on the subject have lent a sheen of respectability that appeals to people at the highest levels of government". The publication listed 9/11 conspiracy theories as "one of the most pernicious global myths". Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a "Pick of the Week" in November 2008.
Denver public television KBDI-TV has aired 9/11 truth documentaries several times. The stations spokesperson claimed airing these documentaries has been a boon for the stations fund raising efforts.
Glenn Beck, television and radio host, said of the allegations: "There are limits to debasement of this country, aren't there? I mean, it's one thing to believe that our politicians are capable of being Bernie Madoff. It's another to think that they are willing to kill 3,000 Americans. Once you cross that line, you're in a whole new territory."
In March 2010, The Washington Post editorialized against Yukihisa Fujita, a prominent Japanese politician who has espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories. They described Fujita as a man "susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe". It went on to say that the U.S.-Japan alliance would be "severely tested" if Fujita's party continued to tolerate these kinds of comments.
For the ninth anniversary of the attacks the Egyptian daily Al-masry Al-youm published an article questioning the US government story and promoting conspiracy theories. The senior analyst for the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of Parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood was quoted.
Gordon Farrer, the technology editor for The Age, theorized in a November 2010 column for the Sydney Morning Herald that the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories was a result of two main factors. One revolved around the personality traits of the theorists themselves (cynical, anxious, belief that they are free thinkers). The second revolved around the high internet search ranking 9/11 conspiracy theories receive leading to a false air of authority to the theories. Speaking of the theorists Farrer wrote that "when politicians and media don’t give them voice they feel more threatened, more suspicious, cornered, helpless; and so they go on the attack".
Geraldo Rivera, the host of Geraldo at Large, a news magazine run by Fox News Channel, expressed openness towards claims that question the causes of the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. Andrew Napolitano, a legal analyst for Fox News and former judge at the New Jersey Superior Court, voiced support for scepticism about the collapse of the high-rise building, and for Rivera investigating the event.
Alex Jones was fired by 70 radio stations when he began espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories, but by 2011 was espousing these and other conspiracy theories on morning TV shows and was the subject of lengthy magazine profiles.
On August 29, 2010 the BBC Two broadcast a program entitled The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – Ten Years On.
On September 5, 2011 The Guardian published an article entitled, "9/11 conspiracy theories debunked". The article noted that unlike the collapse of World Trade Centers 1 and 2 a controlled demolition collapses a building from the bottom and explains that the windows popped because of collapsing floors. The article also said there are conspiracy theories that claim that World trade Center 7 was also downed by a controlled demolition, that the Pentagon being hit by a missile, that the hijacked planes were packed with explosives and flown by remote control, that Israel was behind the attacks, that a plane headed for the Pentagon was shot down by a missile, that there was insider trading by people who had foreknowledge of the attacks were all false.
Toure Neblett, who has Tweeted his suspicions about the attack on the Pentagon, is one of the hosts of the MSNBC program The Cycle, which debuted on June 25, 2012.
In popular culture
In June 2005, the German public broadcaster ARD's murder mystery program Tatort ran an episode in which a woman who claims the 9/11 attacks were instigated by the Bush family for oil and power is targeted by FBI and CIA hitmen after her roommate is found dead. The roommate was trained to be one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks, but was left behind. The episode, viewed by 7 million people, ended with detectives who were investigating the death believing her story and the woman escaping to an unnamed Arab country.
In season 10 of the animated show South Park, the episode "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" centers around 9/11 conspiracy theories. After Eric Cartman, a main character in the show, blames Kyle Broflovski for causing 9/11, Kyle and his friend Stan Marsh end up in the White House, where they are told that the government did in fact cause the 9/11 attacks. They escape, and eventually it is revealed that the government wants people to think that they caused 9/11, so that they think the government has more power than it does.
A Rescue Me episode featured a character played by actor Daniel Sunjata (who is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist) explaining to a French journalist that the 9/11 attacks were a “neoconservative government effort” to create a new Pearl Harbor to control oil and increase military spending. According to Denis Leary, major plot lines in the first 10 episodes of the show's season 5 revolved around reinvestigation and conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks.
The plot for a comic book entitled The Big Lie, released in September 2011, revolves around a scientist going back in time to the day of the attacks with the intention of preventing it, in the process finding out that the official story is false.
A film entitled September Morn is scheduled for 2013 release. The film will call for a new investigation into the attacks. Topic matter is reported to include alleged inconsistencies in the widely accepted version of the attacks and hints of a cover-up. The film has been written by Howard Cohen and will be directed by BJ Davis. Ed Asner, Woody Harrelson, Martin Sheen, Daniel Sunjata, actors associated with the 9/11 truth movement, are members of the film's cast. The film is the first mainstream movie to delve into this area.
The Fox network series Bones has a character, Jack Hodgins, who believed in conspiracy theories. During an episode that aired in November 2012 dealing with the 9/11 attacks, Hodkins said "I have looked into every 9/11 conspiracy. All of them. None of them hold up. Or I should say only one of them does. We were attacked by extremists who hated everything we represent."
Criticism
Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation. A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if the argument gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." According to him, this happened when Steve Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, took up the issue.
Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said:
"The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking. All the evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."
Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and The Skeptic's Dictionary have published articles that rebut various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Popular Mechanics has published a book entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths that expands upon the research first presented in the article. In the foreword for the book Senator John McCain wrote that blaming the U.S. government for the events "mars the memories of all those lost on that day" and "exploits the public's anger and sadness. It shakes Americans' faith in their government at a time when that faith is already near an all-time low. It trafficks in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans." Der Spiegel dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."
Journalist Matt Taibbi, in his book The Great Derangement, discusses 9/11 conspiracy theories as symptomatic of what he calls the "derangement" of American society; a disconnection from reality due to widespread "disgust with our political system". Drawing a parallel with the Charismatic Movement, he argues that both "chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary," instead of taking control of their own lives. While critical, Taibbi explains that 9/11 conspiracy theories are different from "Clinton-era black-helicopter paranoia", and constitute more than "a small, scattered group of nutcases [...] they really were, just as they claim to be, almost everyone you meet."
Columnist Matt Mankelow, writing for the online edition of the British Socialist Worker, concludes that 9/11 truthers while "desperately trying to legitimately question a version of events" end up playing into the hands of the neoconservatives they are trying to take down by creating a diversion. Mankelow noted that this has irritated many people who are politically left-wing.
David Aaronovitch, a columnist for The Times, in his book entitled Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History that was published in May 2009, claimed that the theories strain credulity. Aaronovitch also charged that 9/11 conspiracy theorists have exaggerated the expertise of those supporting their theories, and noted that 9/11 conspiracy theorists including David Ray Griffin cross cite each other.
Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein co-authored a 2009 paper which used members of the 9/11 Truth movement and others as an examples of people who suffer from “crippled epistemologies,” to public trust and the political system. He wrote that "They do not merely undermine democratic debate ... In extreme cases, they create or fuel violence. If government can dispel such theories, it should do so.”
In June 2011 the Royal Institute of British Architects was criticized for hosting a lecture by Richard Gage, president of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Rick Bell, the director of the American Institute of Architects New York chapter, who was a witness to the 9/11 attacks, said that “no amount of money” would persuade him to allow the group to talk at his headquarters and said that Gage lacks credibility among the professional community. Eugine Kohn, former spokesperson for the American Institute of Architects, said Gage's theories were "ridiculous", "There were no explosives planted”, and “The buildings were definitely brought down by the planes". The decision to host the event was also criticized by the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the founding president of the American Institute of Architects United Kingdom chapter. Gage has been warned by the AIA against giving a false impression that he has a relationship with them. A July article in the organization's magazine criticized Gage for continuing to intimate that he has an association with them and claimed there were no architects at an Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth screening held in an American Institute of Architects boardroom The Royal Institute of British Architects released a statement saying the perception that the group endorses events held in its buildings is "regrettable", and said they would review policy on "private hire" of its buildings. Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan offer scathing criticism of many of the above theories in The Eleventh Day, their 2011 investigation of the attacks.
U.S. representative Peter T. King, chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, said 9/11 conspiracy theorists "trivialize" the "most tragic event to affect the United States" and that "People making these claims are disgraceful, and they should be ashamed of themselves".
The hosts of "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" (the "SGU") have spoken repeatedly about the absurdity of 9/11 conspiracy theories. In addition to critiquing the theories using the same or similar arguments as the above, the "SGU" hosts say that, like most conspiracy theories, this one collapses under its own weight and contradicts itself. In order for the 9/11 conspiracy theories to be correct, the U.S. government would not only have to orchestrate the claimed false flag operation regarding the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center, but they would also have to orchestrate a superfluous controlled demolition and cover their tracks so flawlessly that it becomes indistinguishable to physicists from the "official story," yet the plan would have to be flawed enough so that "losers in their mothers' basement" will discover the conspiracy.
In politics
Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion forced a candidate from Winnipeg, Lesley Hughes, to terminate her campaign after earlier writings from Hughes surfaced in which Hughes wrote that U.S., German, Russian and Israeli intelligence officials knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. Earlier, Peter Kent, Deputy Editor of Global Television Network News and Conservative Party candidate in the 2008 Canadian election, had called for Hughes's resignation saying that the 9/11 Truth movement is "one of Canada’s most notorious hatemongering fringe movements" composed of "conspiracy theorists who are notorious for holding anti-Semitic views." On June 16, 2009, Hughes sued Kent, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the B'nai B'rith of Canada and four senior members of the two organizations alleging the antisemitic allegations were untrue and defamatory and ruined her career. Later another Conservative Party candidate called for the leader of the New Democratic Party to fire a candidate for her pro 9/11 truth views. Zijad Delic head of Canada's largest Muslim advocacy organization, the Canadian Islamic Congress is trying to remove 9/11 conspiracy theorists from the board of the organization, in an effort to what he describes as purifying within and totally canadianize the organization.
In 2008, calls for the resignation of Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories for the United Nations, were partially based on his support investigating the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories. In 2011 Falk praised a book by David Ray Griffin. Falk was condemned for his remarks by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and United States ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
In February 2009, Aymeric Chauprade, a professor of geopolitics at CID military college in Paris, was fired by French Defence Minister Hervé Morin for writing a book entitled Chronicle of the Clash of Civilizations that espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories.
In September 2009, Van Jones, an adviser to US President Barack Obama, resigned after his signature on a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur and other controversial statements came to light drawing criticism. Van Jones said he was a victim of a smear campaign, adding that he does not currently, nor ever has agreed with that theory.
9/11 conspiracy theorist critic David Aaronovitch claims the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories has hurt the War on Terror. According to Aaronovitch, because a significant portion of educated Pakistanis believe that George W. Bush brought the towers down, dealing with the Taliban is difficult “because they actually don't believe the fundamental premise on which the war against terror was waged”.
The 9/11 truth movement became an issue in the 2010 Texas Gubernatorial Republican primary when candidate Debra Medina replied when asked by Glenn Beck about US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks: "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard, there are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that." After being criticized for the remarks by opposing candidates, Medina said that she has never been a 9/11 truth movement member and believes the twin towers were attacked by Muslim terrorists.
On September 23, 2010, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to the United Nations said that "The majority of the American people, as well as other nations and politicians, believe ... some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining U.S. economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime". The remarks prompted the United States delegation as well as others to walk out. U.S. President Barack Obama criticized Ahmadinejad's remarks before the United Nations General Assembly on the following day, saying, "For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable" and called the remarks "offensive" and "hateful." Previously Ahmadinejad had described the 9/11 attacks as a "suspect event" and suggested that the Bush Administration was involved in 9/11. The Iranian president repeated his claims in 2011 and was criticized in an article appearing Al Queada's magazine. The article claimed Ahmadinejad was jealous of Al Queada.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has called for a scientific conference to look into the events of 9/11 and speculated that the attacks were an inside job.
Legal cases
Army specialist April Gallup filed suit claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the Pentagon was hit by an attack ordered by Cheney. The suit was dismissed in 2010 by Judge Denny Chin, who said the claim was "the product of cynical delusion and fantasy". Her lawyers filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals which in April 2010 issued a show cause order why the lawyers and Gallup should not be sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Her lawyers asked that the judges on the Court of Appeals recuse themselves because their emotions made them prejudge the case and abuse their power. On October 14, 2011 the judges sanctioned her lawyers $15,000 each for both the frivolous lawsuits and the accusations of prejudice. Gallup was not fined because of her unfamiliarity with the law.
See also
Opinion polls about 9/11 conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories about the July 2005 London bombings
Controversies about the 2004 Madrid train bombings
Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories
Osama bin Laden death conspiracy theories
Able Danger
Operation Terror
References
Bibliography
External links
United States government sources
9/11 Commission Report
NIST and the World Trade Center
Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation
Final NIST Report on the collapse of World Trade Center 7
U.S. Department of State Article: The Top September 11 Conspiracy Theories, 28 August, 2006
Engineering publications
Popular Mechanics: Debunking the 9/11 Myths.
Proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories
Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice
9-11 Research
The 9/11 Truth movement
Debunkers of 9/11 conspiracy theories
Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy theories and Controlled Demolition Myths
Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later', by the Anti-Defamation League
Category:Conspiracy theories involving Israel
Category:Conspiracy theories involving Jews
Category:Denialism
Category:Criticism of the official accounts of the September 11 attacks
Category:Conspiracy theories in the United States
Category:Conspiracy theories involving aviation incidents
Category:Articles containing video clips |
2016-01 | Cars_film-695218840 | Cars_film | Cars (film)
Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy-adventure sports film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by John Lasseter, it is Pixar's final independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles, it features the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final non-documentary feature), Larry the Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, and John Ratzenberger. Real life race car drivers Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Mario Andretti and Michael Schumacher, and car enthusiast Jay Leno (as "Jay Limo") voice themselves. It is also the second Pixar film—after A Bug's Life—to have an entirely non-human cast. The film was accompanied by the short One Man Band for its theatrical and home media releases.
Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina and was theatrically released on June 9, 2006, to positive reviews. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The film was released on DVD on November 7, 2006 and to Blu-ray Disc in late 2007. Related merchandise, including scale models of several of the cars, broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney·Pixar film, bringing an estimated $10 billion in 5 years since the film's release. The film was dedicated to Joe Ranft, who was killed in a car accident during the film's production.
A sequel, Cars 2, was released on June 24, 2011, and a spin-off, Planes, produced by DisneyToon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013. A series of short animated films entitled Cars Toons has been airing since 2008.
Plot
In a world populated by anthropomorphic vehicles, the last race of the Piston Cup championship ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers, infamous runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen. The tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the (fictional) Los Angeles International Speedway in California. Lightning is desperate to win the race, since it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, he pushes his big rig, Mack, to travel all night long. While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off and is startled by a gang of four reckless street racers, causing McQueen to fall out the back of the trailer and onto the road. McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic and speeds off the highway to find Mack, only to end up in the run-down desert town of Radiator Springs, while inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.
After being arrested and impounded overnight (while guarded by a rusty, but friendly, tow truck named Mater), McQueen is ordered by the town judge, Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately. The local lawyer Sally Carrera requests that McQueen should instead be given community service to repave the road, to which Doc reluctantly agrees. McQueen tries to repave it in a single day, but it turns out to be shoddy and he is ordered to repave the road again, which takes several days to complete. During this time, he becomes friends with several of the cars, and learns that Radiator Springs used to be a popular stopover along the old U.S. Route 66, but with the construction of Interstate 40 bypassing it, the town literally vanished from the map. McQueen also discovers that Doc is really the "Fabulous Hudson Hornet", a three-time Piston Cup winner who was forced out of racing after an accident in 1954 and quickly forgotten by the sport. McQueen finishes the road, which has invigorated the cars to improve their town, and spends an extra day in town with his new friends, before Mack and the media descend on the town, led by a tip to McQueen's location. McQueen reluctantly leaves with the media to get to California in time for the race, while Sally chastises Doc after discovering that he had tipped off the media to McQueen's whereabouts, not wanting to be discovered by them instead.
At the speedway, McQueen's mind is not fully set on the race, and he soon falls into last place. He is surprised to discover that Doc Hudson, who is decked out in his old racing colors, has taken over as his crew chief, along with several other friends from Radiator Springs to help in the pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends, McQueen quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps. Refusing to lose, Hicks sends Weathers into a dangerous spin, causing him to have an accident. Seeing this and recalling Doc's fate, McQueen stops just short of the finish line, allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish line. The crowd and media condemn Hicks' victory and give praise to McQueen's sportsmanship. Though offered the Dinoco sponsorship deal, McQueen declines, insisting on staying with his current sponsors as an appreciation of their past support. Later, back at Radiator Springs, McQueen returns and announces that he will be setting up his headquarters there, helping to put Radiator Springs back on the map.
Cast
Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, described by John Lasseter in the LA Times as "A hybrid between a stock car and a more curvaceous Le Mans endurance racer."
Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson Hornet who is later revealed to be the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
Bonnie Hunt as Sally Carrera, a 2002 996-series Porsche 911 Carrera.
Larry the Cable Guy as Mater, a 1951 International Harvester L-170 "boom" truck with elements of a mid-1950s Chevrolet. One-Ton Wrecker Tow Truck.
Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500.
Cheech Marin as Ramone, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala Lowrider.
Michael Wallis as Sheriff, a 1949 Mercury Club Coupe (police package).
George Carlin as Fillmore, a 1960 VW Bus.
Paul Dooley as Sarge, a 1941 Willys model jeep, in the style used by the US Military.
Jenifer Lewis as Flo, a 1957 Motorama show car.
Guido Quaroni as Guido, a custom forklift, resembling an Isetta at the front.
Richard Petty as Strip "The King" Weathers. The car's design was based on Richard Petty's 1970 Plymouth Superbird
Michael Keaton as Chick Hicks, described by Pixar as a generic 1980s stock car. Strongly resembles a 1978–88 General Motors G-Body such as a Buick Regal or Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Katherine Helmond as Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T.
John Ratzenberger as Mack, a 1985 Mack Super-Liner.
Joe Ranft as Red, a 1960s style fire truck (most closely resembles a mid-1960s) and Peterbilt, this was Ranft's last voice role before his death in August 2005.
Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and Dave Foley reprise their vocal roles from previous Pixar films during an end-credits sequence featuring automobile spoofs of Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and A Bug's Life.
Production
Cars is the last film worked on by Joe Ranft, who died in a car accident in August 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride (that showed the roles he'd done in the other films directed by John Lasseter during the credits). This is also the last (non-documentary) movie for Paul Newman before his retirement in 2007 and his death in 2008. It turned out to be the highest-grossing film of his career.
Development
While Pixar was wrapping up production on A Bug's Life in the Fall of 1998, story development artist Jorgen Klubien began writing a story for a brand-new animated feature. The original script (called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world), some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars could be the next movie after A Bug's Life and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, the movie was eventually scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2. Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc, and a few other characters a bigger part.
Meanwhile, John Lasseter has said that the idea for Cars was born after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five sons in 2000. When he returned to the studio after vacation, he contacted Michael Wallis, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film. In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television show with the same name. In addition, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story was released).
In 2006, John Lasseter spoke about the inspiration for the film, saying: "I have always loved cars. In one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there's motor oil. The notion of combining these two great passions in my life—cars and animation—was irresistible. When Joe (Ranft) and I first started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as characters. Around that same time, we watched a documentary called 'Divided Highways,' which dealt with the interstate highway and how it affected the small towns along the way. We were so moved by it and began thinking about what it must have been like in these small towns that got bypassed. That's when we started really researching Route 66, but we still hadn't quite figured out what the story for the film was going to be. I used to travel that highway with my family as a child when we visited our family in St. Louis."
Jorgen Klubien said the movie was both his best and most bitter experience because he was fired before the movie premiered and because he feels John Lasseter wrote him out of the story of how the film got made.
Animation
For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of the Big Three Detroit automakers, particularly J Mays of Ford Motor Company. Lasseter learned how real cars were designed.
In 2006, John Lasseter spoke about how they worked hard to make the animation believable, saying: "It took many months of trial and error, and practicing test animation, to figure out how each car moves and how their world works. Our supervising animators, Doug Sweetland and Scott Clark, and the directing animators, Bobby Podesta and James Ford Murphy, did an amazing job working with the animation team to determine the unique movements for each character based on its age and the type of car it was. Some cars are like sports cars and they're much tighter in their suspension. Others are older '50s cars that are a lot looser and have more bounce to them. We wanted to get that authenticity in there but also to make sure each car had a unique personality. We also wanted each animator to be able to put some of themself in the character and give it their own spin. Every day in dailies, it was so much fun because we would see things that we had never seen in our lives. The world of cars came alive in a believable and unexpected way."
Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the Tonka Talking Trucks, and the characters from Tex Avery's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the headlights. According to production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character. This decision was heavily criticized by automotive blog Jalopnik.
In 2006, supervising animator on the film Scott Clark, spoke about the challenges of animating car characters, saying: "Getting a full range of performance and emotion from these characters and making them still seem like cars was a tough assignment, but that's what animation does best. You use your imagination, and you make the movements and gestures fit with the design. Our car characters may not have arms and legs, but we can lean the tires in or out to suggest hands opening up or closing in. We can use steering to point a certain direction. We also designed a special eyelid and an eyebrow for the windshield that lets us communicate an expressiveness that cars don't have." Doug Sweetland, who also served as supervising animator, also spoke about the challenges, saying: "It took a different kind of animator to really be able to interpret the Cars models, than it did to interpret something like The Incredibles models. With The Incredibles, the animator could get reference for the characters by shooting himself and watching the footage. But with Cars, it departs completely from any reference. Yes they're cars, but no car can do what our characters do. It's pure fantasy. It took a lot of trial and error to get them to look right."
Lasseter also explained that the film started with pencil and paper designs, saying: "Truth to materials. Starting with pencil-and-paper designs from production designer Bob Pauley, and continuing through the modeling, articulation, and shading of the characters, and finally into animation, the production team worked hard to have the car characters remain true to their origins." Character department manager Jay Ward also explained how they wanted the cars to look as realistic as possible, saying: "John didn't want the cars to seem clay-like or mushy. He insisted on truth to materials. This was a huge thing for him. He told us that steel needs to feel like steel. Glass should feel like glass. These cars need to feel heavy. They weigh three or four thousand pounds. When they move around, they need to have that feel. They shouldn't appear light or overly bouncy to the point where the audience might see them as rubber toys." According to directing animator James Ford Murphy, "Originally, the car models were built so they could basically do anything. John kept reminding us that these characters are made of metal and they weigh several thousand pounds. They can't stretch. He showed us examples of very loose animation to illustrate what not to do."
Character shading supervisor on the film Thomas Jordan explained that chrome and car paint were the main challenges on the film, saying: "Chrome and car paint were our two main challenges on this film. We started out by learning as much as we could. At the local body shop, we watched them paint a car, and we saw the way they mixed the paint and applied the various coats. We tried to dissect what goes into the real paint and recreated it in the computer. We figured out that we needed a base paint, which is where the color comes from, and the clearcoat, which provides the reflection. We were then able to add in things like metallic flake to give it a glittery sparkle, a pearlescent quality the might change color depending on the angle, and even a layer of pin-striping for characters like Ramone." Supervising technical director on the film Eben Ostby explained that the biggest challenge for the technical team was creating the metallic and painted surfaces of the car characters, and the reflections that those surfaces generate, saying: "Given that the stars of our film are made of metal, John had a real desire to see realistic reflections, and more beautiful lighting than we’ve seen in any of our previous films. In the past, we’ve mostly used environment maps and other matte-based technology to cheat reflections, but for Cars we added a ray-tracing capability to our existing Renderman program to raise the bar for Pixar."
Rendering lead Jessica McMackin spoke about the use of ray tracing on the film, saying: "In addition to creating accurate reflections, we used ray tracing to achieve other effects. We were able to use this approach to create accurate shadows, like when there are multiple light sources and you want to get a feathering of shadows at the edges. Or occlusion, which is the absence of ambient light between two surfaces, like a crease in a shirt. A fourth use is irradiance. An example of this would be if you had a piece of red paper and held it up to a white wall, the light would be colored by the paper and cast a red glow on the wall." Character supervisor Tim Milliron explained that the film uses a ground–locking system that kept the cars firmly planted on the road, saying: "The ground-locking system is one of the things I’m most proud of on this film. In the past, characters have never known about their environment in any way. A simulation pass was required if you wanted to make something like that happen. On Cars, this system is built into the models themselves, and as you move the car around, the vehicle sticks to the ground. It was one of those things that we do at Pixar where we knew going in that it had to be done, but we had no idea how to do it."
Technical director Lisa Forsell explained that to enhance the richness and beauty of the desert landscapes surrounding Radiator Springs, the filmmakers created a department responsible for matte paintings and sky flats, saying: "Digital matte paintings are a way to get a lot of visual complexity without necessarily having to build complex geometry, and write complex shaders. We spent a lot time working on the clouds and their different formations. They tend to be on several layers and they move relative to each other. The clouds do in fact have some character and personality. The notion was that just as people see themselves in the clouds, cars see various car-shaped clouds. It’s subtle, but there are definitely some that are shaped like a sedan. And if you look closely, you’ll see some that look like tire treads. The fact that so much attention is put on the skies speaks to the visual level of the film. Is there a story point? Not really. There is no pixel on the screen that does not have an extraordinary level of scrutiny and care applied to it. There is nothing that is just throw-away."
Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The Incredibles and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.
Soundtrack
The Cars soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006. Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman. It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup jazz standard "Route 66" (popularized by Nat King Cole), one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer. Brad Paisley contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.
Release
Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004, the movie's release date was changed to June 9, 2006. Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign from Pixar that they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution contract by either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other studios, or they were buying time to see what happened with Michael Eisner's situation at Disney. When Pixar's chief executive Steve Jobs made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a Summer release schedule, with DVD sales occurring during the holiday shopping season.
Home media
Cars was released on DVD in both wide-screen and full-screen editions on November 7, 2006 in the United States and Canada. This DVD was also released on October 25 in Australia and New Zealand and on November 27 in the United Kingdom. The release includes the DVD-exclusive short film Mater and the Ghostlight and the film's theatrical short One Man Band as well as a 16-minute-long documentary about the film entitled Inspiration for Cars, which features director John Lasseter. It also featured the Pixar short Boundin'.
According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold the first two days it was available. The first week, it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 in total ($246,198,859). Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were preoccupied with productions like Ratatouille.
In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of the film at Wal-Mart and at Target. The former featured a Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the music video to "Life Is A Highway", The Making of "Life Is A Highway", Cars: The Making of the Music, and Under The Hood, a special that originally aired on the ABC Family cable channel. The latter's bonus was a Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material mostly already released as part of the official Cars podcast and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.
Cars was also released on Blu-ray Disc on November 6, 2007, becoming the first Pixar film to be released on Blu-ray (alongside Ratatouille and Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1), and was re-released as a Blu-Ray Disc and DVD combo pack and DVD only edition in April 2011. The film was released for the first time in 3D on October 29, 2013, as part of Cars: Ultimate Collector's Edition, which included the releases on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and DVD.
Video game
A video game of the same name was released on June 6, 2006, for Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Xbox. It was also released on October 23, 2006, for Xbox 360 and November 16, 2006, for Wii. The video game got mainly positive reviews. GameSpot gave 7.0 out of 10 for Xbox 360 and Wii versions, for PlayStation 2, 7.6 out of 10 for the GameCube and Xbox versions, and 7.4 out of 10 for the PSP version. Metacritic gave 65 out of 100 for the Wii version, 54 out of 100 for the DS version, 73 out of 100 for the PC version, 71 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version, and 70 out of 100 for the PSP version.
Reception
Critical response
Cars was met with positive reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 74% approval rating with an average rating of 6.9/10 based on 196 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "While the story may not reach the high standards of Toy Story and The Incredibles, viewers of all ages will marvel at the technical brilliance of the animation and come away satisfied." Another review aggregation website Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 73 out of 100 based on 39 reviews.
William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever" and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun, but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films. Maybe that's because there's less at stake here, and no child-surrogate to identify with." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Fueled with plenty of humor, action, heartfelt drama, and amazing new technical feats, Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages." Richard Corliss of Time gave the film a positive review, saying "Existing both in turbo-charged today and the gentler '50s, straddling the realms of Pixar styling and old Disney heart, this new-model Cars is an instant classic." Brian Lowry of Variety gave the film a negative review, saying "Despite representing another impressive technical achievement, it's the least visually interesting of the computer-animation boutique's movies, and -- in an ironic twist for a story about auto racing -- drifts slowly through its semi-arid midsection." Robert Wilonsky of The Village Voice gave the film a positive review, saying "What ultimately redeems Cars from turning out a total lemon is its soul. Lasseter loves these animated inanimate objects as though they were kin, and it shows in every beautifully rendered frame." Ella Taylor of L.A. Weekly gave the film a positive review, saying "Cars cheerfully hitches cutting-edge animation to a folksy narrative plugging friendship, community and a Luddite mistrust of high tech."
Gene Seymour of Newsday gave the film three out of four stars, saying "And as pop flies go, Cars is pretty to watch, even as it loops, drifts and, at times, looks as if it's just hanging in midair." Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave the film a positive review, saying "It takes everything that's made Pixar shorthand for animation excellence -- strong characters, tight pacing, spot-on voice casting, a warm sense of humor and visuals that are pure, pixilated bliss -- and carries them to the next stage." Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic gave the film four out of five stars, saying "The truest measure of the movie is that eventually we forget we're watching a bunch of vehicles with faces and start to think of them as individual characters. It's quite an accomplishment, and perhaps one only possible by Pixar." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film four out of five stars, saying "What's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart." Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post gave the film a positive review, saying "It's the latest concoction from the geniuses at Pixar, probably the most inventive of the Computer Generated Imagery shop -- and the film's great fun, if well under the level of the first Toy Story." Jessica Reaves of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "While it's a technically perfect movie, its tone is too manic, its characters too jaded and, in the end, its story too empty to stand up to expectations." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three out of four stars, saying "While Cars may cross the finish line ahead of any of 2006's other animated films, it's several laps behind its Pixar siblings."
Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the film an A-, saying "It's powered by a human heart through a roadway of natural wonders and cultural signposts en route to the checkered flag." Lisa Kennedy of The Denver Post gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Cars idles at times. And it's not until its final laps that the movie gains the emotional traction we've come to expect from the Toy Story and Nemo crews." Tom Long of The Detroit News gave the film a B+, saying "It's touching, it's funny, it offers cautions about the modern pace of life, and it depends on a sense of rural Americana for its soul." Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "For parents out there whose future holds the certain prospect of the DVD version blaring repeatedly from family-room screens, let this be your advisory. Warning: Cars comes unequipped with two essential options -- charm and a good muffler." Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle gave the film three out of four stars, saying "It thunders ahead with breezy abandon, scoring big grins on its way." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film four out of four stars, saying "It achieves the near impossible, turning cars, trucks, tractors, and farm harvesters into cute Disney characters whose fates you'll care about." Lou Lumenick of the New York Post gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Cars somewhat self-indulgently runs nearly two hours -- but overall, it's well worth the trip." Lisa Rose of the Newark Star-Ledger gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "It's another innovative piece of entertainment from the animation studio, taking the audience on a kinetic trip into a world populated only by automobiles."
Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film a positive review, saying "The animation is stunningly rendered. But the story is always the critical element in Pixar movies, and Cars' story is heartfelt with a clear and unabashed moral." David Edelstein of New York Magazine gave the film a positive review, saying "Like the Toy Story films, Cars is a state-of-the-computer-art plea on behalf of outmoded, wholesome fifties technology, with a dash of Zen by way of George Lucas." Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel gave the film three out of five stars, saying "It's beautiful to look at. The talking cars feel more alive than talking cars should." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Cars made me want to hop in my jalopy and to head out to Route 66, bypassing the boring interstate highways that made the Mother Road redundant." Moira MacDonald of The Seattle Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Though the central idea of nostalgia for a quieter, small-town life may well be lost on this movie's young audience -- Cars finds a pleasant and often sparkling groove." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film two out of five stars, saying "Cars might get us into car world as a gimmick, but it doesn't get us into car world as a state of mind. Thus, the animation, rather than seeming like an expression of the movie's deeper truth, becomes an impediment to it." Derek Adams of Time Out gave the film a positive review, saying "There are many other brilliant scenes, some just as funny but there are just as many occasions where you feel the film's struggling to fire on all cylinders. Still, it's a Pixar film, right? And they're always worth a gander no matter what anyone says."
Box office
In its opening weekend, Cars earned $60,119,509 in 3,985 theaters in the United States, ranking number one at the box office. In the United States, the film held onto the number one spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman Returns the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,983,149 worldwide (ranking number six in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the United States (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Night at the Museum). It was the second highest grossing film released by Walt Disney Pictures, behind Dead Man's Chest and was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown with $655,388,158 in worldwide totals.
Accolades
Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many film critic associations such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006. Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes. Randy Newman and James Taylor received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth). The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Happy Feet. Cars was also selected as the Favorite Family Movie at the 33rd People's Choice Awards. The most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award. The film was also nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Animation" genre.
Similar films
Marcus Aurelius Canônico of Folha de S.Paulo described The Little Cars series (Os Carrinhos in Portuguese), a Brazilian computer graphics film series, as a derivative of Cars. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture posted Marcus Aurelius Canônico's article on its website.
It has also been noted that the plot of Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of Doc Hollywood, the 1991 romantic comedy which stars Michael J. Fox as a hotshot young doctor, who, after causing a traffic accident in a small town, is sentenced to work at the town hospital, falls in love with a local law student and eventually acquires an appreciation for small town values.
Sequels
A sequel to the film, titled Cars 2, was released on June 24, 2011. It was directed again by John Lasseter, who was inspired for the film while traveling around the world promoting the first film. In the sequel, Lightning McQueen and Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix, but Mater becomes sidetracked with international espionage. The film failed to meet or exceed the critical success of its predecessor.
Michael Wallis, the voice of Sheriff and a Route 66 consultant for the first two films, said in August 2013 in an interview with WGBZ radio that Pixar will make a third film in the series, which will go back to Route 66 and will also include Route 99.
See also
Mandeville-Anthony v. The Walt Disney Company, a federal court case in which Mandeville claimed Disney infringed on his copyrighted ideas by creating Cars
References
External links
from Disney
from Pixar
Category:Cars (franchise)
Category:2006 films
Category:2006 computer-animated films
Category:2000s American animated films
Category:2000s comedy films
Category:2000s sports films
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Category:Best Animated Feature Annie Award winners
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2016-01 | Fosters_Home_for_Imaginary_Friends-697539339 | Fosters_Home_for_Imaginary_Friends | Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series created by Craig McCracken for Cartoon Network Studios. The series, set in a world in which imaginary friends coexist with humans, centers on an eight-year-old boy, Mac, who is pressured by his mother to abandon his imaginary friend Bloo. After discovering an orphanage dedicated to housing abandoned imaginary friends, Bloo moves into the home and is kept from adoption so long as Mac visits him daily. The episodes revolve around Mac and Bloo as they interact with other imaginary friends and house staff and live out their day-to-day adventures, often getting caught up in various predicaments.
McCracken conceived the series after adopting two dogs from an animal shelter and applying the concept to imaginary friends. The show first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television film. On August 20, it began its normal run of twenty-to-thirty-minute episodes on Fridays, at 7 pm. The series finished its run on May 3, 2009, with a total of six seasons and seventy-nine episodes. McCracken left Cartoon Network shortly after the series ended.
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was praised by critics and received high ratings during its original run, becoming popular among both younger and older audiences. It received many industry accolades, including five Annie Awards and seven Emmy Awards, winning a total of sixteen awards out of thirty-five nominations. It has since been named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the best Cartoon Network shows and by IGN as one of the best animated series of all time.
Premise
The series is set in an alternate reality in which childhood imaginary friends coexist with humans. In the show's universe, imaginary friends take physical form and become real as soon as children think them up. Once children outgrow them, friends are relocated to the titular orphanage, where they stay until other children adopt them. The home is run by the elderly Madame Foster, its lovable, kind founder; her imaginary friend Mr. Herriman, the strict rule-abider and business manager; and her granddaughter Frankie, who handles day-to-day operations.
In the series' premiere episode, a young boy named Mac is pressured by his mother to abandon his imaginary friend Bloo, since she believes that he is too old to keep him. Bloo sees an advertisement on television about Foster's Home and tells Mac, who takes him there, only to find out the home is an orphanage and if Bloo were to reside there, he would be available to be adopted by another child. Mac then bargains with Frankie, Herriman and Madame Foster and they agree to guard Bloo from adoption so long as Mac continues to visit the center daily. During the series, Mac secretly visits the home everyday after school. The show focuses on the escapades experienced by the mischievous Bloo, Mac, and the array of eccentric, colorful characters inhabiting Foster's, and the obstacles with which they are challenged.
Characters
Mac (voiced by Sean Marquette) – A bright and creative eight-year-old boy who is Bloo's creator and best friend. Mac visits Foster's every day. He is very attached to Bloo and his biggest fear is never seeing him again. Mac is often the voice of reason among his friends when they are making decisions. Mac becomes extremely high and hyperactive when he eats sugar. He also has a crush on Frankie.
Blooregard "Bloo" Q. Kazoo (voiced by Keith Ferguson) – Mac's imaginary friend and best friend. He is blue-colored and resembles a simple, domed cylinder. Bloo is often very self-centered, egotistic and narcissistic, as well as having a "knack for getting in trouble". Despite all this, he still has a good heart and apologizes for his wrongdoings. Bloo loves paddle balls, even though he typically cannot make the ball hit the paddle.
Wilt (voiced by Phil LaMarr) – A very tall, friendly and helpful red-colored friend with only a right arm and a crooked left eye-stalk. He is a basketball player and fan, and is the former imaginary friend of Jordan Michaels (a parody of Michael Jordan). After an accident during a basketball match, Wilt left Jordan, fearing the latter would be be disappointed by Wilt's losing the match. Years later, Wilt goes on a search to re-encounter Jordan.
Eduardo (voiced by Tom Kenny) – A Latino friend created by a young girl, Nina Valerosa, to protect her in a dangerous neighborhood. Eduardo is big, hairy and violet-purple, has horns, a snout, a pointy demon-like tail and large teeth. Despite his large size, overwhelming strength, and menacing appearance, Eduardo is docile, timid and scared of almost anything. However, he can be ferocious if angered or danger befalls his friends.
Coco (voiced by Candi Milo) – A bird-airplane-palm tree hybrid friend who can only say or write her name. A talent unique to her is her ability to lay colorful, plastic eggs containing a plethora of objects, at will. Other characters usually understand her when she speaks. Despite her appearance and quirky behavior, she can demonstrate intelligence and kindness. Her creator is unknown, as she was found on a South Pacific island by two scientists named Adam and Douglas.
Frankie Foster (voiced by Grey DeLisle) – Madame Foster's redheaded granddaughter, addressed as "Miss Frances" by Mr. Herriman. Frankie is the caregiver at Foster's and helps keep everything in order. She is usually very friendly, outgoing and laid-back, but occasionally loses her patience with Bloo and Mr. Herriman. According to her driver's license, she was born on July 25, 1984.
Mr. Herriman (voiced by Tom Kane) – A gray and white elderly anthropomorphic lop ear rabbit friend imagined by Madame Foster who speaks with a British accent. He wears a tailcoat, white gloves, a top hat and a monocle. He presents himself as head of business affairs of the house and later as President of the house, and is extremely strict about rules and the maintenance of order in the home. He frequently punishes Bloo for his various misdemeanors and scolds Frankie for her perceived laziness, despite all her hard work.
Madame Foster (voiced by Candi Milo) – The caring founder of Foster's and grandmother of Frankie. She is the creator of Mr. Herriman. Despite being elderly, Madame Foster has childlike boundless energy and occasionally becomes hyperactive and mischievous.
Other recurring characters include Terrence (voiced by Tara Strong), Mac's older brother who constantly bullies him; Duchess (voiced by Grey DeLisle), a friend with a Cubist-looking face and a pompous, narcissistic personality; Cheese (voiced by Candi Milo), a dim-witted and childish yellow friend who first appeared in season two; and Goo (voiced by Grey DeLisle), a talkative young girl who is highly imaginative and constantly creates new friends, first appearing in season three.
Episodes
The show spanned seventy-nine episodes and six seasons; it has also aired eighteen shorts.
Production
The series was created by Craig McCracken, who had also created The Powerpuff Girls for Cartoon Network Studios. McCracken developed the idea for the series after adopting two dogs from an animal shelter with his then-fiancée Lauren Faust; he adapted the concept of pet adoption to that of imaginary friends. The show has an art style which is meant to evoke, according to McCracken, "that period of late 60's psychedelia when Victorian stylings were coming into trippy poster designs". McCracken wanted Foster's to be similar to The Muppet Show, which he believed was a "fun, character driven show that the whole family could enjoy".
Animation for the show was done using a process involving Adobe softwares Illustrator, Flash and After Effects. McCracken directed, executive produced and story edited the series. Most of the episodes were produced at the Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California, while the rest were produced at Boulder Media in Dublin, Ireland. The theme song was composed by James L. Venable, who had originally collaborated with McCracken on The Powerpuff Girls. Craig described the music as "psychedelic ragtime". Additional music was composed by Venable and Jennifer Kes Remington.
Collette Sunderman was the casting and recording director for the show. Sean Marquette was cast as Mac, and Keith Ferguson was cast as Bloo. The Powerpuff Girls voice actors Tom Kane, Tom Kenny and Tara Strong were cast in Foster's as Mr. Herriman, Eduardo and Terrence, respectively. Grey DeLisle was cast as Frankie Foster, and Candi Milo was cast as Coco and Madame Foster. From season two onwards, Milo also lent her voice to Cheese. DeLisle also voiced Goo after the character's debut in season three.
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends premiered on August 13, 2004, at 7:30 pm E/P as a 90-minute special titled "House of Bloo's". The series' run began on August 20 on its normal timeslot of Fridays at 7 pm. The special was Cartoon Network's highest rated premiere at the time. 18 shorts were produced from 2006 to 2007. In addition to the premiere episode, two other specials were produced: "Good Wilt Hunting", which premiered on November 23, 2006, at 7 pm, and "Destination: Imagination", which premiered on November 27, 2008, at 8 pm. The final episode, titled "Goodbye to Bloo", aired on May 3, 2009, at 6:30 pm, preceded by a six-hour marathon of other episodes from the series. McCracken expressed a certain sadness at the series' end, but stated that he was "crazy proud of the work" that he and the production team had done "on Foster's and the fact that it worked just the way [they] wanted it to". During its original run, Foster's was one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows. The show proved to be popular among both younger and older audiences.
Reception
Critical response
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends received generally positive reviews. Anita Gates of the New York Times praised the series' premiere 90-minute episode and stated that the series would promise to be an "admirable tale of loyalty and adventure-based learning with a contagious sense of fun". Mike Pinsky, in a review on DVD Verdict, praised the art design and the characterizations, particularly singling out Cheese as possibly "the quintessence of Foster's surreal charm" in his season two review. David Cornelius of DVD Talk called the series "one of the best shows of any kind [then] on television, a winner for viewers of any age" and "a wildly inventive mix of creative wonder, comic genius, and well-crafted chaos". In a season two review, also on DVD Talk, Cornelius called the show "flat-out perfect". Joly Herman of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group focussed on appropriate technology and media for children, was less enthusiastic about the show, rating it 2 stars out of 5. Herman praised the creativity and diversity of the characters and the show's premise, but criticized the storyline and writing, which presented "confusing messages" for young children.
The series was named the 85th best animated series of all time by IGN, which called it very funny and endearing. Entertainment Weekly named the show the 6th best Cartoon Network show in their top 10 list, praising its "catchy magical-realist setting" and the characters "you genuinely learned to care about".
Awards
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends received many industry accolades. The series received sixteen awards out of a total of thirty-five nominations. At the Annie Awards, the show received a total of twenty nominations from 2004 to 2009, and won five, including Best Animated Television Production in 2007. At the Emmy Awards, the show received nine nominations, and won seven awards, including five Outstanding Individual Achievements in Animation and one Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) award for the episode "Destination Imagination". At the 2005 Pulcinella Awards, Foster's received the for Best TV Series for All Audiences and Bloo was named "Best Character of the Year." At the 22nd TCA Awards, the show received a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming. At the 2007 Ottawa International Animation Festival, the series won Best Television Animation for Children.
Merchandising and media
Video games
There are two video games based on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The first has the same name as the show and was developed by Crave Entertainment for the Game Boy Advance. It was released on October 17, 2006. In the game, players control Mac or Bloo while collecting items to complete objectives. Jack Devries of IGN rating it a 5.5 out of 10 and stating that it "falls short" and is "skippable". The second, titled Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Imagination Invaders, was released on November 12, 2007, for the Nintendo DS by Midway. In the game, the player controls Bloo, performing tasks and completing quests, while fighting against "Space Nut Boogies". Devries rated it 4 out of 10, calling it "terrible to play" and "completely worthless". Characters from the show also appear on the games Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion and FusionFall.
On May 15, 2006, Cartoon Network introduced a new online game, Big Fat Awesome House Party, which allowed players to create an online friend to join Bloo and the others in a one-year game online, and earn points that would give them gifts, cards and other on-line "merchandise" for their albums. Their friend, made from one of over 900,000 possible characters, could wind up in a future episode of Foster's. Over 13 million users were registered to play the game after its launch in May 2006. Because of its success and popularity, Cartoon Network announced in May 2007 that the game would continue for six more months, into November of that year.
Promotions and other products
From 2006 to 2009, Cartoon Network furnished a Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float as part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The float was fashioned as a replica of the home. On Thanksgiving Day, 2006, characters from the show performed The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends". In 2008, the characters' performance of Harry Nilsson's theme song to The Courtship of Eddie's Father was interrupted by Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up", reproducing the Internet phenomena of Rickrolling.
In March 2006, toys of characters from the show were featured in Burger King's Kids Meals. In December 2007, Cartoon Network and Hot Topic retail stores in the United States set up a boutique for a product line based on the series, with over 693 locations featuring products such as clothing, accessories and DVD releases by Warner Home Video. The episodes from the series are now available for download from Hulu, iTunes and Amazon Video.
References
External links
Category:2000s American animated television series
Category:2004 American television series debuts
Category:2009 American television series endings
Category:Television series created by Craig McCracken
Category:Flash cartoons
Category:Flash television shows
Category:Cartoon Network original programs
Category:Kids' WB original programs
Category:Fantasy television series
Category:Television series by Warner Bros. Television
Category:Fictional criminals |
2016-01 | Didier_Drogba-696758250 | Didier_Drogba | Didier Drogba
Didier Yves Drogba Tébily (; born 11 March 1978) is an Ivorian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Canadian MLS club Montreal Impact. He is the all-time top scorer and former captain of the Ivory Coast national team. He is best known for his career at Chelsea, for whom he has scored more goals than any other foreign player and is currently the club's fourth highest goal scorer of all time. He has been named African Footballer of the Year twice, winning the accolade in 2006 and 2009.
After playing in youth teams, Drogba made his professional debut aged 18 for Ligue 2 club Le Mans, and signed his first professional contract aged 21. After finishing the 2002–03 season with 17 goals in 34 appearances for Ligue 1 side Guingamp, he moved to Olympique de Marseille, where he finished as the third highest scorer in the 2003–04 season with 19 goals and helped the club reach the 2004 UEFA Cup Final.
In the summer of 2004, Drogba moved to Premier League club Chelsea for a club record £24 million fee, making him the most expensive Ivorian player in history. In his debut season he helped the club win their first league title in 50 years, and a year later he won another Premier League title. In March 2012, he became the first African player to score 100 Premier League goals, and also became the only player in history to score in four separate FA Cup finals the same year, when he scored in Chelsea's win over Liverpool in the 2012 final. He also played in the 2012 UEFA Champions League Final, in which he scored an 88th-minute equaliser and the winning penalty in the deciding shoot-out against Bayern Munich. After spending 6 months with Shanghai Shenhua in China, and one and a half seasons with Turkish club Galatasaray where he scored the winning goal in the final of the 2013 Turkish Super Cup, Drogba returned to Chelsea in July 2014. With a career record of scoring 10 goals in 10 finals winning 10 trophies at club level, Drogba has been referred to as the "ultimate big game player."
An Ivory Coast international between 2002 and 2014, Drogba captained the national team from 2006 until his retirement and is the nation's all-time top goalscorer with 65 goals from 104 appearances. He led the Ivory Coast to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their first appearance in the tournament, and also scored their first goal. He later captained the Ivory Coast at the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups. He was part of the Ivory Coast teams that reached the final of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2006 and 2012, but were beaten on penalties on both occasions. On 8 August 2014, he announced his retirement from international football.
Early life
Drogba was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and at the age of five was sent to France by his parents to live with his uncle, Michel Goba, a professional footballer. However, Drogba soon became homesick and returned to Abidjan after three years. His mother nicknamed him "Tito", after president Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, whom she admired greatly. He played football every day in a car park in the city but his return to the Ivory Coast was short lived. Both of his parents lost their jobs and he again returned to live with his uncle. In 1991, his parents also travelled to France; first to Vannes and then settling in 1993 at Antony in the Paris suburbs, at which point the 15-year-old Drogba returned to live with them and his siblings. It was here that he began playing team football more frequently, joining a local youth side. Drogba then joined the semi-professional club Levallois, gaining a reputation as a prolific scorer in the youth team and impressing the coach with his professional attitude. His performances earned him a place in the senior squad but despite scoring in his debut, the 18-year-old Ivorian failed to make an impression on Jacques Loncar, the first team coach.
Club career
Le Mans
When Drogba finished school he switched cities to study accountancy at university and he had to change clubs, becoming an apprentice at Ligue 2 club Le Mans. However, his first two years there were marred by injuries and he was physically struggling to cope with the training and match schedule. Former Le Mans coach Marc Westerloppe later remarked that "it took Didier four years to be capable of training every day and playing every week". Furthermore, Drogba's complicated family life meant that he had never attended a football academy and only began daily football training as a fully grown adult.
By age 21, Drogba realised that he had to establish himself as a player soon or else he would have little chance of becoming a professional footballer. He made his first team debut for Le Mans soon thereafter and signed his first professional contract in 1999. The same year, he and his Malian wife Alla had their first child, Isaac. He grew into his new responsibilities, later stating: "Isaac's birth was a turning point in my life, it straightened me out". His first season, in which he scored seven goals in thirty games, boded well for the future, but during the following season he did not live up to expectations. Drogba lost his place to Daniel Cousin due to injury, then upon his return he failed to score throughout the remainder of the season. However, he returned to form the following season, scoring five goals in 21 appearances.
Guingamp
Halfway through the 2001–02 season Ligue 1 club Guingamp consolidated months of interest with a transfer offer and Drogba left Le Mans for a fee of £80,000.
The second half of the 2001–02 season saw Drogba make 11 appearances and score three goals for Guingamp. While his contributions helped the club avoid relegation, the coaching staff remained unconvinced of their new young striker. However, the next season he rewarded his coaches' patience, scoring 17 goals in 34 appearances and helping Guingamp finish seventh, a record league finish. He credited his teammates for his impressive season, highlighting the contributions of winger Florent Malouda, a long time friend of Drogba, as a key factor in his goalscoring prolificity that season. His strong goal scoring record attracted interest from larger clubs and at the end of the season he moved to Ligue 1 side Olympique de Marseille for a fee of £3.3 million.
Marseille
Marseille manager Alain Perrin was soon replaced by José Anigo after signing Drogba from Guingamp. Drogba retained his place in the team, scoring 19 goals and winning the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) Player of the Year award. He also scored five goals in that season's UEFA Champions League and six in the UEFA Cup. At the end of the season he was bought by Chelsea as the club's then record signing for £24 million. His shirt from his only season at Marseille is also framed in the basilica of Marseille, Notre-Dame de la Garde, which he presented to the church before the 2004 UEFA Cup Final.
Chelsea
2004–06
Signing for Chelsea in July 2004 for £24 million, Drogba scored in his third game for the club with a header against Crystal Palace. His season was interrupted when he pulled a stomach muscle against Liverpool which kept him out of action for over two months. Chelsea won the Premier League, only their second English top-flight championship and their first in 50 years, and the League Cup, with Drogba scoring in extra time in a 3–2 final win against Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League. Drogba scored 16 goals in 40 games for Chelsea in his first season: ten in the Premier League, five in the Champions League and one in the League Cup final.
Drogba started the 2005–06 season by scoring two goals in a Community Shield win over Arsenal. His reputation was marred amidst accusations of cheating during Chelsea's 2–0 win over Manchester City. Replays showed that he had used his hand to control the ball before scoring the second of his two goals. This occurred just a week after a similar incident against Fulham where the goal was disallowed.
Chelsea went on to retain the league title with two games to play, becoming only the second club to win back-to-back English titles in the Premier League era. Again Drogba finished with 16 goals for the season, 12 in the Premier League, two in the Community Shield, one in the Champions League and one in the FA Cup.
2006–07
After the departure of Damien Duff to Newcastle United, Drogba switched from the number 15 shirt he had worn for Chelsea since 2004 to the number 11 shirt vacated by Duff. The season was a personal success for Drogba as he hit 33 goals in all competitions (more than his tally in the previous two seasons combined), including 20 in the Premier League to win the Golden Boot. In doing so, he became the first Chelsea player since Kerry Dixon in 1984–85 to reach 30 goals in a season, scoring 20 in the Premier League, six in the Champions League, three in the FA Cup and four in the League Cup.
Among the highlights were scoring winners from outside the penalty area against Liverpool, Everton and Barcelona, a 93rd-minute equaliser against Barcelona at the Camp Nou and both Chelsea's goals in their 2–1 League Cup final win over Arsenal. He also completed two hat-tricks; one against Watford and the other against Levski Sofia in the Champions League, Chelsea's first hat-trick in European competition since Gianluca Vialli in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1997. In his last competitive game that season, he scored the winning goal over Manchester United in the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley Stadium. This also meant that he joined Norman Whiteside (Manchester United in 1983) and Mark Hughes (Manchester United in 1994) as players who have scored goals in both English domestic finals in the same year, although Drogba was the first player to end up on the winning team after scoring in both finals.
In January 2007, Drogba was crowned the Ivorian Player of the Year, ahead of Kader Keïta, Aruna Dindane, and Kolo Touré. In March, he was named African Footballer of the Year for the first time, ahead of Samuel Eto'o and Chelsea teammate Michael Essien. His performances during the season saw him named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year and runner-up to Cristiano Ronaldo in the PFA Player of the Year awards.
Drogba faced problems off the pitch during the end of the season as his transfer from Marseille to Chelsea in July 2004 came under scrutiny. The Stevens inquiry in June 2007 expressed concerns because of the lack of co-operation from agents Pinhas Zahavi and Barry Silkman.
2007–08
The 2007–08 season began badly for Drogba as he expressed doubts about the departure of manager José Mourinho. He was reportedly in tears when Mourinho told him he was leaving the club, and said "Mourinho's departure destroys a certain familiarity we had at the club. Many of us used to play first and foremost for the manager. Now we need to forget those feelings and find another source of motivation". Following these claims, Drogba told France Football Magazine "I want to leave Chelsea. Something is broken with Chelsea, The damage is big in the dressing room". Despite having signed a four-year contract with the club in 2006, Drogba reportedly pointed out several favoured clubs in the interview, identifying Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan or Internazionale as possible future destinations, he later admitted he regretted this and was 100% committed to Chelsea. He soon regained the trust of the board and fans, scoring in Chelsea's 2–0 victory over Middlesbrough on 20 October 2007, against Schalke 04 in the Champions League four days later, and two goals against Manchester City, giving superb performances in all. In December 2007, Drogba was voted fourth (after Kaká, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) for the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year.
Drogba continued scoring goals but suffered an injury at the training ground and decided to have an operation on his knee. He was unable to play for four weeks and missed key games against Valencia, Arsenal and Liverpool. Drogba returned from injury to play in an FA Cup third round match against Queens Park Rangers and wore the captain's armband for the last 30 minutes in which he was on the pitch, but that was his last performance for Chelsea before international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations. Upon his return, Drogba scored a goal in the 2008 League Cup Final, making him the all-time leading scorer in League Cup Finals with four goals, but could not help prevent Chelsea fall to a 2–1 defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. Drogba also became the first player to score in three League Cup finals and the first to score in three consecutive English domestic cup finals. He scored both goals in a key 2–1 victory against Arsenal on 23 March 2008, bringing Chelsea equal on points with leaders Manchester United.
On 26 April 2008, Drogba faced controversy after a clash with Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidić. The Serbian centre-back had to have stitches under his lip after losing a tooth in the clash. There was discussion whether Drogba had the intention or not to injure his rival. The debate also called into question an earlier incident on 26 November 2006 where Drogba elbowed Vidić. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson expressed concerns over elbowing in the Premier League. Despite media speculation, Drogba's yellow card for the clash was deemed adequate punishment by the Football Association.
Controversy still dogged the player as before the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg clash with Liverpool, Drogba was accused of diving by Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez. Benítez claimed to have compiled a four-year dossier of Drogba's "diving" antics but Drogba hit back at Benítez in an interview. On 30 April 2008, Drogba scored two goals in the second leg of the semi-final against Liverpool, which Chelsea won 3–2 at Stamford Bridge. This was the first time Chelsea had beaten Liverpool in the semi-finals of the Champions League, having lost their previous two meetings to Liverpool. This also led to Chelsea reaching their first Champions League Final. Drogba became Chelsea's top scorer in European competition, the two goals he scored putting his tally at 17, beating Peter Osgood's record of 16. Drogba was sent off in the 117th minute of the Champions League Final for slapping defender Vidić, becoming only the second player to be sent off in a European Cup final – after Jens Lehmann in 2006 – and the first for violent conduct. Chelsea went on to lose 6–5 on penalties after a 1–1 draw in extra time. Chelsea assistant boss Henk ten Cate revealed Drogba was due to take the decisive fifth spot-kick in the shootout. Team captain John Terry took his place but missed after slipping whilst taking the penalty.
2008–09
Drogba suffered a string of injuries early on in the 2008–09 season and struggled to regain fitness, missing games from August to November due to knee problems. He scored his first goal of the season in mid-November but there was little reason to celebrate: he incurred disciplinary action and a three match ban for throwing a coin back into the stands and Chelsea suffered a League Cup defeat against Burnley. Drogba scored his second goal of the season in a 2–1 victory against CFR Cluj in the UEFA Champions League, while his first Premier League goal of the season came in a 2–0 win against West Bromwich Albion in late December 2008. Having missed many games through injury and suspension, Drogba had lost his first team place and manager Scolari favoured playing Nicolas Anelka as a lone striker rather than pairing the two. However, he resolved to regain his position in the squad and Chelsea remained keen to keep the Ivorian.
Upon the temporary appointment of Guus Hiddink in early February following the sacking of Scolari, Drogba enjoyed a rejuvenation of sorts, returning to his rich goal-scoring form with four goals in five games after the new manager took over. His revival in form saw him net twice against Bolton Wanderers, and four times in four Champions League matches, one in each leg of the last sixteen and quarter-final of the competition against Juventus and Liverpool respectively, with these goals ensuring Chelsea's passage into the semi-finals. Just four days after his Champions League heroics, Drogba scored a late winner in the FA Cup semi-final match against Arsenal after Frank Lampard's superb pass found Drogba and he carefully rounded Arsenal goalkeeper Łukasz Fabiański before slotting into an empty net. Drogba also caused controversy after Chelsea's Champions League semi-final defeat at the hands of Barcelona. Feeling that many decisions had gone against Chelsea, substituted Drogba confronted referee Tom Henning Øvrebø after the final whistle. He received a yellow card in the process and was recorded shouting "It's a fucking disgrace" into a live television camera. On 17 June 2009, UEFA subsequently handed him a six-game European ban with the final two games suspended. The ban then was reduced by one match after an appeal by Chelsea. In the 2009 FA Cup Final, Drogba scored Chelsea's first and equalising goal as they went on to win 2–1. This was his sixth goal in a major cup final in England.
Although Drogba had previously expressed his desire to switch clubs, he decided to remain with the Blues under new coach Carlo Ancelotti and sign a new contract.
2009–10
Drogba began the 2009–10 season in fine form for Chelsea, netting a penalty during a shoot-out in the Community Shield over Manchester United, before scoring twice in a 2–1 victory over Hull City. Drogba earned himself an assist when he was fouled in the area to give Chelsea a penalty, which Frank Lampard converted, in a 3–1 victory over Sunderland. In Chelsea's third game of the season against West-London rivals Fulham, Drogba scored his third goal of the season. Drogba scored his fourth goal of the season, against Stoke City; Chelsea ended winning the game 2–1 with a late strike from Malouda. He added a fifth at home against London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on 20 September. He scored his 100th goal for Chelsea in a 3–1 defeat against Wigan Athletic. Drogba was again important in the 2–0 win over title rivals Liverpool on 4 October. He assisted both goals, setting up Nicolas Anelka and Florent Malouda. He then scored a glancing header against Blackburn on 24 October 2009, bringing his tally to an impressive eight goals in eleven appearances, scoring his third goal in as many games. Drogba continued his fine form scoring a header against Bolton Wanderers in a 4–0 thrashing in the League Cup, Drogba went on to score a fine team goal in the same week with another 4–0 win against Bolton Wanderers in the Premier League.
After missing the first three Champions League matches for Chelsea with a ban, Drogba started the fourth game against Spanish side Atlético Madrid. He scored two goals in the last ten minutes and the match ended 2–2. The latter being a fine solo effort in which he beat a number of the opposition players and had his first effort saved by the goalkeeper but then slotted in the rebound. On 29 November, Drogba scored a brace against London rivals Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, the second of which a free kick from outside the box. It brought his tally for the season to 14 goals in 16 games. On 12 December, Drogba continued to impress with two goals in 3–3 draw against Everton.
Between 3 and 30 January Drogba was on Africa Cup of Nations duty and came back on 2 February against Hull City where he scored a 40th-minute equaliser to tie the game 1–1. On 24 March, Drogba scored his 30th goal of the season in an away game against Portsmouth.
On 9 May, Drogba inspired Chelsea to win the Premier League by scoring a hat-trick in an 8–0 win over Wigan Athletic. In doing so, he not only collected his third League winner's medal, but also won the Golden Boot for the season, his second time doing so, by topping the chart with 29 league goals, beating Wayne Rooney to the title who remained on 26 goals. Both players had the same number of goals (26) before the start of their respective fixtures. However, during the game, Drogba appeared to be clearly angry with team-mate and regular penalty taker Frank Lampard, after Lampard refused to let Drogba take a penalty which would lead Chelsea to go 2–0 up and give him a chance of winning the golden boot. Lampard scored the penalty, but Drogba did not celebrate with his team-mates. Later on in the game though Ashley Cole was tripped in the box when Chelsea were already 5–0 up, and this time Lampard allowed Drogba to take the penalty, which he scored to go two goals clear of Rooney.
The following week, Drogba scored the only goal of the 2010 FA Cup Final against Portsmouth from a free-kick, keeping up his record of having scored in all six English cup finals (FA Cup and League Cup) in which he has played.
2010–11
Drogba came on as a substitute for Anelka against Manchester United in the Community Shield, but could not help prevent Chelsea from succumbing to a 3–1 loss. However, he started the Premier League season in fine form, continuing from where he left off on the last day of the previous campaign as he scored a hat-trick against West Bromwich Albion in a 6–0 victory. In Chelsea's next game against Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium, Drogba made three assists in another 6–0 win. Drogba also played the next game at home against Stoke City where he played the whole 90 minutes and scored his fourth Premier League goal of the season when he smashed home a penalty after Nicolas Anelka was brought down by Thomas Sørensen inside the box. On 7 November 2010, Drogba missed the first half of Chelsea's 2–0 defeat by Liverpool. It was later revealed that he had been suffering from malaria for at least a month. He had first complained of feeling unwell before the October 2010 international break but the illness was only diagnosed on 8 November 2010. Having diagnosed the problem, Chelsea insisted that he would make a full recovery within days.
2011–12
While playing against Norwich City on 27 August 2011, Drogba suffered a concussion in a collision with Norwich goalkeeper John Ruddy. After missing two games, Drogba made his return to the Chelsea squad on 24 September against Swansea City. Drogba went on scoring his first goal of the season in a 4–1 win. Drogba received a red card on 23 October against Queens Park Rangers, Chelsea ended up losing 1–0. On 29 November, Drogba rejected a new deal with Chelsea and is set to sign for the highest bidder. On 31 December 2011, Drogba scored his 150th goal for Chelsea against Aston Villa, putting him level with Peter Osgood and Roy Bentley in terms of the club's top scorers of all time. Even though, Chelsea was leading with the penalty scored by Drobga, the game ended in a 3–1 loss for Chelsea.
Drogba scored his 99th Premier League goal for Chelsea on 25 February 2012, in a 3–0 win over Bolton Wanderers. It was also his 151st goal for Chelsea, moving him up to 4th among the club's all-time goalscorers, ahead of Roy Bentley and Peter Osgood. Drogba scored his 100th Premier League goal for Chelsea on 10 March 2012, in a 1–0 win over Stoke City. He is the first African player to reach that landmark.
Drogba scored his seventh goal at Wembley against London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on 15 April, hammering the ball past former teammate Carlo Cudicini as Chelsea ran out 5–1 winners and secured a place in the FA Cup Final against Liverpool. Three days later, he scored a vital goal as Chelsea beat Barcelona 1–0 at Stamford Bridge in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League Semi-final clash. Drogba became the first player to score in four different FA Cup Finals, as he netted the winner in Chelsea's 2–1 triumph over Liverpool on 5 May.
In the Champions League final on 19 May 2012, Drogba scored the equaliser from Juan Mata's corner in the 88th minute, taking Chelsea into extra time and then penalties. He also scored the winning penalty in the 4–3 penalty-shootout that led Chelsea to the victory over Bayern Munich. Sir Alex Ferguson remarked: "As far as I was concerned, he [Drogba] won the Champions League for Chelsea." Drogba's headed effort marked his ninth goal in nine cup final appearances for Chelsea, Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola spoke after the match about Drogba's ability in big games: "In all their very important matches he has put a stamp on it." In November 2012 Drogba was named Chelsea's greatest ever player in a poll of 20,000 fans conducted by Chelsea Magazine.
Shanghai Shenhua
On 22 May 2012, Chelsea released a note on their official website announcing that Drogba "will be leaving the club when his contract expires at the end of June" 2012. On 19 June 2012, Drogba declared he would be joining Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua, linking up with his former Chelsea teammate Nicolas Anelka. It was reported that he signed a two-and-a-half-year deal where he will earn £200,000 a week. On 22 July, Drogba made his debut for Shanghai Shenhua in a 1–1 away draw against Guangzhou R&F, coming on as a substitute for Brazilian defender Moisés in the second half. He assisted Cao Yunding's equaliser in the 67th minute. On 4 August, he scored his first two goals in a 5–1 win against Hangzhou Greentown. He scored two more goals on 25 August, both set up by Anelka, as Shenhua drew 3–3 with Shandong Luneng.
Galatasaray
On 28 January 2013, Drogba agreed to a one-and-a-half-year deal with Süper Lig team Galatasaray. He would earn a sign-on fee of €4 million plus basic wage of €4 million per season (thus €2 million in 2012–13 Süper Lig) and €15,000 per match. However, on 30 January 2013, Shenhua released a press release that Drogba would unilaterally breach his contract if he were to join Galatasaray.
Drogba argued that he had not been paid his wages by the club and asked FIFA, the sport's governing body, to invalidate his contract. In February 2013, FIFA granted a temporary license for him to play for Galatasaray pending the outcome of the contract dispute.
On 15 February, Drogba scored his debut goal for Galatasaray just five minutes after coming off the bench against Akhisar Belediyespor in a match that ended 2–1. On 6 April, Drogba scored twice in a match against Mersin İdmanyurdu that ended 3–1. On 9 April, Drogba scored his first goal for Galatasaray in the Champions League, against Real Madrid. On 20 April, Drogba scored twice in a match against Elazigspor that ended 3–1.
He won his first title with Galatasaray on 5 May, with a 4–2 win over Sivasspor. In Gala's derby match against rivals Fenerbahçe on 12 May, Drogba and his Ivorian team-mate Emmanuel Eboue were subjects of racist chants from Fenerbahçe fans in Gala's 2–1 loss, but no fine or bans were handed down to any supporters of Fenerbahçe or the club.
On 11 August 2013, he scored the only goal in the 2013 Turkish Super Cup against Fenerbahce.
He scored two second half goals in a 2–1 away win against rivals Beşiktaş on 22 September.
Return to Chelsea
On 25 July 2014, Chelsea announced on their official website that Drogba completed his return to the club on a free transfer, and signed a one-year contract. Speaking on his move back to the club, Drogba said: "It was an easy decision. I couldn't turn down the opportunity to work with José Mourinho again. Everyone knows the special relationship I have with this club and it has always felt like home to me." Mourinho also commented on the transfer, saying: "He's coming because he's one of the best strikers in Europe. I know his personality very well and I know if he comes back he's not protected by history or what he's done for this club previously. He is coming with the mentality to make more history." On 28 July 2014, Chelsea announced that Drogba would wear the number 15 shirt which he wore when he first signed for the club in 2004. Mohamed Salah, who wore the number during the 2013–14 season, took over the number 17 shirt vacated by Eden Hazard. On 15 August, however, it was announced that Drogba had been given back the number 11 shirt he previously wore at the club, with its previous occupant Oscar taking over the number 8 jersey vacated by Frank Lampard.
Drogba made his Premier League return for Chelsea in a 3–1 win away to Burnley, replacing winger Eden Hazard in the 84th minute at Turf Moor on 18 August 2014. On 17 September he made the first start of his second spell, in a 1–1 home draw against Schalke 04 in Chelsea's first game of the Champions League group stage. He scored his first goal in his second spell at Stamford Bridge on 21 October, converting a penalty-kick in a 6–0 win over Maribor in the Champions League. Five days later, with Chelsea's attack limited by injuries to Diego Costa and Loïc Rémy, Drogba started against Manchester United at Old Trafford, making his 350th appearance for the club. Early in the second-half, he headed in the first Premier League goal of his second spell although Robin van Persie equalised in added time. He scored his 50th goal in European football against Schalke 04.
On 24 May 2015, Drogba announced that Chelsea's final game of the season against Sunderland would be his last as a Chelsea player. He started the game as captain and was substituted with injury after half an hour, being carried off by his teammates in an eventual 3–1 win.
Montreal Impact
On 27 July 2015, Drogba signed a Designated Player contract with Major League Soccer side Montreal Impact, believed to be 18-months in length. On 23 August, Drogba made his debut for Montreal Impact in a 0–1 home loss against Philadelphia Union, coming on as a substitute for Dilly Duka in the second half. On 5 September, Drogba scored a hat-trick on his first Major League Soccer start for Montreal Impact. Drogba became the first player in MLS history to score a hat-trick in their first league start. Additionally, the hat-trick was considered a "perfect hat-trick", with one goal scored with both the left and right feet and one with the head. On 2 October, Drogba won the MLS Player of the Month award after scoring 7 goals in his first 5 games in the league. On 25 October, he scored both of Montreal Impact's goals from back heels as the team came from behind to defeat domestic rivals Toronto FC 2–1 at home; the win gave Montreal the home advantage for their knock-out fixture against Toronto in the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs. Drogba finished the 2015 MLS regular season with 11 goal in 11 games. On 29 October, Drogba scored Montreal's third goal in a 3–0 home win over Toronto FC in the knock-out round of the MLS Playoffs, to advance to the Eastern Conference Semi-finals for the first time in the club's history; the club was eliminated from the Playoffs by Columbus Crew. In November 2015, he was named one of the three finalists for the 2015 MLS Newcomer of the Year Award.
International career
Drogba helped the Ivory Coast qualify for its first ever FIFA World Cup, held in Germany in 2006. His first cap came on 8 September 2002 against South Africa and he scored his first goal with Les Éléphants on 11 February 2003 against Cameroon in a 3–0 victory.
In February 2006, Drogba captained the Ivory Coast to their second Africa Cup of Nations final, scoring the only goal in their semi-final match with Nigeria and putting away the deciding spot-kick in their record-tying 12–11 penalty shootout quarter-final win over Cameroon. However, they lost in the final to Egypt 4–2 on penalty kicks after a 0–0 draw, with Drogba's shot being stopped by Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary in a penalty shoot-out.
At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the Ivory Coast were drawn in a "group of death" with Serbia and Montenegro, the Netherlands and Argentina. On 10 June 2006, Drogba scored the first World Cup goal of his career and of his country's history in the opening game against Argentina, but his team lost 2–1. The Ivory Coast were eliminated from the World Cup after their next game, a 1–2 defeat to the Netherlands, but came from 0–2 down to win against Serbia and Montenegro 3–2 in their final group game, with Drogba watching from the sidelines following suspension after picking up a yellow card in the previous two games.
In the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, the Ivory Coast were drawn in a group with Nigeria, Mali and underdogs Benin. Drogba scored two goals in the group stage, opening the scoring in the 4–1 win over Benin, as well as in the 3–0 win over Mali. In the quarter-finals, Drogba was on the score sheet once again in the 5–0 thrashing of Guinea with the last four goals coming in the final twenty minutes. The semi-final was a rematch of the 2006 final against Egypt, but it was to be the end of the road for Drogba and the Ivory Coast, losing 4–1 to the eventual champions. Their misfortune seemed to carry over to the third place play-off on 9 February, losing 4–2 to hosts Ghana.
Drogba scored six goals in five qualification games to help the Ivory Coast qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
In the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations Drogba scored one goal in the 3–1 victory against Ghana in the group stage. The Ivory Coast reached the quarter-finals but lost 2–3 to Algeria. In March 2010, he was named as the 2009 African Footballer of the Year, his second time winning the award in his career.
On 4 June 2010, Drogba was injured in a friendly match with Japan. He received the injury in a high challenge from defender Túlio Tanaka. He fractured the ulna in his right arm and had an operation the next day in the hope of making the finals. On 15 June 2010, Drogba was cleared by FIFA to play in the Ivory Coast's first group game against Portugal wearing a protective cast on his broken arm. The match ended in a goalless draw at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium with Drogba coming on in the 65th minute. On 20 June 2010, Drogba became the first player from an African nation to score against Brazil in a World Cup match, scoring with a header in the 78th minute as the Ivory Coast were defeated 1–3. On 25 June 2010, the Ivory Coast went out of the competition despite winning 3–0 against North Korea in their final match.
In the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, the Ivory Coast were drawn in a group with Sudan, Angola and Burkina Faso. Drogba scored the first goal for his team in the tournament against Sudan and his only goal in the group stage. In the quarter-finals, Drogba scored twice in the 3–0 win over Equatorial Guinea. He did not score in the semi-final in which the Ivory Coast beat Mali 1–0. In the final against Zambia, Drogba missed a penalty kick in the last 15 minutes of the game, which ended by their loss for the second time by penalty shootout.
In June 2014, Drogba was named in the Ivory Coast's squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. He won his 100th international cap in a pre-tournament friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina, scoring a penalty kick in his side's 2–1 loss on 2 June. In the Ivory Coast's opening match, he appeared as a second-half substitute with the team trailing 1–0 to Japan. Within five minutes of Drogba's arrival, Les Éléphants scored twice to win the match 2–1. On 8 August 2014, Drogba announced his retirement from international football with a record of 65 goals in 104 appearances.
Style of play
Given his relatively late breakthrough into professional football, Drogba has often been described as a late bloomer, having signed his first professional contract with Le Mans at the age of 21. He is noted for his physical strength, ability in the air, and his ability to retain possession of the ball. Richard Beech of the Daily Mirror says that his "powerful and intrusive approach made him the lone striker [José] Mourinho grew to admire, and made it nearly impossible for opposing teams to isolate him and freeze him out of the game."
Drogba is renowned for performing in big games, with a goalscoring record at club level of 10 goals in 10 finals winning 10 trophies. Aside from his goalscoring ability, Drogba is also capable of providing assists to his team-mates. Between the 2009–10 and 2011–12 seasons, he managed 24 assists in the Premier League, with an average pass success rate of 61.4 percent, owing to his vision and creativity on the ball. He provided 71 assists to team-mates over the course of his entire career at Chelsea until May 2012, showing that he is also a team player.
In set pieces, Drogba has also been known for his free kick ability, known to strike the ball with power and pace. Dr Ken Bray of University of Bath has described him as a specialist especially from central positions, and says that he "really just passes the ball very hard". He adds, "He hits it [the ball] very straight and appears to hit the ball with a very powerful side-foot action, almost like the technique used in a side-foot pass. Drogba's style is about beating the goalkeeper with speed and depth."
Personal life
Drogba is married to Diakité Lalla, a Malian woman whom he met in Paris, and the couple have three children together. His eldest son, Isaac, was born in France in 1999, but grew up in England and has played in the Chelsea academy system. Drogba has two younger brothers who are also footballers: Joël and Freddy Drogba. Freddy, (born 1992), is currently in the youth system of French Ligue 1 side Dijon. He is a devout Roman Catholic.
Drogba is credited with playing a vital role in bringing peace to his country. After the Ivory Coast qualified for the 2006 World Cup, Drogba made a desperate plea to the combatants, asking them to lay down their arms, a plea which was answered with a cease fire after five years of civil war. Drogba later helped move an African Cup of Nations qualifier to the rebel stronghold of Bouake; a move that helped confirm the peace process. On 24 January 2007, Drogba was appointed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a Goodwill Ambassador. The UNDP were impressed with his previous charity work and believed that his high profile would help raise awareness on African issues. In September 2011, Drogba joined the Truth, Reconciliation and Dialogue Commission as a representative to help return peace to his home nation. His involvement in the peace process led to Drogba being named as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine for 2010. Drogba's charity work continued when, in late 2009, he announced he would be donating the £3 million signing on fee for his endorsement of Pepsi for the construction of a hospital in his hometown of Abidjan. This work was done through Drogba's recently created "Didier Drogba Foundation" and Chelsea announced they too would donate the fee for the deal toward the Foundation's project. Drogba decided on building the hospital after a recent trip to the Ivorian capital's other hospitals, saying "... I decided the Foundation's first project should be to build and fund a hospital giving people basic healthcare and a chance just to stay alive."
In November 2014, Drogba appeared in FIFA's "11 against Ebola" campaign with a selection of top football players from around the world, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Gareth Bale and Xavi. Under the slogan "Together, we can beat Ebola", FIFA's campaign was done in conjunction with the Confederation of African Football and health experts, with the players holding up eleven messages to raise awareness of the disease and ways to combat it.
Levallois Sporting Club, the amateur club where Drogba began his career, used their percentage of his transfer fees including £600,000 out of the £24 million paid when he joined Chelsea – first to ensure the club's survival, and then to improve their stadium to incorporate modern sports facilities for the benefit of the local community. They renamed the new stadium Stade Didier Drogba in his honour.
Career statistics
Club
Updated to games played 29 October 2015.
International
Updated to games played 31 May 2014.
International goals
Updated to games played 4 June 2014.
Honours
Club
Chelsea
Premier League: 2004–05, 2005–06, 2009–10, 2014–15
Football League Cup: 2004–05, 2006–07, 2014–15
FA Cup: 2006–07, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2011–12
UEFA Champions League: 2011–12
FA Community Shield: 2005, 2009
Galatasaray
Süper Lig: 2012–13
TFF Süper Kupa: 2013
Türkiye Kupası: 2013–14
Individual
Ligue 1 Player of the Year: 2003–04
Ligue 1 Team of the Year: 2003–04
Ligue 1 Goal of the Year: 2003–04
Onze d'Or: 2004
FA Community Shield Man of the Match: 2005
Africa Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament: 2006, 2008, 2012
Ivory Coast Player of the Year: 2006, 2007, 2012
African Footballer of the Year: 2006, 2009
Premier League Golden Boot: 2006–07, 2009–10
PFA Team of the Year: 2006–07, 2009–10
ESM Team of the Year: 2006–07
FIFA/FIFPro World XI: 2007
Football League Cup Final Man of the Match: 2007
UEFA Team of the Year: 2007
Chelsea Players' Player of the Year: 2007
BBC African Footballer of the Year: 2009
FA Cup Final Man of the Match: 2010
Chelsea Player of the Year: 2010
Time Top 100: 2010
UEFA Champions League Final Man of the Match: 2012
Turkish Footballer of the Year: 2013
Golden Foot: 2013
FWA Tribute Award: 2015
MLS Player of the Month: September 2015
MLS Player of the Month: October 2015
Records
Chelsea
Fourth all-time top scorer: 163 goals
Most goals scored by a non-English player: 163 goals
Most goals scored in one Premier League season: 29 goals (2009–10)
Most goals scored in FA Cup Finals: 4 goals
Most goals scored in Football League Cup Finals: 4 goals
Most goals scored in Cup Finals: 9 goals
Most goals scored in the UEFA Champions League: 36 goals
Most goals scored in international games as a Chelsea player: 46 goals
Highest transfer fee paid for a player: £24 million (July 2004 – August 2005)
Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast all-time top scorer: 65 goals
Other
Most goals scored in the UEFA Champions League by an African player: 44 goals
References
External links
Didier Drogba's official website – available in English and French
BBC World Service: African Footballer of the Year 2008
Profile at SoccerSurfer.com
ESPN Profile
Category:1978 births
Category:2006 FIFA World Cup players
Category:2006 Africa Cup of Nations players
Category:2008 Africa Cup of Nations players
Category:2010 Africa Cup of Nations players
Category:2010 FIFA World Cup players
Category:2014 FIFA World Cup players
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2016-01 | Great_Barrier_Reef-696199228 | Great_Barrier_Reef | Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland.
A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecosystem include runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985.
The Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is an important part of local groups' cultures and spirituality. The reef is a very popular destination for tourists, especially in the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over $3 billion per year.
In November 2014, Google launched Google Underwater Street View in 3D of the Great Barrier Reef.
Geology and geography
The Great Barrier Reef is a distinct feature of the East Australian Cordillera division. It includes the smaller Murray Islands. It reaches from Torres Strait (between Bramble Cay, its northernmost island, and the south coast of Papua New Guinea) in the north to the unnamed passage between Lady Elliot Island (its southernmost island) and Fraser Island in the south. Lady Elliot Island is located southeast of Bramble Cay as the crow flies.
The Plate tectonic theory indicates Australia has moved northwards at a rate of per year, starting during the Cenozoic. Eastern Australia experienced a period of tectonic uplift, which moved the drainage divide in Queensland inland. Also during this time, Queensland experienced volcanic eruptions leading to central and shield volcanoes and basalt flows. Some of these became high islands. After the Coral Sea Basin formed, coral reefs began to grow in the Basin, but until about 25 million years ago, northern Queensland was still in temperate waters south of the tropics—too cool to support coral growth. The Great Barrier Reef's development history is complex; after Queensland drifted into tropical waters, it was largely influenced by reef growth and decline as sea level changed.
Reefs can increase in diameter by per year, and grow vertically anywhere from per year; however, they grow only above a depth of due to their need for sunlight, and cannot grow above sea level. When Queensland edged into tropical waters 24 million years ago, some coral grew, but a sedimentation regime quickly developed with erosion of the Great Dividing Range; creating river deltas, oozes and turbidites, unsuitable conditions for coral growth. 10 million years ago, the sea level significantly lowered, which further enabled sedimentation. The reef's substrate may have needed to build up from the sediment until its edge was too far away for suspended sediments to inhibit coral growth. In addition, approximately 400,000 years ago there was a particularly warm interglacial period with higher sea levels and a water temperature change.
The land that formed the substrate of the current Great Barrier Reef was a coastal plain formed from the eroded sediments of the Great Dividing Range with some larger hills (most of which were themselves remnants of older reefs or, in rare cases, volcanoes).
The Reef Research Centre, a Cooperative Research Centre, has found coral 'skeleton' deposits that date back half a million years. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) considers the earliest evidence of complete reef structures to have been 600,000 years ago. According to the GBRMPA, the current, living reef structure is believed to have begun growing on the older platform about 20,000 years ago. The Australian Institute of Marine Science agrees, placing the beginning of the growth of the current reef at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. At around that time, sea level was lower than it is today.
From 20,000 years ago until 6,000 years ago, sea level rose steadily around the world. As it rose, the corals could then grow higher on the newly submerged maritime margins of the hills of the coastal plain. By around 13,000 years ago the sea level was only lower than the present day, and corals began to surround the hills of the coastal plain, which were, by then, continental islands. As the sea level rose further still, most of the continental islands were submerged. The corals could then overgrow the submerged hills, to form the present cays and reefs. Sea level here has not risen significantly in the last 6,000 years. The CRC Reef Research Centre estimates the age of the present, living reef structure at 6,000 to 8,000 years old. The shallow water reefs that can be seen in air-photographs and satellite images cover an area of 20,679 km2, most (about 80%) of which has grown on top of limestone platforms that are relics of past (Pleistocene) phases of reef growth.
The remains of an ancient barrier reef similar to the Great Barrier Reef can be found in The Kimberley, Western Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area has been divided into 70 bioregions, of which 30 are reef bioregions. In the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, ribbon reefs and deltaic reefs have formed; these structures are not found in the rest of the reef system. There are no atolls in the system, and reefs attached to the mainland are rare.
Fringing reefs are distributed widely, but are most common towards the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef, attached to high islands, for example, the Whitsunday Islands. Lagoonal reefs are found in the southern Great Barrier Reef, and further north, off the coast of Princess Charlotte Bay. Cresentic reefs are the most common shape of reef in the middle of the system, for example the reefs surrounding Lizard Island. Cresentic reefs are also found in the far north of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and in the Swain Reefs (20–22 degrees south). Planar reefs are found in the northern and southern parts, near Cape York Peninsula, Princess Charlotte Bay, and Cairns. Most of the islands on the reef are found on planar reefs.
Ecology
The Great Barrier Reef supports a diversity of life, including many vulnerable or endangered species, some of which may be endemic to the reef system.
Thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in the Great Barrier Reef, including the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, and the humpback whale. Large populations of dugongs live there. More than 1,500 fish species live on the reef, including the clownfish, red bass, red-throat emperor, and several species of snapper and coral trout. Forty-nine species mass spawn, while eighty-four other species spawn elsewhere in their range. Seventeen species of sea snake live on the Great Barrier Reef in warm waters up to deep and are more common in the southern than in the northern section. None found in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area are endemic, nor are any endangered.
Six species of sea turtles come to the reef to breed: the green sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, hawksbill turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, flatback turtle, and the Olive Ridley. The green sea turtles on the Great Barrier Reef have two genetically distinct populations, one in the northern part of the reef and the other in the southern part. Fifteen species of seagrass in beds attract the dugongs and turtles, and provide fish habitat. The most common genera of seagrasses are Halophila and Halodule.
Saltwater crocodiles live in mangrove and salt marshes on the coast near the reef. Nesting has not been reported, and the salt water crocodile population in the GBRWHA is wide-ranging but low density. Around 125 species of shark, stingray, skates or chimaera live on the reef. Close to 5,000 species of mollusc have been recorded on the reef, including the giant clam and various nudibranchs and cone snails. Forty-nine species of pipefish and nine species of seahorse have been recorded. At least seven species of frog inhabit the islands.
215 species of birds (including 22 species of seabirds and 32 species of shorebirds) visit the reef or nest or roost on the islands, including the white-bellied sea eagle and roseate tern. Most nesting sites are on islands in the northern and southern regions of the Great Barrier Reef, with 1.4 to 1.7 million birds using the sites to breed. The islands of the Great Barrier Reef also support 2,195 known plant species; three of these are endemic. The northern islands have 300–350 plant species which tend to be woody, whereas the southern islands have 200 which tend to be herbaceous; the Whitsunday region is the most diverse, supporting 1,141 species. The plants are propagated by birds.
There are at least 330 species of ascidians on the reef system with the diameter of . Between 300–500 species of bryozoans live on the reef. Four hundred coral species, both hard corals and soft corals inhabit the reef. The majority of these spawn gametes, breeding in mass spawning events that are triggered by the rising sea temperatures of spring and summer, the lunar cycle, and the diurnal cycle. Reefs in the inner Great Barrier Reef spawn during the week after the full moon in October, while the outer reefs spawn in November and December. Its common soft corals belong to 36 genera. Five hundred species of marine algae or seaweed live on the reef, including thirteen species of genus Halimeda, which deposit calcareous mounds up to wide, creating mini-ecosystems on their surface which have been compared to rainforest cover.
Environmental threats
Climate change, pollution, crown-of-thorns starfish and fishing are the primary threats to the health of this reef system. Other threats include shipping accidents, oil spills, and tropical cyclones. Skeletal Eroding Band, a disease of bony corals caused by the protozoan Halofolliculina corallasia, affects 31 coral species. According to a 2012 study by the National Academy of Science, since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals with two-thirds of the loss occurring from 1998 due to the factors listed before.
Climate change
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority considers the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef to be climate change, causing ocean warming which increases coral bleaching. Mass coral bleaching events due to elevated ocean temperatures occurred in the summers of 1998, 2002 and 2006, and coral bleaching is expected to become an annual occurrence. As global warming continues, corals will not be able to keep up with increasing ocean temperatures. Coral bleaching events lead to increased disease susceptibility, which causes detrimental ecological effects for reef communities. Climate change has implications for other forms of reef life—some fish's preferred temperature range leads them to seek new habitat, thus increasing chick mortality in predatory seabirds. Climate change will also affect the population and sea turtle's available habitat.
Bleaching events in benthic coral communities (deeper than ) in the Great Barrier reef are not as well documented as those at shallower depths, but recent research has shown that benthic communities are just as negatively impacted in the face of rising ocean temperatures. Five Great Barrier Reef species of large benthic corals were found bleached under elevated temperatures, affirming that benthic corals are vulnerable to thermal stress.
Pollution
Another key threat faced by the Great Barrier Reef is pollution and declining water quality. The rivers of north eastern Australia pollute the Reef during tropical flood events. Over 90% of this pollution comes from farm runoff. 80% of the land adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef is used for farming including intensive cropping of sugar cane, and major beef cattle grazing. Farming practices damage the reef due to overgrazing, increased run-off of agricultural sediments, nutrients and chemicals including fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides representing a major health risk for the coral and biodiversity of the reefs.
Loss of coastal wetland
The runoff problem is exacerbated by the loss of coastal wetlands which act as a natural filter for toxins and help deposit sediment. It is thought that the poor water quality is due to increased light and oxygen competition from algae.
Eutrophication
Farming fertiliser runoff release nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium into the oceanic ecosystem, these limiting nutrients cause massive algal growth which leads to depletion in oxygen available for other creatures which decreases the biodiversity in the affected areas, altering the species composition. A study by Katharina Fabricius and Glen Death of Australian Institute of Marine Science found that hard corals numbers were almost double on reefs that were far from agricultural areas.
Fertilizers also increase the amount of phytoplankton available for the crown-of-thorns starfish larvae to consume. A study showed that a doubling of the chlorophyll in the water leads to a tenfold increase in the crown-of-thorns starfish larvae's survival rate.
Sediment runoff
Sediment runoff from farming carries chemicals into the reef environment also reduces the amount of light available to the corals decreasing their ability to extract energy from their environment.
Pesticides
Pesticides used in farming are made up of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic and other toxins are released into the wider environment due to erosion of farm soil, which has a detrimental effect on the coral.
Pollution from mining
Mining company Queensland Nickel discharged nitrate-laden water into the Great Barrier Reef in 2009 and 2011 – on the later occasion releasing of waste water. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) stated "We have strongly encouraged the company to investigate options that do not entail releasing the material to the environment and to develop a management plan to eliminate this potential hazard; however, GBRMPA does not have legislative control over how the Yabulu tailings dam is managed".
Crown of thorns
The crown-of-thorns starfish preys on coral polyps. Large outbreaks of these starfish can devastate reefs. In 2000, an outbreak contributed to a loss of 66% of live coral cover on sampled reefs in a study by the RRC (Reefs Research Centre.) Outbreaks are believed to occur in natural cycles, worsened by poor water quality and overfishing of the starfish's predators.
Overfishing
The unsustainable overfishing of keystone species, such as the Giant Triton, can disrupt food chains vital to reef life. Fishing also impacts the reef through increased water pollution from boats, by-catch of unwanted species (such as dolphins and turtles) and habitat destruction from trawling, anchors and nets. As of the middle of 2004, approximately one-third of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is protected from species removal of any kind, including fishing, without written permission.
Shipping
Shipping accidents are a pressing concern, as several commercial shipping routes pass through the Great Barrier Reef.
Although the route through the Great Barrier Reef is not easy, reef pilots consider it safer than outside the reef in the event of mechanical failure, since a ship can sit safely while being repaired. There have been over 1,600 known shipwrecks in the Great Barrier Reef region.
On 3 April 2010, bulk coal carrier Shen Neng 1 ran aground on Douglas Shoals, spilling up to four tonnes of oil into the water and causing extensive damage to the reef.
Human use
The Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Aboriginal Australians have been living in the area for at least 40,000 years, and Torres Strait Islanders since about 10,000 years ago. For these 70 or so clan groups, the reef is also an important cultural feature.
In 1768 Louis de Bougainville found the reef during an exploratory mission, but did not claim the area for the French. On 11 June 1770, the HM Bark Endeavour, captained by explorer James Cook, ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, sustaining considerable damage. Lightening the ship and re-floating it during an incoming tide eventually saved it. One of the most famous wrecks was the HMS Pandora, which sank on 29 August 1791, killing 35 men. The Queensland Museum has led archaeological digs to the Pandora since 1983. Because the reef had no atolls, it was largely unstudied in the 19th century. During this time, some of the reef's islands were mined for deposits of guano, and lighthouses were built as beacons throughout the system. as in Raine Island, the earliest example. In 1922, the Great Barrier Reef Committee began carrying out much of the early research on the reef.
Management
Royal Commissions disallowed oil drilling in the Great Barrier Reef, in 1975 the Government of Australia created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and prohibited various activities. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park does not include the entire Great Barrier Reef Province. The park is managed, in partnership with the Government of Queensland, through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to ensure that it is used in a sustainable manner. A combination of zoning, management plans, permits, education and incentives (such as eco-tourism certification) are employed in the effort to conserve the reef.
In 1999, the Australian Parliament passed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which improved the operation of national environmental law by providing guidance about regional biodiversity conservation priorities. The marine bioregional planning process came from the implementation of this law. This process conserves marine biodiversity by considering the whole ecosystem a species is in and how different species interact in the marine environment.
There are two steps to this process. The first step is to identify regional conservation priorities in the five (currently) different marine regions. The second step is to identify marine reserves (protected areas or marine parks) to be added to Australia's National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas. Like protected areas on land, marine reserves are created to protect biodiversity for generations to come. Marine reserves are identified based on criteria written in a document created by Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council called "Guidelines for establishing the national representative system of marine protected areas", also known as just "the Guidelines". These guidelines are nationally recognised and implemented at the local level based on the Australian policy for implementation outlined in the "Goals and Principles for the Establishment of the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas in Commonwealth Waters". These policies are in place to make sure that a marine reserve is only added to the NRSMPA after careful evaluation of different data.
The priorities for each region are created based on human and environmental threats and the Marine Bioregional Plans are drafted to address these priorities. To assess different region's priorities, three steps are taken, first, a bioregional profile is created, second, a bioregional plan is drafted, and third, the plan is finalised. After the plan is finalised, activity in different bioregions may become limited based on particular threats an activity may pose.
In 2001, the GBRMPA released a report about the declining water quality in the Great Barrier Reef and detailed the importance of this issue. In repose to this report a joint initiative between the governments of Australia and Queensland to improve the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef. In 2003, the Australian and Queensland governments launched a joint initiative to improve the quality of water entering the Great Barrier Reef. The decline in the quality of water over the past 150 years (due to development) has contributed to coral bleaching, algal blooms, and pesticide pollution. These forms of pollution have made the reef less resilient to climate change.
When the plan was introduced in October in 2003, it originally contained 65 actions built on previous legislation. Their immediate goal was to halt and reverse the decline in water quality entering the reef by 2013. By 2020, they hope that the quality of the water entering in the reef improves enough so that it doesn't have a detrimental impact on the health of the Great Barrier Reef. To achieve these goals they decided to reduce pollutants in the water entering the reef and to rehabilitate and conserve areas of the reef that naturally help reduce water pollutants. To achieve the objectives described above, this plan focuses on non-point sources of pollution, which cannot be traced to a single source such as a waste outlet.
The plan specifically targets nutrients, pesticides and sediment that make their way into the reef as a result of agricultural activities. Other non-point sources of pollution that are attributed to urban areas are covered under different legislation. In 2009, the plan was updated. The updated version states that to date, none of the efforts undertaken to improve the quality of water entering the reef has been successful. The new plan attempts to address this issue by "targeting priority outcomes, integrating industry and community initiatives and incorporating new policy and regulatory frameworks (Reef Plan 5)". This updated version has improved the clarity of the previous plan and targets set by that plan, have improved accountability and further improved monitoring and assessment. The 2009 report found that 41 out of the 65 actions met their original goals, however, 18 were not progressing well according to evaluation criteria as well as 6 were rated as having unsatisfactory levels of progress.
Some key achievements made since the plan's initial passing in 2003 were the establishment of the Reef Quality Partnership to set targets, report findings and monitor progress towards targets, improved land condition by landowners was rewarded with extended leases, Water Quality Improvement Plans were created to identify regional targets and identified management changes that needed to be made to reach those targets, Nutrient Management Zones have been created to combat sediment loss in particular areas, education programs have been started to help gather support for sustainable agriculture, changes to land management practices have taken place through the implementation of the Farm Management Systems and codes of practice, the creation of the Queensland Wetland program and other achievements were made to help improve the water quality flowing into the coral reefs.
A taskforce of scientists was also created to assess the impact of different parts of the plan on the quality of water flowing into the coral reefs. They found that many of the goals have yet to be reached but found more evidence that states that improving the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef will improve its resilience to climate change. The Reefocus summit in 2008, which is also detailed in the report, came to similar conclusions. After this, a stakeholder working group was formed that worked between several groups as well as the Australian and Queensland governments to update reef goals and objectives. The updated version of the plan focuses on strategic priority areas and actions to achieve 2013 goals. Also quantitative targets have been made to critically assess whether targets are being met.
Some examples of the water quality goals outlined by this plan are that by 2013, there will be a 50% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loads at the end of catchments and that by 2020, there will be a reduction in sediment load by 20%. The plan also outlines a number of steps that must be taken by landholders to help improve grazing, soil, nutrient, and chemical management practices. There are also a number of supporting initiatives to take place outlined in the plan to help create a framework to improve land use practices which will in turn improve water quality.
Through these means the governments of Australia and Queensland hope to improve water quality by 2013. The 2013 outlook report and revised water quality plan will assess what needs to be done in the future to improve water quality and the livelihoods of the wildlife that resides there.
In July 2004, a new zoning plan took effect for the entire Marine Park, and has been widely acclaimed as a new global benchmark for marine ecosystem conservation. The rezoning was based on the application of systematic conservation planning techniques, using marxan software. While protection across the Marine Park was improved, the highly protected zones increased from 4.5% to over 33.3%. At the time, it was the largest Marine Protected Area in the world, although in 2006, the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument became the largest.
In 2006, a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act of 1975 recommended are that there should be no further zoning plan changes until 2013, and that every five years, a peer-reviewed outlook report should be published, examining the reef's health, management, and environmental pressures. In each outlook report, several assessments are required. Each assessment has a set of assessment criteria that allows for better presentation of available evidence. Each assessment is judged by these criteria and given a grade. Every outlook report follows the same judging and grading process so that information can be tracked over time. No new research is done to produce the report. Only readily available information goes into the report so little of what is known about the Reef is actually featured in each outlook report.
Abbot Point coal port dredge dumping controversy
In December 2013, Greg Hunt, the Australian environment minister, approved a plan for dredging to create three shipping terminals as part of the construction of a coalport. According to corresponding approval documents, the process will create around 3 million cubic metres of dredged seabed that will be dumped within the Great Barrier Reef marine park area.
On 31 January 2014, the GBRMPA issued a dumping permit that will allow three million cubic metres of sea bed from Abbot Point, north of Bowen, to be transported and unloaded in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Potential significant harms have been identified in relation to dredge spoil and the process of churning up the sea floor in the area and exposing it to air: firstly, new research shows the finer particles of dredge spoil can cloud the water and block sunlight, thereby starving sea grass and coral up to distances of 80 km away from the point of origin due to the actions of wind and currents. Furthermore, dredge spoil can literally smother reef or sea grass to death, while storms can repeatedly resuspend these particles so that the harm caused is ongoing; secondly, disturbed sea floor can release toxic substances into the surrounding environment.
The dredge spoil from the Abbot Point port project is to be dumped away, near Bowen in north Queensland, and the approval from the Authority will result in the production of an extra 70 million tonnes of coal annually, worth between A$1.4 billion and $2.8 billion. Authority chairman, Dr Russell Reichelt, stated after the confirmation of the approval:
This approval is in line with the agency’s view that port development along the Great Barrier Reef coastline should be limited to existing ports. As a deepwater port that has been in operation for nearly 30 years, Abbot Point is better placed than other ports along the Great Barrier Reef coastline to undertake expansion as the capital and maintenance dredging required will be significantly less than what would be required in other areas. It’s important to note the seafloor of the approved disposal area consists of sand, silt and clay and does not contain coral reefs or seagrass beds.
The approval was provided with a corresponding set of 47 new environmental conditions that include the following:
A long-term water quality monitoring plan extending five years after the disposal activity is completed.
A heritage management plan to protect the Catalina second world war aircraft wreck in Abbot Bay.
The establishment of an independent dredging and disposal technical advice panel and a management response group, to include community representatives.
The Australian Federal Government announced on 13 November that there would now be a ban on the dumping of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The World Heritage Committee asked Environment Minister Greg Hunt to investigate alternative options to dump on land instead. The Queensland government and the Commonwealth have now accepted the alternative option and advice from The World Heritage Committee and will now commence dumping on land.
Tourism
Due to its vast biodiversity, warm clear waters and accessibility from the tourist boats called "live aboards", the reef is a very popular destination, especially for scuba divers. Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef is concentrated in Cairns and also The Whitsundays due to their accessibility. These areas make up 7%–8% of the Park's area. The Whitsundays and Cairns have their own Plans of Management. Many cities along the Queensland coast offer daily boat trips. Several continental and coral cay islands are now resorts, including the pristine Lady Elliot Island. As of 1996, 27 islands on the Great Barrier Reef supported resorts.
In 1996, most of the tourism in the region was domestically generated and the most popular visiting times were during the Australian winter. At this time, it was estimated that tourists to the Great Barrier Reef contributed A$776 million per annum. As the largest commercial activity in the region, it was estimated in 2003 that tourism generated over A$4 billion annually, and the 2005 estimate increased to A$5.1 billion. A Deloitte report published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in March 2013 states that the Reef's 2,000 kilometres of coastline attracts tourism worth A$6.4 billion annually and employs more than 64,000 people.
Approximately two million people visit the Great Barrier Reef each year. Although most of these visits are managed in partnership with the marine tourism industry, there is a concern among the general public that tourism is harmful to the Great Barrier Reef.
A variety of boat tours and cruises are offered, from single day trips, to longer voyages. Boat sizes range from dinghies to superyachts. Glass-bottomed boats and underwater observatories are also popular, as are helicopter flights. By far, the most popular tourist activities on the Great Barrier Reef are snorkelling and diving, for which pontoons are often used, and the area is often enclosed by nets. The outer part of the Great Barrier Reef is favoured for such activities, due to water quality.
Management of tourism in the Great Barrier Reef is geared towards making tourism ecologically sustainable. A daily fee is levied that goes towards research of the Great Barrier Reef. This fee ends up being 20% of the GBRMPA's income.
Policies on cruise ships, bareboat charters, and anchorages limit the traffic on the Great Barrier Reef.
The problems that surround ecotourism in the Great Barrier Reef revolve around permanent tourism platforms. Platforms are large, ship-like vessels that act as a base for tourists while scuba diving and snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef. Seabirds will land on the platforms and defecate which will eventually be washed into the sea. The feces carry nitrogen, phosphorus and often DDT and mercury, which cause aspergillosis, yellow-band disease, and black band disease. Areas without tourism platforms have 14 out of 9,468 (1.1%) diseased corals versus areas with tourism platforms that have 172 out of 7,043 (12%) diseased corals. Tourism is a major economic activity for the region. Thus, while non-permanent platforms could be possible in some areas, overall, permanent platforms are likely a necessity. Solutions have been suggested to siphon bird waste into gutters connecting to tanks helping lower runoff that causes coral disease.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has also placed many permanent anchorage points around the general use areas. These act to reduce damage to the reef due to anchoring destroying soft coral, chipping hard coral, and disturbing sediment as it is dragged across the bottom. Tourism operators also must comply with speed limits when travelling to or from tourist destinations, to prevent excessive wake from the boats disturbing the reef ecosystem.
Fishing
The fishing industry in the Great Barrier Reef, controlled by the Queensland Government, is worth A$1 billion annually. It employs approximately 2000 people, and fishing in the Great Barrier Reef is pursued commercially, for recreation, and as a traditional means for feeding one's family.
Dugong hunting
Under the Native Title Act 1993, native title holders retain the right to legally hunt dugongs and green turtles for 'personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs'.
Four traditional owners groups agreed to cease the hunting of Dugongs in the area in 2011 due to their declining numbers, partially accelerated by seagrass damage from the 2011 Queensland Floods.
Photo gallery
See also
Catlin Seaview Survey
Islands on the Great Barrier Reef
Galápagos Islands
Komodo National Park
Valdes Peninsula
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
World heritage listing for Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
CRC Reef Research Centre
Battle for the Reef – Four Corners – ABC.au
Category:Coral Sea
Category:Reefs of Australia
Category:Marine ecoregions
Category:World Heritage Sites in Australia
Category:Underwater diving sites in Australia
Category:Visitor attractions in Queensland
Category:Physiographic provinces
Category:Australian National Heritage List |
2016-01 | Incheon_International_Airport-697684389 | Incheon_International_Airport | Incheon International Airport
Incheon International Airport (IIA) (, sometimes referred to as Seoul-Incheon International Airport) is the largest airport in South Korea, the primary airport serving the Seoul Capital Area, and one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. Since 2005, it has been rated the best airport worldwide by Airports Council International every year. It is also rated as the world's cleanest airport and the world's best international transit airport by Skytrax.
The airport has a golf course, spa, private sleeping rooms, ice skating rink, a casino, indoor gardens and a Museum of Korean Culture. Airport authorities claim that average departure and arrival takes 19 minutes and 12 minutes respectively, as compared to worldwide average of 60 minutes and 45 minutes respectively, ranking it among of the fastest airports in the world for customs processing. Its duty-free shopping mall has been rated the world's best for three years in a row in 2013 by Business Traveller. Incheon International Airport also claims that it has only a 0.0001% baggage mishandling rate.
Located west of Seoul, the capital and the largest city of South Korea, Incheon International Airport is the main hub for Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jeju Air, and Polar Air Cargo. The airport serves as a hub for international civilian air transportation and cargo traffic in East Asia. Incheon International Airport is also currently Asia's eighth busiest airport in terms of passengers, the world's fourth busiest airport by cargo traffic, and the world's eighth busiest airport in terms of international passengers in 2014. In that year, 40,785,953 international passengers used the airport.
The airport opened for business in early 2001 to replace the older Gimpo International Airport, which now serves mostly domestic destinations plus shuttle flights to alternate airports in China, Japan, and Taiwan.
Incheon International Airport is located west of Incheon's city center, on an artificially created piece of land between Yeongjong and Yongyu islands. The two islands were originally separated by shallow sea. That area between the two islands was reclaimed for the construction project, effectively connecting the once separate Yeongjong and Yongyu islands. The reclaimed area as well as the two islands are all part of Jung-gu, an administrative district of Incheon.
It is connected to the mainland by Incheon International Airport Expressway (Expressway 130), a part of which is Yeongjong Bridge. The expressway also connects Gimpo International Airport to provide connections between domestic flight service with international air traffic, an advantage that makes it much easier to travel from southern Korean regions to Incheon, and then to airports all over the globe. Incheon Bridge serves as the second path to the southern part of Incheon city from October 2009. The airport is served by frequent bus service from all parts of South Korea as well as by traditional ferry service between Yeongjong pier and Incheon. Airport limousines operate around the clock from Seoul to Incheon, and several backup highway buses escort people from places within and outside Seoul.
The Incheon International Airport Railroad connects Incheon International Airport to Seoul Station in downtown Seoul. Non-Stop Express trains 43 minutes, and regular trains which stops at all stations takes 53 minutes to Seoul Station. KTX high-speed rail access is available within the same station.
The airport holds an unbreakable record of being ranked the Best Airport Worldwide for 7 consecutive years by the Airports Council International (ACI)'s Airport Service Quality award from 2005 to 2011, and was also rated the world's best among airports of its size (25-40m) and region (Asia-Pacific) in 2012 due to the institution's decision to discontinue the Best Airport Worldwide category.
Seoul Incheon International Airport's terminal has 76 boarding gates altogether, with 44 in the main terminal and 30 in Concourse A.
History
After the Seoul Olympics of 1988, international air traffic to Korea increased. In the 1990s, it became apparent that Gimpo International Airport could not cope with the increase in air traffic. To reduce the load on Gimpo International Airport, construction of the Incheon airport began in November 1992. It was constructed on reclaimed land between Yeongjong Island and Youngyu Island, and took eight years to construct, with an additional six months to test. The airport was officially opened in March 2001.
Initially, there were numerous problems, mostly involving baggage handling, which required the system to be operated semi-automatically. Most of the problems were fixed within a month, and the airport began to operate normally.
Air traffic increased markedly, and by early 2002 due to 2002 FIFA World Cup and 2002 Asian Games, it became apparent that the airport would be saturated by 2006. As a result, the construction of the second phase was initiated in February 2002. Originally, the construction was supposed to have ended by December 2008. Due to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, however, the construction schedule was modified to allow the construction to end by July 2008.
On 15 November 2006, the Airbus A380 landed at the airport as part of the first leg of its certification trip. Tests on the runways, taxiways, and ramps showed that the airport could handle the aircraft.
To further upgrade service, Incheon and major Korean logistics firm Hanjin Corporation (parent company of the Korean Flag Carrier, Korean Air) agreed on 10 January 2008 to build a nine-story hospital near the airport. Once construction is complete in 2011, the Yeongjong Medical Centre is expected to serve nearby residents and some of Korea's annual 30,000 medical tourists.
Terminal 2 is expected to open at soonest in 2017 to increase capacity. AREX and KTX will extend their lines to provide access to the new terminal.
Airlines and destinations
Passenger
The airport serves more passenger trafic than Japan's main international gateway, Narita International.
Cargo
Traffic and statistics
Traffic by calendar year
Top carriers
In 2012, the ten carriers with the largest percentage of passengers flying into, out of, or through Incheon are as follows:
Accolades
Incheon International airport has been the recipient of a number of awards since its opening, including:
In 1998, received ISO certifications in airport construction and airport services.
From 2002, won the Best Airport Award, according to IATA and ACI, for three consecutive years.
In 2002, was rated second in the Best Airport Worldwide category, according to IATA and ACI.
Incheon International Airport Corporation became the first in the world to receive ISO certification in airport services.
In 2005, won the Best Airport Worldwide 2005 award from AETRA Service Monitoring, which was jointly conducted by IATA and ACI.
In 2006, received the ATRS' Top Asia-Pacific Efficiency Award after achieving a residual variable factor productivity efficiency value that was 57% higher than the average of those in the region.
In 2006, was awarded as the world's best airport based on a passenger survey conducted by the IATA.
Was named Best Airport Worldwide at the first Airport Service Quality Awards.
Received an ISO certification in the environmental category.
Was awarded the "Best in Service Award in Class" at the 1st International Conference on Airport Quality and Service by the IATA and the ACI.
Won the GT Tested Award for Best Airport in the World in January 2007.
Named by Global Traveler (GT) as the Best Airport in the World for the second straight year in January 2008.
Has been named World's Best Airport for 2009, in the World Airport Survey results published by Skytrax.
In 2010 it was ranked the second-best airport in the world by Skytrax, behind Singapore Changi Airport, based on a customer satisfaction survey.
In 2011 it was ranked the third-best airport in the world by Skytrax, behind Hong Kong International Airport and Singapore Changi Airport.
In 2012 it was ranked the best airport in the world by Skytrax.
Accidents and incidents
On 16 June 2011, Asiana Airlines Flight 324 operated by Airbus A321-200 HL7763 between Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, China and Incheon International Airport was fired upon by two soldiers of the Republic of Korea Marine Corps as it came in to land at Incheon. A total of 99 rounds were discharged at the aircraft, which was out of range and made a safe landing without sustaining any damage. The soldiers had misidentified the aircraft as belonging to the North Korean military, and were acting on orders that gave them permission to engage without reference to senior officers, following the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong in November 2010.
Transportation
Bus
Airport buses are called limousine buses, and are available outside the arrival areas on the first floor. For standard limousine buses travel to Gimpo Airport & Songjeong Station costs around 5,000 won, while the fare for most routes to downtown Seoul is 9,000 - 10,000 won. Deluxe buses are express buses with wider seats costing 7,000 won to Gimpo and 14,000 - 15,000 won to most parts of Seoul.
Rail
The Incheon International Airport Railroad airport express (or AREX, and styled as A'REX) station is located in the Transport Centre adjacent to the main terminal building and provides high-speed services to Gimpo Airport and Seoul. The AREX trains can travel up to 120 km/h, almost two times faster than a normal subway train. Passengers can choose a high-speed service stopping only at Incheon and Seoul, which takes 43 minutes between Incheon and Seoul but departs only every half-hour; or the all-station service, with a slightly longer journey time of 53 minutes but a more frequent departure timetable of every six minutes. Many of the stations along the AREX line provide connections to the Incheon Subway and Seoul Metropolitan Subway.
High-Speed Rail
KTX has offered high-speed rail service from the airport to all lines on the network from 2014.
Maglev
A maglev link is currently awaiting opening. The first phase will be 6.1 km long spread over six stations taking riders from the airport toward the south-west of the island where a water park will be located. It is planned to open in 2016.
Phase 2 will be 9.7 km long extending the line to the north-west of the island. Phase 3 will add 37.4 km making the line into a circle.
Car
The airport provides a short term parking lot for 4,000 cars and a long term parking lot for 6,000 cars. Shuttle services connect the long term parking lot to the passenger terminal and the cargo terminal. Car rental is located near the long term parking lot. Link to the main land is provided by the toll Yeongjong Bridge and an expressway. A second expressway on the Incheon Bridge connects the island with central Incheon.
Taxi
Taxis have three distinct colors: white (silver or yellow, orange) and black, and orange. "Normal taxis" (일반 택시; ilban taeksi) are colored in white or yellow with a colored plastic "taxi" cap on the top of the car. "Deluxe taxis" (모범 택시; mobeom taeksi) are black in color with gold accent/stripes with a plastic yellow "taxi" cap on the roof and are more expensive than regular taxis. Also available are "International Taxis" (국제 택시; gukjae taxi) which has the phrase 'International Taxis', written on the side. International taxis are rare in Seoul. These are orange in color, as the Normal versions. International taxis service English, Japanese, and Chinese speaking drivers.
Ferry
A ferry service connects Yeongjong-do to the mainland. However, the dock is located at considerable distance from the airport and an alternative means of transport must be sought upon arriving at the island to be able to get to the airport.
See also
Transportation in South Korea
List of Korea-related topics
List of airports in South Korea
Busiest airports in South Korea by passenger traffic
World's Busiest Airports by Cargo Traffic – 4th Place
World's Busiest Airports by International Passenger Traffic – 8th Place
References
External links
Incheon International Airport Foreign Carrier Cargo Terminal
Official Site of Korea Tourism Org.: Incheon
Korea City Air Terminal
Korea Airport Service
Incheon Airport Bus Guide & Map
New Airport Highway Co. Incheon International Airport Expressway
Incheon International Airport Railroad (A'REX)
Incheon International Airport Terminal 2
Category:Airports in South Korea
Category:Airports established in 2001
Category:Buildings and structures in Incheon
Category:Transport in Incheon
Category:Transport in Seoul
Category:Jung District, Incheon |
2016-01 | Portal_video_game-697338547 | Portal_video_game | Portal (video game)
Portal is a 2007 first-person puzzle-platform video game developed by Valve Corporation. The game was released in a bundle package called The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007, and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007. The Windows version of the game is available for download separately through Valve's content delivery system Steam and was released as a standalone retail product on April 9, 2008. A standalone version called Portal: Still Alive was released on the Xbox Live Arcade service on October 22, 2008; this version includes an additional 14 puzzles. An OS X version was released as part of the Mac-compatible Steam platform on May 12, 2010. A Linux version was released on Steam as a beta on May 2, 2013, and came out of beta on June 24, 2013. An Android port for the Nvidia Shield was released on May 12, 2014.
The game primarily comprises a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and simple objects using "the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", a device that can create inter-spatial portals between two flat planes. The player-character, Chell, is challenged by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The game's unique physics allows momentum to be retained through portals, requiring creative use of portals to maneuver through the test chambers. This gameplay element is based on a similar concept from the game Narbacular Drop; many of the team members from the DigiPen Institute of Technology who worked on Narbacular Drop were hired by Valve for the creation of Portal.
Portal was acclaimed as one of the most original games of 2007, despite being considered short in length. The game received praise for its unique gameplay and darkly humorous story. It received acclaim for the character of GLaDOS, voiced by Ellen McLain in the English-language version, and the end credits song "Still Alive" written by Jonathan Coulton for the game. Not counting sales through Steam, over four million copies of the game have been sold since its release. The game's popularity has led to official merchandise from Valve including plush Companion Cubes, as well as fan recreations of the cake and portal gun. A sequel, Portal 2, was released in 2011, adding several new gameplay mechanics and a cooperative multiplayer mode.
Gameplay
In Portal, the player controls the protagonist, Chell, from a first-person perspective as she is challenged to navigate through a series of rooms using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or portal gun, under the watchful supervision of the artificial intelligence GLaDOS. The portal gun can create two distinct portal ends, orange and blue. The portals create a visual and physical connection between two different locations in three-dimensional space. Neither end is specifically an entrance or exit; all objects that travel through one portal will exit through the other. An important aspect of the game's physics is momentum redirection. As moving objects pass through portals, they come through the exit portal at the same direction that the exit portal is facing and with the same speed with which they passed through the entrance portal. For example, a common maneuver is to jump down to a portal on the floor and emerge through a wall, flying over a gap or another obstacle. This allows the player to launch objects or Chell over great distances, both vertically and horizontally, referred to as 'flinging' by Valve. As GLaDOS puts it, "In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out." If portal ends are not on parallel planes, the character passing through is reoriented to be upright with respect to gravity after leaving a portal end.
Chell and all other objects in the game that can fit into the portal ends will pass through the portal. However, a portal shot cannot pass through an open portal; it will simply deactivate or create a new portal in an offset position. Creating a portal end instantly deactivates an existing portal end of the same color. Moving objects, glass, special wall surfaces, liquids, or areas that are too small will not be able to anchor portals. Chell is sometimes provided with cubes that she can pick up and use to climb on or to hold down large buttons that open doors or activate mechanisms. Particle fields known as emancipation grills, occasionally called "fizzlers" in the developer commentary, exist at the end of all and within some test chambers; when passed through, they will deactivate any active portals and disintegrate any object carried through. The fields also block attempts to fire portals through them.
Although Chell is equipped with mechanized heel springs to prevent damage from falling, she can be killed by various other hazards in the test chambers, such as turret guns, bouncing balls of energy, and toxic liquid. She can also be killed by objects falling through portals, and by a series of crushers that appear in certain levels. Unlike most action games at the time, there is no health indicator; Chell dies if she is dealt a certain amount of damage in a short time period, but returns to full health fairly quickly. Some obstacles, such as the energy balls and crushing pistons, deal fatal damage with a single blow.
GameSpot noted, in its initial review of Portal, that many solutions exist for completing each puzzle, and that the gameplay "gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt." Two additional modes are unlocked upon the completion of the game that challenge the player to work out alternative methods of solving each test chamber. Challenge maps are unlocked near the halfway point and Advanced Chambers are unlocked when the game is completed. In Challenge mode, levels are revisited with the added goal of completing the test chamber either with as little time, with the least number of portals, or with the fewest footsteps possible. In Advanced mode, certain levels are made more complex with the addition of more obstacles and hazards.
Synopsis
Characters
The game features two characters: the player-controlled silent protagonist named Chell, and GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), a computer artificial intelligence that monitors and directs the player. In the English-language version, GLaDOS is voiced by Ellen McLain, though her voice has been altered to sound more artificial. The only background information presented about Chell is given by GLaDOS; the credibility of these facts, such as Chell being adopted, an orphan, and having no friends, is questionable at best, as GLaDOS is a liar by her own admission. In the "Lab Rat" comic created by Valve to bridge the gap between Portal and Portal 2, Chell's records reveal she was ultimately rejected as a test subject for having "too much tenacity"—the main reason Doug Rattman, a former employee of Aperture Science, moved Chell to the top of the test queue.
Setting
Portal takes place in the Aperture Science Laboratories computer aided enrichment center—Aperture Science in short—which is a research corporation responsible for the creation of the portal gun. According to information presented in Portal 2, the location of the complex is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Information about the company, developed by Valve for creating the setting of the game, is revealed during the game and via the real-world promotional website. According to the Aperture Science Web site, Cave Johnson founded the company in 1943 for the sole purpose of making shower curtains for the U.S. military. However, after becoming mentally unstable from "moon rock poisoning" in 1978, Johnson created a three-tier research and development plan to make his organization successful. The first two tiers, the Counter-Heimlich Maneuver (a maneuver designed to ensure choking) and the Take-A-Wish Foundation (a program to give the wishes of terminally ill children's parents to adults who are in need of dreams), were commercial failures and led to an investigation of the company by the U.S. Senate. However, when the investigative committee heard of the success of the third tier, a man-sized ad-hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain, it recessed permanently and gave Aperture Science an open-ended contract to continue its research. The development of GLaDOS, an artificially intelligent research assistant and disk-operating system, began in 1986 in response to Black Mesa's work on similar portal technology. A presentation seen during gameplay reveals that GLaDOS was also included in a proposed bid for de-icing fuel lines, incorporated as a fully functional disk-operation system that is arguably alive, unlike Black Mesa's proposal, which inhibits ice, nothing more. Roughly thirteen years later, work on GLaDOS was completed and the untested AI was activated during the company's first ever bring-your-daughter-to-work day in May 2000. Immediately after activation, the facility was flooded with deadly neurotoxin by the AI. Events of the first Half-Life game occur shortly thereafter, presumably leaving the facility forgotten by the outside world due to apocalyptic happenings. Wolpaw, in describing the ending of Portal 2, affirmed that the Combine invasion, chronologically taking place between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, occurred during Portals events.
The areas of the Enrichment Center that Chell explores suggest that it is part of a massive research installation. At the time of events depicted in Portal, the facility seems to be long-deserted, although most of its equipment remains operational without human control. Aperture Science exists in the Half-Life universe. During its development, Half-Life 2: Episode Two featured a chapter set on Aperture Science's icebreaker ship Borealis, but this was abandoned and removed before release.
Plot
Portals plot is revealed to the player via audio messages from GLaDOS and visual elements inside rooms found in later levels. According to The Final Hours of Portal 2, the year is established to be "somewhere in 2010"—twelve years after its abandonment. The game begins with protagonist Chell waking up from a stasis bed and hearing instructions and warnings from GLaDOS about the upcoming test experience. This part of the game involves distinct test chambers that, in sequence, introduce players to the game's mechanics. GLaDOS's announcements serve not only to instruct Chell and help her progress through the game, but also to create atmosphere and develop the AI as a character. Chell is promised cake and grief counseling as her reward if she manages to complete all the test chambers.
Chell proceeds through the empty Enrichment Center, interacting only with GLaDOS. Over the course of the game, GLaDOS's motives are hinted to be more sinister than her helpful demeanor suggests. Although she is designed to appear helpful and encouraging, GLaDOS's actions and speech suggest insincerity and callous disregard for the safety and well-being of the test subjects. The test chambers become increasingly dangerous as Chell proceeds, and GLaDOS even directs Chell through a live-fire course designed for military androids as a result of "mandatory scheduled maintenance" in the regular test chamber, as well as having test chambers flooded with deadly liquid. In another chamber, GLaDOS boasts about the fidelity and importance of the Weighted Companion Cube, a waist-high crate with a single large pink heart on each face, for helping Chell to complete the chamber. However, GLaDOS then declares that it "unfortunately must be euthanized" in an "emergency intelligence incinerator" before Chell can continue. Some of the later chambers include automated turrets with childlike voices (also voiced by McLain) that fire at Chell, only to sympathize with her after being disabled ("I don't blame you" and "No hard feelings").
After Chell completes the final test chamber, GLaDOS congratulates her and prepares her "victory candescence", maneuvering Chell into a pit of fire. As GLaDOS assures her that "all Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4,000 degrees kelvin", Chell escapes with the use of the portal gun and makes her way through the maintenance areas within the Enrichment Center. GLaDOS becomes panicked and insists that she was only pretending to kill Chell, as part of testing. GLaDOS then asks Chell to assume the "party escort submission position", lying face-first on the ground, so that a "party associate" can take her to her reward. Chell continues forward. Throughout this section, GLaDOS still sends messages to Chell and it becomes clear that she has become corrupt and may have killed everyone else in the center. Chell makes her way through the maintenance areas and empty office spaces behind the chambers, sometimes following graffiti messages which point in the right direction. These backstage areas, which are in an extremely dilapidated state, stand in stark contrast to the pristine test chambers. The graffiti includes statements such as "the cake is a lie" and pastiches of Emily Dickinson's poem "The Chariot", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Reaper and the Flowers", and Emily Brontë's "No Coward Soul Is Mine", mourning the death of the Companion Cube.
GLaDOS attempts to dissuade Chell with threats of physical harm and misleading statements claiming that she is going the wrong way as Chell makes her way deeper into the maintenance areas. Eventually, Chell reaches a large chamber where GLaDOS's hardware hangs overhead. GLaDOS continues to plead with and threaten Chell, but during the exchange one of GLaDOS' personality core spheres falls off; Chell drops it in an incinerator. GLaDOS reveals that Chell has just destroyed the morality core, which the Aperture Science employees allegedly installed after GLaDOS flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin, and goes on to state that now there is nothing to prevent her from doing so once again. A six-minute countdown starts as Chell dislodges and incinerates more pieces of GLaDOS, while GLaDOS attempts to discourage her both verbally, with a series of taunts and increasingly juvenile insults, and physically by firing rockets at her. After she has destroyed the final piece, a portal malfunction tears the room apart and transports everything to the surface. Chell is then seen lying outside the facility's gates amid the remains of GLaDOS. One of the final scenes is changed through a patch of the PC version that was made available a few days before Portal 2s announcement; in this retroactive continuity, Chell is dragged away from the scene by an unseen entity speaking in a robotic voice, thanking her for assuming the "party escort submission position"
The final scene, after a long and speedy zoom through the bowels of the facility, shows a Black Forest cake, and the Weighted Companion Cube, surrounded by a mix of shelves containing dozens of apparently inactive personality cores. One by one a number of the cores begin to light up, before a robotic arm descends and extinguishes the candle on the cake, plunging the room into darkness. As the credits roll, GLaDOS delivers a concluding report: the song "Still Alive", which declares the experiment to be a huge success, as well as serving to indicate to the player that GLaDOS is still alive.
Development
Concept
Portal is Valve's spiritual successor to the freeware game Narbacular Drop, the 2005 independent game released by students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology; the original Narbacular Drop team is now employed at Valve. Valve became interested in Narbacular Drop after seeing the game at DigiPen's annual career fair; Robin Walker, one of Valve's developers, saw the game at the fair and later contacted the team providing them with advice and offering to show their game at Valve's offices. After their presentation, Valve's president Gabe Newell quickly offered the entire team jobs at Valve to develop the game further. Newell later commented that he was impressed with the DigiPen team as "they had actually carried the concept through", already having included the interaction between portals and physics, completing most of the work that Valve would have had to commit on their own. Certain elements have been retained from Narbacular Drop, such as the system of identifying the two unique portal endpoints with the colors orange and blue. A key difference in the signature portal mechanic between the two games however is that Portals portal gun cannot create a portal through an existing portal unlike in Narbacular Drop. The game's original setting, of a princess trying to escape a dungeon, was dropped in favor of the Aperture Science approach. Portal took approximately two years and four months to complete after the DigiPen team was brought into Valve, and no more than ten people were involved with its development. Portal writer Erik Wolpaw, who, along with fellow writer Chet Faliszek, was hired by Valve for the game, claimed that "Without the constraints, Portal would not be as good a game".
The Portal team worked with Half-Life series writer Marc Laidlaw on fitting the game into the series' plot. This was done, in part, due to the limited art capabilities of the small team; instead of creating new assets for Portal, they decided to tie the game to an existing franchise—Half-Life—to allow them to reuse the Half-Life 2 art assets. Wolpaw and Faliszek were put to work on the dialogue for Portal. The concept of a computer AI guiding the player through experimental facilities to test the portal gun was arrived at early in the writing process. They drafted early lines for the yet-named "polite" AI with humorous situations, such as requesting the player's character to "assume the party escort submission position", and found this style of approach to be well-suited to the game they wanted to create, ultimately leading to the creation of the GLaDOS character. GLaDOS was central to the plot, as Wolpaw notes "We designed the game to have a very clear beginning, middle, and end, and we wanted GLaDOS to go through a personality shift at each of these points." Wolpaw further describes the idea of using cake as the reward came about as "at the beginning of the Portal development process, we sat down as a group to decide what philosopher or school of philosophy our game would be based on. That was followed by about 15 minutes of silence and then someone mentioned that a lot of people like cake." The cake element along with additional messages given to the player in the behind-the-scenes areas were written and drawn by Kim Swift.
Design
The austere settings in the game came about because testers spent too much time trying to complete the puzzles using decorative but non-functional elements. As a result, the setting was minimized to make the usable aspects of the puzzle easier to spot, using the clinical feel of the setting in the film The Island as reference. While there were plans for a third area, an office space, to be included after the test chambers and the maintenance areas, the team ran out of time to include it. They also dropped the introduction of the Rat Man, a character who left the messages in the maintenance areas, to avoid creating too much narrative for the game, though the character was developed further in a tie-in comic "Lab Rat", that ties Portal and Portal 2s story together. According to project lead Kim Swift, the final battle with GLaDOS went through many iterations, including having the player chased by James Bond lasers, which was partially applied to the turrets, Portal Kombat where the player would have needed to redirect rockets while avoiding turret fire, and a chase sequence following a fleeing GLaDOS. Eventually, they found that playtesters enjoyed a rather simple puzzle with a countdown timer near the end; Swift noted, "Time pressure makes people think something is a lot more complicated than it really is", and Wolpaw admitted, "It was really cheap to make [the neurotoxin gas]" in order to simplify the dialogue during the battle.
Chell's face and body are modeled after Alésia Glidewell, an American freelance actress and voice-over artist, selected by Valve from a local modeling agency for her face and body structure. Ellen McLain provided the voice of the antagonist GLaDOS. Erik Wolpaw noted, "When we were still fishing around for the turret voice, Ellen did a sultry version. It didn't work for the turrets, but we liked it a lot, and so a slightly modified version of that became the model for GLaDOS's final incarnation." Mike Patton performed the growling and snarling voice of GLaDOS's final personality core, named the Anger Sphere.
The Weighted Companion Cube inspiration was from project lead Kim Swift with additional input from Wolpaw from reading some "declassified government interrogation thing" whereby "isolation leads subjects to begin to attach to inanimate objects"; Swift commented, "We had a long level called Box Marathon; we wanted players to bring this box with them from the beginning to the end. But people would forget about the box, so we added dialogue, applied the heart to the cube, and continued to up the ante until people became attached to the box. Later on, we added the incineration idea. The artistic expression grew from the gameplay." Wolpaw further noted that the need to incinerate the Weighted Companion Cube came as a result of the final boss battle design; they recognized they had not introduced the idea of incineration necessary to complete the boss battle, and by training the player to do it with the Weighted Companion Cube, found the narrative "way stronger" with its "death". Swift noted that any similarities to psychological situations in the Milgram experiment or 2001: A Space Odyssey are happenstance.
The portal gun's full name, Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, can be abbreviated as ASHPD, which resembles a shortening of the name Adrian Shephard, the protagonist of Half-Life: Opposing Force. This similarity was noticed by fans before the game's release; as a result, the team placed a red herring in the game by having the letters of Adrian Shephard highlighted on keyboards found within the game. According to Kim Swift, the cake is a Black Forest cake that she thought looked the best at the nearby Regent Bakery and Café in Redmond, Washington, and, as an Easter egg within the game, its recipe is scattered among various screens showing lines of binary code. The Regent Bakery has stated that since the release of the game, its Black Forest cake has been one of its more popular items.
Soundtrack
Most of the game's soundtrack is non-lyrical ambient music composed by Kelly Bailey and Mike Morasky, somewhat dark and mysterious to match the mood of the environments. The closing credits song, "Still Alive", was written by Jonathan Coulton and sung by Ellen McLain (a classically trained operatic soprano) as the GLaDOS character. A brief instrumental version of Still Alive is played in an uptempo Latin style over radios in-game. Wolpaw notes that Coulton was invited to Valve a year before the release of Portal, though it was not yet clear where Coulton would contribute. "Once Kim [Swift] and I met with him, it quickly became apparent that he had the perfect sensibility to write a song for GLaDOS." The use of the song over the closing credits was based on a similar concept from the game God Hand, one of Wolpaw's favorite titles. The song was released as a free downloadable song for the music video game Rock Band on April 1, 2008. The soundtrack for Portal was released as a part of The Orange Box Original Soundtrack and includes both GLaDOS's in-game rendition and Coulton's vocal mix of "Still Alive".
Portals soundtrack was released as part of a four-disc retail release, Portal 2: Songs To Test By (Collector's Edition), on October 30, 2012, featuring music from both games. The game's soundtrack became available via Steam Music on September 24, 2014.
Merchandise
The popularity of the game and of its characters has led Valve to develop merchandise for Portal made available through its online Steam store. Some of the more popular items were the Weighted Companion Cube plush toys and fuzzy dice. When first released, both were sold out in under 24 hours. Other products available through the Valve store include T-shirts and Aperture Science coffee mugs and parking stickers, and merchandise relating to the phrase the cake is a lie, which has become an internet meme. Wolpaw noted they did not expect certain elements of the game to be as popular as they were, while other elements they had expected to become fads were ignored, such as a giant hoop that rolls on-screen during the final scene of the game that the team had named Hoopy.
Distribution
Demo
In January 2008, Valve released a special demo version titled Portal: The First Slice, free for any Steam user using Nvidia graphics hardware as part of a collaboration between the two companies. It also comes packaged with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Peggle Extreme, and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast. The demo includes test chambers 00 to 10 (eleven in total). Valve has since made the demo available to all Steam users.
Portal
Portal was first released as part of The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007, and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007. The Windows version of the game is also available for download separately through Valve's content delivery system, Steam, and was released as a standalone retail product on April 9, 2008. In addition to Portal, the Box also included Half-Life 2 and its two add-on episodes, as well as Team Fortress 2. Portals inclusion within the Box was considered an experiment by Valve; having no idea of the success of Portal, the Box provided it a "safety net" via means of these other games. Portal was kept to a modest length in case the game did not go over well with players. Since then, a standalone version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows users.
Portal was the first Valve-developed game to be added to the OS X-compatible list of games available on the launch of the Steam client for Mac on May 12, 2010, supporting Steam Play, in which players that had bought the game either on a Macintosh or Windows computer could also play it on the alternate system. As part of the promotion, Portal was offered as a free title for any Steam user during the two weeks following the Mac client's launch. Within the first week of this offer, over 1.5 million copies of the game were downloaded through Steam. A similar promotion was held in September 2011, near the start of a traditional school year, encouraging the use of the game as an educational tool for science and mathematics. Valve wrote that they felt that Portal "makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun", a necessary feature to draw children into learning. This was tied to Digital Promise, a United States Department of Education initiative to help develop new digital tools for education, and which Valve is part of.
During 2014 GPU Technology Conference on March 25, 2014, Nvidia announced that they are porting Portal to their Android handheld, the Nvidia Shield. The version was released on May 12, 2014.
Portal: Still Alive
Portal: Still Alive was announced as an exclusive Xbox Live Arcade game at the 2008 E3 convention, and was released on October 22, 2008. It features the original game, 14 new challenges, and new achievements. The additional content was based on levels from the map pack Portal: The Flash Version created by We Create Stuff and contains no additional story-related levels. According to Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi, Microsoft had previously rejected Portal on the platform due to its large size. Portal: Still Alive was well received by reviewers. 1UP.com's Andrew Hayward stated that, with the easier access and lower cost than paying for The Orange Box, Portal is now "stronger than ever". IGN editor Cam Shea ranked it fifth on his top 10 list of Xbox Live Arcade games. He stated that it was debatable whether an owner of The Orange Box should purchase this, as its added levels do not add to the plot. However, he praised the quality of the new maps included in the game. The game ranked 7th in a later list of top Xbox Box Live titles compiled by IGN's staff in September 2010.
Mods
A modding community has developed around Portal, with users creating their own test chambers and other in-game modifications. The group "We Create Stuff" created an Adobe Flash version of Portal, titled Portal: The Flash Version, just prior to release of The Orange Box. This flash version was well received by the community and the group have since converted it to a map pack for the published game. Another mod, Portal: Prelude, is an unofficial prequel developed by an independent team of three that focuses on the pre-GLaDOS era of Aperture Science, and contains nineteen additional "crafty and challenging" test chambers. An ASCII version of Portal was created by Joe Larson. An unofficial port of Portal to the iPhone using the Unity game engine was created but only consisted of a single room from the game. Mari0 is a fan-made four-player coop mashup of Portal and the original Super Mario Bros..
Sequel
Swift stated that future Portal developments would depend on the community's reactions, saying, "We're still playing it by ear at this point, figuring out if we want to do multiplayer next, or Portal 2, or release map packs." Some rumors regarding a sequel arose due to casting calls for voice actors. On March 10, 2010, Portal 2 was officially announced for a release late in that year; the announcement was preceded by an alternate reality game based on unexpected patches made to Portal that contained cryptic messages in relation to Portal 2s announcement, including an update to the game, creating a different ending for the fate of Chell. The original game left her in a deserted car park after destroying GLaDOS, but the update involved Chell being dragged back into the facility by a "Party Escort Bot". Though Portal 2 was originally announced for a Q4 2010 release, the game was released on April 19, 2011.
Film adaptation
In February 2013, it was reported that J. J. Abrams is in talks with Valve to develop a movie based upon Portal, alongside an adaptation of Half-Life. Both projects are currently in the early states of development with no production date yet confirmed.
Critical reception
Portal received critical acclaim, often earning more praise than either Half-Life 2: Episode Two or Team Fortress 2, two titles also included in The Orange Box. It was praised for its unique gameplay and dark, deadpan humor. Eurogamer cited that "the way the game progresses from being a simple set of perfunctory tasks to a full-on part of the Half-Life story is absolute genius", while GameSpy noted that "What Portal lacks in length, it more than makes up for in exhilaration." The game was criticized for sparse environments, and both criticized and praised for its short length. Aggregate reviews for the stand-alone PC version of Portal gave the game an average rating of 89% based on 27 reviews through Game Rankings, and 90% through 28 reviews on Metacritic. Upon release of Portal 2, Valve stated that Portal has sold more than four million copies through the retail versions, including the standalone game and The Orange Box, and from the Xbox Live Arcade version. This figure does not include sales figures for Valve's own Steam digital download service.
The game generated a fan following for the Weighted Companion Cube—even though the cube itself does not talk or act in the game. Fans have created plush and papercraft versions of the cube and the various turrets, as well as PC case mods and models of the Portal cake and portal gun. Jeep Barnett, a programmer for Portal, noted that players have told Valve that they had found it more emotional to incinerate the Weighted Companion Cube than to harm one of the "Little Sisters" from BioShock. Both GLaDOS and the Weighted Companion Cube were nominated for the Best New Character Award on G4, with GLaDOS winning the award for "having lines that will be quoted by gamers for years to come."
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation gave the game the only entirely positive review in the show's history, calling it "the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece". Croshaw went on to say: "I went in expecting a slew of interesting portal-based puzzles and that's exactly what I got, but what I wasn't expecting was some of the funniest pitch black humor I've ever heard in a game". He states that, while the game was short, the two- to three-hour length of the game was perfect as the game did not outstay its welcome, and called the ending "balls-tighteningly fantastic", while praising the game as "absolutely sublime from start to finish" (adding that he would jam forks in his eyes if he ever praised a game so highly again).
Portals story has been stated to be well-established in the context of Erving Goffman's dissemination on dramaturgy, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which equates one's persona to the front and back stage areas of a theater. In the case of Portal, the story carefully establishes the front stage, the pretense of the Enrichment Center, and hints at problems in the back stage through various technical faults, and then slowly reveals more and more of the back stage to the player throughout the game. Due to this, the video game was made part of the required course material among other classical and contemporary works, including Goffman's work, for a freshman course "devoted to engaging students with fundamental questions of humanity from multiple perspectives and fostering a sense of community" for Wabash College in 2010. Portal has also been cited as a strong example of instructional scaffolding that can be adapted for more academic learning situations, as the player, through careful design of levels by Valve, is first hand-held in solving simple puzzles with many hints at the correct solution, but this support is slowly removed as the player progresses in the game, and completely removed when the player reaches the second half of the game. Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Hamish Todd considered Portal as an exemplary means of game design by demonstrating a series of chambers after the player has obtained the portal gun that gently introduce the concept of flinging without any explicit instructions. Portal was exhibited at the Smithsonian Art Exhibition in America from February 14 through September 30, 2012. Portal won the "Action" section for the platform "Modern Windows".
Awards
Portal has won several awards:
At the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards, Portal won Game of the Year, along with the Innovation Award and Best Game Design.
IGN honored Portal with several awards, for Best Puzzle Game for PC and Xbox 360, Most Innovative Design for PC, and Best End Credit Song (for "Still Alive") for Xbox 360, along with overall honors for Best Puzzle Game and Most Innovative Design.
In its Best of 2007, GameSpot honored The Orange Box with 4 awards in recognition of Portal, giving out honors for Best Puzzle Game, Best New Character(s) (for GLaDOS), Funniest Game, and Best Original Game Mechanic (for the portal gun).
Portal was awarded Game of the Year (PC), Best Narrative (PC), and Best Innovation (PC and console) honors by 1UP.com in its 2007 editorial awards.
GamePro honored the game for Most Memorable Villain (for GLaDOS) in its Editors' Choice 2007 Awards.
Portal was awarded the Game of the Year award in 2007 by Joystiq, Good Game, and Shacknews.
The Most Original Game award by X-Play.
In Official Xbox Magazines 2007 Game of the Year Awards, Portal won Best New Character (for GLaDOS), Best Original Song (for "Still Alive"), and Innovation of the Year.
In GameSpy's 2007 Game of the Year awards, Portal was recognized as Best Puzzle Game, Best Character (for GLaDOS), and Best Sidekick (for the Weighted Companion Cube).
The A.V. Club called it the Best Game of 2007.
The webcomic Penny Arcade awarded Portal Best Soundtrack, Best Writing, and Best New Game Mechanic in its satirical 2007 We're Right Awards.
Eurogamer gave Portal first place in its Top 50 Games of 2007 rankings.
IGN also placed GLaDOS, (from Portal) as the #1 Video Game Villain on its Top-100 Villains List.
GamesRadar named it the best game of all time.
In November 2012, Time named it one of the 100 greatest video games of all time.
Wired considered Portal to be one of the most influential games of the first decade of the 21st century, believing it to be the prime example of quality over quantity for video games.
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
Official homepage — The Orange Box
Information portal
ApertureScience.com (viral advertising alternate reality game)
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2016-01 | History_of_Poland-697521019 | History_of_Poland | History of Poland
The history of Poland results from the migrations of Slavs who established permanent settlements on the Polish lands during the Early Middle Ages. In 966 AD, Duke Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty adopted Western Christianity; in 1025 Mieszko's son Bolesław I Chrobry formally established a medieval kingdom. The period of the Jagiellonian dynasty in the 14th-16th centuries brought close ties with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a cultural Renaissance in Poland and territorial expansion that culminated in the establishment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.
The Commonwealth in its early phase represented a continuation of Jagiellonian prosperity, with its remarkable development of a sophisticated noble democracy. From the mid-17th century the huge state entered a period of decline caused by devastating wars and by the deterioration of the country's political system. Significant internal reforms were introduced during the later part of the 18th century, especially in the Constitution of May 3, 1791, but neighboring powers did not allow the reform process to continue. The independent existence of the Commonwealth ended in 1795 after a series of invasions and partitions of Polish territory carried out by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy.
From 1795 until 1918 no truly independent Polish state existed, although strong Polish resistance movements operated. After the failure of the last military uprising against the Russian Empire, the January Uprising of 1863, the nation preserved its identity through educational initiatives and through the program of "organic work" intended to modernize the economy and society. The opportunity to regain independence only materialized after World War I, when the three partitioning imperial powers suffered decline in the wake of war and revolution.
The Second Polish Republic, established in 1918, existed as an independent state until 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union destroyed it in their invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II. Millions of Polish citizens perished in the course of the Nazi occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945 as Germany classified ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Jews and Romani (Gypsies) as subhuman. Nazi authorities targeted the last two groups for extermination in the short term, deferring the extermination and/or enslavement of the Slavs as part of the "Generalplan Ost" ("General Plan for the East") conceived by the Nazi régime. A Polish government-in-exile nonetheless functioned throughout the war and the Poles contributed to the Allied victory through participation in military campaigns, including the final anti-German offensives, on both the eastern and western fronts. The westward advances of the Soviet Red Army in 1944 and 1945 compelled Nazi Germany's forces to retreat from Poland, which led to the establishment of a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union, known from 1952 as the Polish People's Republic.
As a result of territorial adjustments mandated by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II in 1945, Poland's geographic centre of gravity shifted towards the west and the re-defined Polish lands largely lost their traditional multi-ethnic character through the extermination, expulsion and migration of the various nationalities during and after the war.
By the late 1980s the Polish reform movement Solidarity became crucial in bringing about a peaceful transition from a communist state to the capitalist economic system and to liberal parliamentary democracy. This process resulted in the creation of the modern Polish state—the Polish Third Republic.
Prehistory and protohistory
Members of the Homo genus have lived in north Central Europe for thousands of years since its environment was altered by prehistoric glaciation. In prehistoric and protohistoric times, over a period of at least 500,000 years, the area of present-day Poland went through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age stages of development, along with the nearby regions. The Neolithic period ushered in the Linear Pottery culture, whose founders migrated from the Danube River area beginning about 5,500 BC. This culture was distinguished by the establishment of the first settled agricultural communities in modern Polish territory. Later, between about 4,400 and 2,000 BC, the native post-Mesolithic populations would also adopt and further develop the agricultural way of life.
Poland's Early Bronze Age began around 2300–2400 BC, whereas its Iron Age commenced c. 700–750 BC. One of the many cultures that have been uncovered, the Lusatian culture, spanned the Bronze and Iron Ages and left notable settlement sites. Around 400 BC, Poland was settled by La Tène culture Celtic arrivals. They were soon followed by emerging cultures with a strong Germanic component, influenced first by the Celts and then by the Roman Empire. The Germanic peoples migrated out of the area by about 500 AD during the great Migration Period of the European Dark Ages. Wooded regions to the north and east were settled by Balts.
According to mainstream archaeological research, Slavs have resided in modern Polish territories for over 1500 years. Recent genetic studies, however, determined that people who live in the current territory of Poland include the descendants of people who inhabited the area for thousands of years, beginning in the early Neolithic period.
Slavs on the territory of Poland were organized into tribal units, of which the larger ones were later known as the Polish tribes; the names of many tribes are found on the list compiled by the anonymous Bavarian Geographer in the 9th century. In the 9th and 10th centuries, these tribes gave rise to developed regions along the upper Vistula, the coast of the Baltic Sea and in Greater Poland. This latest tribal undertaking resulted in the formation of a lasting political structure in the 10th century that became the state of Poland, one of the West Slavic nations.
Piast period (10th century–1385)
Mieszko I
Poland was established as a nation state under the Piast dynasty, which ruled the country between the 10th and 14th centuries. Historical records of an official Polish state begin with Duke Mieszko I in the second half of the 10th century. Mieszko, who began his rule sometime before 963 and continued as the Polish monarch until his death in 992, chose to be baptized in the Western Latin Rite, probably on 14 April 966, following his marriage to Princess Dobrawa of Bohemia. This event became known as the baptism of Poland, and its date is often used to mark the beginning of Polish statehood symbolically. Mieszko completed a unification of the West Slavic tribal lands that was fundamental to the new country's existence. The Dagome iudex, a document from the year 991 AD, places Mieszko's country under the protection of the pope. Following its emergence, the Polish nation was led by a series of rulers who converted the population to Christianity, created a strong Kingdom of Poland and fostered a distinctive Polish culture that was integrated into broader European culture.
Bolesław I Chrobry
Mieszko's son, Duke Bolesław I Chrobry (r. 992–1025), established a Polish Church structure, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned the first king of Poland in 1025, near the end of his life. Bolesław also sought to spread Christianity to parts of eastern Europe that remained pagan, but suffered a setback when his greatest missionary, Adalbert of Prague, was killed in Prussia in 997. During the Congress of Gniezno in the year 1000, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III recognized the Archbishopric of Gniezno, an institution crucial for the continuing existence of the sovereign Polish state. During the reign of Otto's successor, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, Bolesław fought prolonged wars with the Kingdom of Germany between 1002 and 1018.
Piast monarchy under Casimir I, Bolesław II and Bolesław III
Bolesław's expansive rule overstretched the military resources of the early Polish state, and it was followed by a collapse of the monarchy. Restoration took place under Casimir I (r. 1039–58). Casimir's son Bolesław II the Bold (r. 1058–79) became involved in a conflict with Bishop Stanislaus of Szczepanów that seriously marred his reign. Bolesław had the bishop murdered in 1079 after being excommunicated by the Polish church on charges of adultery. This act sparked a revolt of Polish nobles that led to Bolesław's deposition and expulsion from the country. Around 1116, Gallus Anonymous wrote a seminal chronicle, the Gesta principum Polonorum, intended as a glorification of his patron Bolesław III Wrymouth (r. 1107–38), a ruler who revived the tradition of military prowess of Bolesław I's time. Gallus' work became important as a key source for the early history of Poland.
Fragmentation
After Bolesław III divided Poland among his sons in his Testament of 1138, internal fragmentation eroded the Piast monarchical structures in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1180, Casimir II, who sought papal confirmation of his status as a senior duke, granted immunities and additional privileges to the Polish Church at the Congress of Łęczyca. Around 1220, Wincenty Kadłubek wrote his Chronica seu originale regum et principum Poloniae, another major source for early Polish history. In 1226, one of the regional Piast dukes, Konrad I of Masovia, invited the Teutonic Knights to help him fight the Baltic Prussian pagans. Konrad's move caused centuries of warfare between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, and later between Poland and the German Prussian state. The first Mongol invasion of Poland began in 1240; it culminated in the defeat of Polish and allied Christian forces and the death of the Silesian Piast Duke Henry II at the Battle of Legnica in 1241. In 1242, Wrocław became the first Polish municipality to be incorporated, as the period of fragmentation brought economic development and growth of towns. In 1264, Bolesław the Pious granted Jewish liberties in the Statute of Kalisz.
Late Piast monarchy under Władysław I and Casimir III
Attempts to reunite the Polish lands gained momentum in the 13th century, and in 1295, Duke Przemysł II of Greater Poland managed to become the first ruler since Bolesław II to be crowned king of Poland. He ruled over a limited territory and was soon killed. In 1300–05 the Czech ruler Václav II also reigned as king of Poland. The Piast Kingdom was effectively restored under Władysław I the Elbow-high (r. 1306–33), who was crowned king in 1320. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights seized Gdańsk and the surrounding region (Pomerelia).
King Casimir III the Great (r. 1333–70), Władysław's son and the last of the Piast rulers, strengthened and expanded the restored Kingdom of Poland, but the western provinces of Silesia (formally ceded by Casimir in 1339) and most of Pomerania were lost to the Polish state for centuries to come. Progress was made in the recovery of the central province of Mazovia, however, and in 1340, the conquest of Red Ruthenia began, marking Poland's expansion to the east. The Congress of Kraków, a vast convocation of central, eastern, and northern European rulers probably assembled to plan an anti-Turkish crusade, took place in 1364, the same year that the future Jagiellonian University, one of the oldest European universities, was founded.
Angevin transition
After the Polish royal line and Piast junior branch died out in 1370, Poland came under the rule of Louis I of Hungary of the Angevin dynasty, who presided over a union of Hungary and Poland that lasted until 1382. In 1374, Louis granted the Polish nobility the Privilege of Koszyce to assure the succession of one of his daughters in Poland. His youngest daughter Jadwiga (died 1399) assumed the Polish throne in 1384.
Jagiellonian dynasty (1385–1572)
Dynastic union with Lithuania, Władysław II Jagiełło
In 1386, Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania became also a king of Poland, to rule as Władysław II Jagiełło until 1434. The act established a Polish–Lithuanian union ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty. The first in a series of formal "unions" was the Union of Krewo of 1385, whereby arrangements were made for the marriage of Jogaila and Queen Jadwiga. The Polish-Lithuanian partnership brought vast areas of Ruthenia controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into Poland's sphere of influence and proved beneficial for the nationals of both countries, who coexisted and cooperated in one of the largest political entities in Europe for the next four centuries (also after the extinction of the Jagellonian dynasty in 1572). When Queen Jadwiga died in 1399, the Kingdom of Poland fell to her husband's sole possession; her gifts helped to renew the activities of the University in 1400.
In the Baltic Sea region, Poland's struggle with the Teutonic Knights continued and culminated in the Battle of Grunwald (1410), a great victory that the Poles and Lithuanians were unable to follow up with a decisive strike against the main seat of the Order at Malbork Castle. The Union of Horodło of 1413 further defined the evolving relationship between the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their elites.
The privileges of the szlachta (nobility) kept growing and in 1425 the rule of Neminem captivabimus, which protected the noblemen from arbitrary royal arrests, was formulated.
Władysław III and Casimir IV Jagiellon
The reign of the young Władysław III (1434–44), a king of Poland and Hungary, was cut short by his death at the Battle of Varna fought against the forces of the Ottoman Empire.
Critical developments of the Jagiellonian period were concentrated in the long reign of Casimir IV Jagiellon (1447–92). In 1454, Royal Prussia was incorporated by Poland and the Thirteen Years' War of 1454–66 with the Teutonic state ensued. In 1466, the milestone Peace of Thorn was concluded. This treaty divided Prussia to create East Prussia, the future Duchy of Prussia, a separate entity that functioned as a fief of Poland under the administration of the Teutonic Knights. Poland also confronted the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars in the south, and in the east helped Lithuania fight the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The country was developing as a feudal state, with a predominantly agricultural economy and an increasingly dominant landed nobility. Kraków, the royal capital, was turning into a major academic and cultural center, and in 1473 the first printing press began operating there. With the growing importance of the szlachta, the king's council evolved to become by 1493 a bicameral general sejm (parliament) that no longer represented only the top dignitaries of the realm.
The Nihil novi act, adopted in 1505 by the Sejm, transferred most of the legislative power from the monarch to the Sejm. This event marked the beginning of the period known as "Golden Liberty", when the state was ruled in principle by the "free and equal" Polish nobility. In the 16th century, the massive development of folwark agribusinesses operated by the nobility led to increasingly abusive conditions for the peasant serfs who worked them. The political monopoly of the nobles also stifled the development of cities, some of which were thriving during the late Jagiellonian era, and limited the rights of townspeople, effectively holding back the emergence of a middle class.
Early modern Poland under Sigismund I and Sigismund II
Protestant Reformation movements made deep inroads into Polish Christianity and the resulting Reformation in Poland phenomenon involved a number of different denominations. The policies of religious tolerance that developed were nearly unique in Europe at that time and many who fled regions torn by religious strife found refuge in Poland. The reigns of King Sigismund I and King Sigismund II Augustus witnessed an intense cultivation of culture and science (a Golden Age of the Renaissance in Poland), of which the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (died 1543) is the best known representative. In 1525, during the reign of Sigismud I (1506–48), the Teutonic Order was secularized and Duke Albrecht von Hohenzollern performed an act of homage before the Polish king (the Prussian Homage) for his fief, the Duchy of Prussia. Mazovia was finally fully incorporated into the Polish Crown in 1529.
The reign of Sigismund II (1548–72) ended the Jagiellonian period, but gave rise to the Union of Lublin (1569), the ultimate fulfillment of the union with Lithuania. This agreement transferred Ukraine from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Poland and transformed the Polish-Lithuanian polity into a real union, preserving it beyond the death of the childless Sigismund II, whose active involvement made the completion of this process possible.
Livonia in the far northeast was incorporated by Poland in 1561 and Poland entered the Livonian War against Russia. The executionist movement (an attempt to prevent domination by the magnate families of Poland and Lithuania) peaked at the sejm in Piotrków in 1562–63. On the religious front, the Polish Brethren split from the Calvinists, and the Protestant Brest Bible was published in 1563. The Jesuits, who arrived in 1564, were destined to make a major impact on Poland's history.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Establishment (1569–1648)
Union of Lublin
The Union of Lublin of 1569 established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unified federal state than the earlier political arrangement between Poland and Lithuania. The Union was largely run by the nobility through the system of a central parliament and local assemblies, but was led by elected kings. The formal rule of the nobility, who were proportionally more numerous than in other European countries, constituted an early democratic system ("a sophisticated noble democracy"), in contrast to the absolute monarchies prevalent at that time in the rest of Europe. The beginning of the Commonwealth coincided with a period in Polish history of great political power, advancements in civilization and prosperity. The Polish–Lithuanian Union became an influential player in Europe and a vital cultural entity that spread Western culture (with Polish characteristics) eastward. In the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, the Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous states in contemporary Europe, with an area approaching one million square kilometres and a population of about ten million. Its economy was dominated by export-focused agriculture. Nationwide religious toleration was guaranteed at the Warsaw Confederation in 1573.
First elective kings
After the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty had ended, Henry of Valois (later King Henry III of France) was the winner of the first "free election" by the Polish nobility in 1573. He had to agree to the restrictive pacta conventa obligations, but soon fled Poland when news arrived of the vacancy of the French throne, to which he was the heir presumptive. From the start, the royal elections increased foreign influence in the Commonwealth as foreign powers sought to manipulate the Polish nobility to place candidates amicable to their interests.
The reign of Stephen Báthory of Hungary (1576–86) followed; he was militarily and domestically assertive. The establishment of the legal Crown Tribunal in 1578 meant a transfer of many appellate cases from the royal to noble jurisdiction. Jan Kochanowski, a poet and the premier artistic personality of the Polish Renaissance, died in 1584.
Vasa dynasty kings
The Commonwealth suffered from dynastic distractions (the Vasa kings unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the Swedish crown and prioritized this activity) during the reigns of the Swedish House of Vasa kings Sigismund III (1587–1632) and Władysław IV (1632–48). The Catholic Church embarked on an ideological counter-offensive and the Counter-Reformation claimed many converts from Polish and Lithuanian Protestant circles. In 1596, the Union of Brest split the Eastern Christians of the Commonwealth to create the Uniate Church of the Eastern Rite, but subject to the authority of the pope. The Zebrzydowski Rebellion against Sigismund III unfolded in 1606–8.
The Commonwealth fought wars between 1605 and 1618 with Russia for supremacy in Eastern Europe in the wake of Russia's Time of Troubles, a period referred to as the Polish–Muscovite War (or the "Dymitriads"). The efforts resulted in expansion of the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the goal of taking over the Russian throne for the Polish ruling dynasty was not achieved. Sweden sought supremacy in the Baltic during the Polish–Swedish wars of 1617–29, and the Ottoman Empire pressed from the south in the Battles at Cecora in 1620 and Khotyn in 1621. The agricultural expansion and serfdom policies in Polish Ukraine resulted in a series of Cossack uprisings. Allied with the Habsburg Monarchy, the Commonwealth did not directly participate in the Thirty Years' War. Władysław's IV reign was mostly peaceful, with a Russian invasion in the form of the Smolensk War of 1632–34 successfully repelled. The Orthodox Church hierarchy, banned in Poland after the Union of Brest, was re-established in 1635.
Decline (1648–1764)
Deluge of wars
During the reign of John II Casimir Vasa (1648–68), the nobles' democracy fell into decline as a result of foreign invasions and domestic disorder. These calamities multiplied rather suddenly and marked the end of the Polish Golden Age. Their effect was to render the once powerful Commonwealth increasingly vulnerable to foreign intervention.
The Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–57, a nationwide attempt to liberate Ukraine, engulfed the south-eastern regions of the Polish crown; its long-term effects were disastrous for the Commonwealth. The first liberum veto (a parliamentary device that allowed any member of the Sejm to dissolve a current session immediately) was exercised by a deputy in 1652. This practice would eventually weaken Poland's central government critically. In the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654), the Ukrainian rebels declared themselves subjects of the Tsar of Russia. The Second Northern War raged through the core Polish lands in 1655–60, including an invasion of Poland so brutal and devastating that it is referred to as the Swedish Deluge. The war ended in 1660 with the Treaty of Oliva, which resulted in the loss of some of Poland's northern possessions. In 1657 the Treaty of Wehlau-Bromberg established the independence of the Duchy of Prussia. The Commonwealth forces did well in the Russo-Polish War of 1654–67, but the end result was the permanent division of Ukraine between Poland and Russia, as agreed to in the Truce of Andrusovo (1667). Towards the end of the war, the Rokosz of Lubomirski, a major magnate rebellion against the king, destabilized and weakened the country. The large-scale slave raids of the Crimean Tatars also had highly deleterious effects on the Polish economy. Merkuriusz Polski, the first Polish newspaper, was published in 1661.
John III Sobieski and last military victories
The Second Polish–Ottoman War (1672–76) broke out during the reign of King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki (1669–73) and continued under his successor, John III Sobieski (1674–96). Sobieski intended to pursue Baltic area expansion (and to this end he signed the secret Treaty of Jaworów with France in 1675), but was forced instead to fight protracted wars with the Ottoman Empire. By doing so the hetman who became king briefly revived the Commonwealth's military might. He defeated the expanding Muslims at the Battle of Khotyn in 1673 and decisively helped deliver Vienna from a Turkish onslaught at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Sobieski's reign marked the last high point in the history of the Commonwealth: in the first half of the 18th century Poland ceased to be an active player in international politics. The Eternal Peace Treaty with Russia of 1686 was the final border settlement between the two countries before the First Partition of Poland in 1772.
The Commonwealth, subjected to almost constant warfare until 1720, suffered enormous population losses and massive damage to its economy and social structure. The government became ineffective in the wake of large-scale internal conflicts, corrupted legislative processes and manipulation by foreign interests. The nobility fell under the control of a handful of feuding magnate families with established territorial domains. The urban population and infrastructure fell into ruin, together with most peasant farms, whose inhabitants were subjected to increasingly extreme forms of serfdom. The development of science, culture and education came to a halt or regressed.
Saxon kings
The royal election of 1697 brought a ruler of the Saxon House of Wettin to the Polish throne: Augustus II, "the Strong" (r. 1697–1733), who was able to assume the throne only by agreeing to convert to Roman Catholicism. He was succeeded eventually by his son Augustus III (r. 1734–63). The reigns of the Saxon kings (who were both simultaneously prince-electors of Saxony) were disrupted by competing candidates for the throne and witnessed further disintegration of the Commonwealth. The Great Northern War (1700–21), a period seen by the contemporaries as a temporary eclipse, may have been the fatal blow that brought down the Polish political system. Stanisław Leszczyński was installed as king in 1704 under Swedish protection, but lasted only a few years. The Silent Sejm of 1717 marked the beginning of the Commonwealth's existence as a Russian protectorate: the Tsardom would guarantee the reform-impeding Golden Liberty of the nobility from that time on in order to cement the Commonwealth's weak central authority and a state of perpetual political impotence. In a resounding break with traditions of religious tolerance, Protestants were executed during the Tumult of Thorn in 1724. In 1732 Russia, Austria and Prussia, Poland's three increasingly powerful and scheming neighbors, entered into the secret Treaty of the Three Black Eagles with the intention of controlling the future royal succession in the Commonwealth. The War of the Polish Succession was fought in 1733–35 to assist Leszczyński in assuming the throne of Poland for a second time. Amidst considerable foreign involvement, his efforts were unsuccessful. The Kingdom of Prussia became a strong regional power and succeeded in wresting the historically Polish province of Silesia from the Habsburg Monarchy in the Silesian Wars; it thus became an ever greater threat to Poland's security. The personal union between the Commonwealth and the Electorate of Saxony did give rise to the emergence of a reform movement in the Commonwealth and the beginnings of the Polish Enlightenment culture, the major positive developments of this era. The first Polish public library was the Załuski Library in Warsaw, opened to the public in 1747.
Reforms and loss of statehood (1764–95)
Czartoryski reforms and Stanisław August Poniatowski
During the later part of the 18th century, fundamental internal reforms were attempted in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as it slid into extinction. The reform activity, initially promoted by the magnate Czartoryski family faction known as the Familia, provoked a hostile reaction and eventually a military response on the part of neighboring powers—yet it created conditions that fostered economic improvement. The most populous urban center, the capital city of Warsaw, replaced Danzig (Gdańsk) as the leading trade center, and the importance of the more prosperous urban strata increased. The last decades of the independent Commonwealth's existence were characterized by intense reform movements and far-reaching progress in the areas of education, intellectual life, art, and, especially toward the end of the period, in the evolution of the social and political system.
The royal election of 1764 resulted in the elevation of Stanisław August Poniatowski, a refined and worldly aristocrat connected to the Czartoryski family, but hand-picked and imposed by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who expected him to be her obedient follower. Stanisław August ruled the Polish–Lithuanian state until its dissolution in 1795. The king spent his reign torn between his desire to implement reforms necessary to save the failing state and the perceived necessity of remaining in a subordinate relationship to his Russian sponsors.
The Bar Confederation (1768–72) was a noble rebellion directed against Russia's influence in general and Stanisław August, who was seen as its representative, in particular. It was fought to preserve Poland's independence and the nobility's traditional interests. After several years, it was brought under control by forces loyal to the king and those of the Russian Empire.
Following the suppression of the Bar Confederation, at the instigation of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Poland was divided up among Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772, with only a rump state remaining. In what became known as the First Partition of Poland, the outer provinces of the Commonwealth were seized by agreement among the country's three powerful neighbors. In 1773, the Partition Sejm "ratified" under duress the partition as a fait accompli. However, it also established the Commission of National Education, a pioneering in Europe education authority often called the world's first ministry of education.
Great Sejm and May 3 Constitution
The long-lasting Sejm convened by Stanisław August in 1788 is known as the Great Sejm, or "Four-Year" Sejm. Its landmark achievement was the passing of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first singular pronouncement of a supreme law of the state in modern Europe, also characterized as the world's third oldest constitution. A reformist but moderate document condemned by detractors as being of French revolutionary sympathies, it soon generated strong opposition from the conservative circles of the Commonwealth's upper nobility and the Russian Empress Catherine, who was determined to prevent the rebirth of a strong Commonwealth. The nobility's Targowica Confederation, formed in Russian imperial capital of Saint Petersburg, appealed to Catherine for help, and in May 1792, the Russian army entered the Commonwealth's territory. The Polish–Russian War of 1792, a defensive war fought by the forces of the Commonwealth against Russian invaders, ended when the Polish king, convinced of the futility of resistance, capitulated by joining the Targowica Confederation. The Confederation took over the government, but Russia and Prussia in 1793 arranged for the Second Partition of Poland, which left the country with a critically reduced territory that rendered it essentially incapable of an independent existence. The Commonwealth's Grodno Sejm of 1793, the last Sejm of its existence, was compelled to confirm the new partition.
Kościuszko Uprising and loss of independence
Radicalized by recent events, Polish reformers (whether in exile or still resident in the reduced area remaining to the Commonwealth) were soon working on preparations for a national insurrection. Tadeusz Kościuszko, a popular general and a veteran of the American Revolution, was chosen as its leader. He returned from abroad and issued Kościuszko's proclamation in Kraków on March 24, 1794. It called for a national uprising under his supreme command. Kościuszko emancipated many peasants in order to enroll them as kosynierzy in his army, but the hard-fought insurrection, despite widespread national support, proved incapable of generating the foreign assistance necessary for its success. In the end it was suppressed by the combined forces of Russia and Prussia, with Warsaw captured in November 1794 at the Battle of Praga. In 1795, a Third Partition of Poland was undertaken by all three of the partitioning powers (Russia, Prussia and Austria) as a final division of territory that resulted in the effective dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish king was escorted to Grodno, forced to abdicate, and retired to Saint Petersburg. Kościuszko, initially imprisoned, was allowed to emigrate to the United States in 1796.
The response of the Polish leadership to the last partition is a matter of historical debate. Literary scholars found that the dominant emotion of the first decade was despair that produced a moral desert ruled by violence and treason. On the other hand, historians have looked for signs of resistance to foreign rule. Apart from those who went into exile, the nobility took oaths of loyalty to their new rulers and served as officers in their armies.
Partitioned Poland
Armed resistance (1795–1864)
Napoleonic wars
Although no sovereign Polish state existed between 1795 and 1918, the idea of Polish independence was kept alive throughout the 19th century. There were a number of uprisings and other military conflicts against the partitioning powers. Military efforts after the partitions were first based on the alliances of Polish émigrés with post-revolutionary France. Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's Polish Legions fought in French campaigns outside of Poland between 1797 and 1802 in hopes that their involvement and contribution would be rewarded with the liberation of their Polish homeland. The Polish national anthem, "Poland Is Not Yet Lost", or "Dąbrowski's Mazurka", was written in praise of his actions by Józef Wybicki in 1797.
The Duchy of Warsaw, a small, semi-independent Polish state, was created in 1807 by Napoleon Bonaparte in the wake of his defeat of Prussia and the signing of the Peace of Tilsit with Emperor Alexander I of Russia. The Army of the Duchy of Warsaw, led by Józef Poniatowski, participated in numerous campaigns in alliance with France, including the successful Polish–Austrian War of 1809, which, combined with the outcomes of other theaters of the War of the Fifth Coalition, resulted in an enlargement of the Duchy's territory. The French invasion of Russia in 1812 and the German campaign of 1813 saw the Duchy's last military engagements. The Constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw abolished serfdom as a reflection of the ideals of the French Revolution, but it did not promote land reform.
Congress of Vienna
After Napoleon's defeat, a new European order was established at the Congress of Vienna. Adam Czartoryski, a former close associate of Alexander I, became the leading advocate for the Polish national cause. The Congress implemented a new partition scheme, which took into account some of the gains realized by the Poles during the Napoleonic period. The Duchy of Warsaw was replaced in 1815 with a new Kingdom of Poland, unofficially known as Congress Poland. The residual Polish kingdom was joined to the Russian Empire in a personal union under the Russian tsar, and it was allowed its own constitution and military. East of the Kingdom, large areas of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth remained directly incorporated into the Russian Empire as the Western Krai; both these territories are generally referred to as the Russian Partition. The Russian, Prussian, and Austrian "partitions" were the lands of the former Commonwealth, not actual units of its administrative division. The Prussian Partition was formed from territories acquired from Poland and included a portion separated as the Grand Duchy of Posen. Peasants under the Prussian administration were gradually enfranchised under the reforms of 1811 and 1823. The limited legal reforms in the Austrian Partition were overshadowed by its rural poverty. The Free City of Kraków was a tiny republic newly created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 under the joint supervision of the three partitioning powers. As bleak as the new political divisions of the former Commonwealth were to Polish patriots, economic progress was made because the period after the Congress of Vienna witnessed a significant development in the building of early industry in the lands taken over by foreign powers.
Uprising of November 1830
The increasingly repressive policies of the partitioning powers led to resistance movements in partitioned Poland, and in 1830 Polish patriots staged the November Uprising. This revolt developed into a full-scale war with Russia, but the leadership was taken over by Polish conservatives who were reluctant to challenge the Empire and hostile to broadening the independence movement's social base through measures such as land reform. Despite the significant resources mobilized, a series of mistakes by several successive chief commanders appointed by the Polish government who were either reluctant to serve or performed incompetently in battle led to the defeat of the insurgents by the Russian army in 1831. Congress Poland lost its constitution and military, but formally remained a separate administrative unit within the Russian Empire.
After the defeat of the November Uprising, thousands of former Polish combatants and other activists emigrated to Western Europe. This phenomenon, known as the Great Emigration, soon dominated Polish political and intellectual life. Together with the leaders of the independence movement, the Polish community abroad included the greatest Polish literary and artistic minds, including the Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz (traditionally considered Poland's greatest poet, who died as an émigré in 1855), Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Norwid, and the composer Frédéric Chopin. In occupied and repressed Poland, some sought progress through nonviolent activism focused on education and economy, known as organic work; others, in cooperation with emigrant circles, organized conspiracies and prepared for the next armed insurrection.
Spring of Nations era revolts
After the authorities in the partitions had found out about secret preparations, the planned national uprising failed to materialize. The Greater Poland Uprising ended in a fiasco in early 1846. In the Kraków Uprising of February 1846, patriotic action was combined with revolutionary demands, but the result was the incorporation of the Republic of Kraków into the Austrian Partition. The Austrian officials took advantage of peasant discontent and incited villagers against the noble-dominated insurgent units. This resulted in the Galician slaughter (1846), a large-scale rebellion of serfs seeking relief from their post-feudal folwark condition of slavery. The uprising freed many from bondage and hastened decisions that led to peasant enfranchisement in the Austrian Empire (1848). A new wave of Polish military and other involvement, in the partitions and in other parts of Europe (e.g. Józef Bem in Austria and Hungary), soon took place in the context of the 1848 Spring of Nations revolutions. In particular, the events in Berlin precipitated the Greater Poland Uprising, where peasants in the Prussian Partition, who were by then largely enfranchised, played a prominent role.
Uprising of January 1863
Despite the limited liberalization measures allowed in the Kingdom of Poland under the rule of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, a renewal of popular liberation activities took place in 1860–61. During large-scale demonstrations in Warsaw, Russian forces inflicted numerous casualties on the civilian participants. The "Red", or left-wing faction, which promoted peasant enfranchisement and cooperated with the Russian revolutionaries, became involved in immediate preparations for a national uprising. The "White", or right-wing faction, was inclined to cooperate with the Russian authorities and countered with partial reform proposals. In order to cripple the manpower potential of the Reds, Aleksander Wielopolski, the conservative leader of the Kingdom's government, arranged for a partial selective conscription of young Poles for the Russian army in the years 1862 and 1863. This action hastened the outbreak of hostilities. The January Uprising, joined and led after the initial period by the Whites, was fought by partisan units against an overwhelmingly advantaged enemy. The war lasted from January 1863 to the spring of 1864, when Romuald Traugutt, the last supreme commander of the insurgency, was captured by the tsarist police.
On 2 March 1864, the Russian authority, compelled by the Uprising to compete for the loyalty of Polish peasants, officially published an enfranchisement decree in Congress Poland along the lines of an earlier land reform proclamation of the insurgents. The act created the conditions necessary for the development of the capitalist system on central Polish lands. At the time when the futility of armed resistance without external support was realized by most Poles, the various sections of Polish society were undergoing deep and far-reaching social, economic and cultural changes.
Formation of modern Polish society under foreign rule (1864–1914)
Repression and organic work
The failure of the January Uprising in Poland caused a major psychological trauma and became a historic watershed; indeed, it sparked the development of modern Polish nationalism. The Poles, subjected within the territories under the Russian and Prussian administrations to still stricter controls and increased persecution, preserved their identity in non-violent ways. After the Uprising, Congress Poland was downgraded in official usage from the "Kingdom of Poland" to the "Vistula Land" and was more fully integrated into Russia proper, but not entirely obliterated. The Russian and German languages were imposed in all public communication, and the Catholic Church was not spared from severe repression; public education was increasingly subjected to Russification and Germanization measures. Illiteracy was reduced, most effectively in the Prussian partition, but education in Polish was preserved mostly through unofficial efforts. The Prussian government pursued German colonization, including the purchase of Polish-owned land. On the other hand, the region of Galicia in western Ukraine and southern Poland, experienced a gradual relaxation of authoritarian policies and even a Polish cultural revival. Economically and socially backward, it was under the milder rule of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and from 1867 allowed increasingly limited autonomy. Stańczycy, a conservative Polish pro-Austrian faction led by great land owners, dominated the Galician government. The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in Kraków in 1872. Positivism replaced Romanticism as the leading intellectual, social and literary trend.
Social activities termed "organic work" consisted of self-help organizations that promoted economic advancement and worked on improving the competitiveness of Polish-owned businesses: industrial, agricultural or other. New commercial methods and ways of generating higher productivity were discussed and implemented through trade associations and special interest groups, while Polish banking and cooperative financial institutions made the necessary business loans available. The other major area of effort in organic work was the educational and intellectual development of the common people. Many libraries and reading rooms were established in small towns and villages, and numerous printed periodicals reflected the growing interest in popular education. Scientific and educational societies were active in a number of cities. Such activities were most pronounced in the Prussian Partition.
Economic development and social change
Under the partitioning powers, large-scale industrialization, economic diversification and progress were introduced in the traditionally agrarian Polish lands, but this development turned out to be very uneven. In the Prussian Partition, advanced agriculture was practiced, except for Upper Silesia, where the coal-mining industry created a large labor force. The densest network of railroads was built in German-ruled western Poland. In Russian Congress Poland, a striking growth of industry, railways and towns was taking place, all against the background of an extensive, but less productive agriculture. Warsaw (a metallurgical center) and Łódź (a textiles center) grew rapidly, as did the total proportion of the urban population, making the region the most advanced in the Russian Empire (industrial production exceeded agricultural production by 1909). The coming of the railways spurred some industrial growth even in the vast Russian Partition territories outside Congress Poland. The Austrian Partition was rural and poor, except for the industrialized Cieszyn Silesia area. Galician economic expansion after 1890 included oil extraction and resulted in the growth of Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv) and Kraków.
Economic and social changes involving land reform and industrialization, combined with the effects of foreign domination, altered the centuries-old social structure of Polish society. Among the newly emergent strata were wealthy industrialists and financiers, distinct from the traditional, but still critically important landed aristocracy. The intelligentsia, an educated, professional or business middle class, often originated from lower gentry, landless or alienated from their rural possessions, and from urban people. Many smaller agricultural enterprises based on serfdom did not survive the land reforms. The industrial proletariat, a new underprivileged class, was composed mainly of poor peasants or townspeople forced by deteriorating conditions to migrate and search for work in urban centers in their countries of origin or abroad. Millions of residents of the former Commonwealth of various ethnic groups worked or settled in Europe and in North and South America.
Social and economic changes were partial and gradual, and the degree of (fast-paced in some areas) industrialization generally lagged behind the advanced regions of western Europe. The three partitions developed different economies and were more economically integrated with their mother states than with each other (for example the Prussian Partition's agricultural production depended heavily on the German market, whereas the industrial sector of Congress Poland relied more on the Russian market).
Nationalism, socialism and other movements
In the 1870s–90s, large-scale socialist, nationalist, agrarian and other political movements of great ideological fervor became established in partitioned Poland and Lithuania, along with corresponding political parties to promote them. Of the major parties, the socialist First Proletariat was founded in 1882, the Polish League (precursor of National Democracy) in 1887, the Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia in 1890, the Polish Socialist Party in 1892, the Marxist SDKPiL in 1893, the agrarian People's Party of Galicia in 1895 and the Jewish socialist Bund in 1897. Christian democracy regional associations allied with the Catholic Church were also active; they united into the Polish Christian Democratic Party in 1919. The main minority ethnic groups of the former Commonwealth, including Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews, were getting involved in their own national movements and plans, which met with disapproval on the part of those Polish independence activists who counted on an eventual rebirth of the Commonwealth or the rise of a Commonwealth-inspired federal structure (a political movement referred to as Prometheism).
Around the start of the 20th century, the Young Poland cultural movement, centered in Galicia, took advantage of a milieu conducive to liberal expression in that region and was the source of Poland's finest artistic and literary productions. In this same era, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, a pioneer radiation scientist, performed her groundbreaking research in Paris.
Revolution of 1905
The Revolution of 1905–07 in Russian Poland, the result of many years of pent-up political frustrations and stifled national ambitions, was marked by political maneuvering, strikes and rebellion. The revolt was part of much broader disturbances throughout the Russian Empire associated with the general Revolution of 1905. In Poland, the principal revolutionary figures were Roman Dmowski and Józef Piłsudski. Dmowski was associated with the right-wing nationalist movement National Democracy, whereas Piłsudski was associated with the Polish Socialist Party. As the authorities re-established control within the Russian Empire, the revolt in Congress Poland, placed under martial law, withered as well, partially as a result of tsarist concessions in the areas of national and workers' rights, including Polish representation in the newly created Russian Duma. Some of the acquired gains were, however, rolled back, which coupled with intensified Germanization in the Prussian Partition, left Austrian Galicia as the territory most amenable to patriotic action.
In the Austrian Partition, Polish culture was openly cultivated, and in the Prussian Partition, higher standards of developed civilization were achieved, but the Russian Partition remained of primary importance for the Polish nation and its aspirations. About 15.5 million Polish-speakers lived in core central and western Poland, over a relatively small and compact territory. Much fewer were spread in the east: 1.3 million in Austrian Eastern Galicia and about 2 million along Russia's western districts, with the heaviest concentration in the Vilnius Region.
Polish paramilitary organizations oriented toward independence, such as the Union of Active Struggle, were being formed in 1908–14, mainly in Galicia. The Poles were divided, and their political parties fragmented on the eve of World War I, with Dmowski's National Democracy (pro-Entente) and Piłsudski's faction assuming opposing positions.
World War I and Poland's independence issue
The outbreak of World War I in the Polish lands offered Poles unexpected hopes for achieving independence as a result of the turbulence that engulfed the empires of the partitioning powers. All three of the monarchies that had benefited from the partition of Polish territories (Germany, Austria and Russia) were dissolved by the end of the war, and many of their territories were dispersed into new political units. At the start of the war, the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of the partitioning powers in a war that was not theirs. Furthermore, they were frequently forced to fight each other, since the armies of Germany and Austria were allied against Russia. Piłsudski's paramilitary units stationed in Galicia were turned into the Polish Legions in 1914, and as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Army, they fought on the Russian front until 1917, when the formation was disbanded. Piłsudski, who refused the demands that his men fight under German command, was arrested and imprisoned by the Germans and became a heroic symbol of Polish nationalism.
Due to a series of German victories on the Eastern Front, the area of Congress Poland became occupied by the Central Powers of Germany and Austria; Warsaw was captured by the Germans on 5 August 1915. In the Act of 5th November 1916, a fresh incarnation of the Kingdom of Poland (Królestwo Regencyjne) was created by Germany and Austria on formerly Russian-controlled territories within the German Mitteleuropa scheme. The sponsor states were never able to agree on a candidate to assume the throne, however; rather, it was governed in turn by German and Austrian Governor-Generals, a Provisional Council of State, and a Regency Council. This puppet, but increasingly autonomous state existed until November 1918, when it was replaced by the newly established Republic of Poland. The existence of this "kingdom" and its planned Polish army had a positive effect on the Polish national efforts on the Allied side. But the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) between Germany and defeated Russia ignored Polish interests.
The independence of Poland had been campaigned for in Russia and in the West by Dmowski and in the West by Ignacy Paderewski. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and then the leaders of the February Revolution and the October Revolution of 1917, installed governments who declared in turn their support for Polish independence. In 1917, France formed the Blue Army (placed under Józef Haller) that comprised about 70,000 Poles by the end of the war, including men captured from German and Austrian units and 20,000 volunteers from the U.S. There was also a 30,000-men strong Polish anti-German army in Russia. Dmowski, operating from Paris as head of the Polish National Committee (KNP), became the spokesman for Polish nationalism in the Allied camp. On the initiative of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, Polish independence was officially endorsed by the Allies in June 1918.
In all, about two million Poles served in the war, counting both sides, and about 400–450,000 died. Much of the fighting on the Eastern Front took place in Poland, and civilian casualties and devastation were high. Total World War I casualties from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within the 1919–39 borders of Poland, were estimated at 1,128,000.
The final upsurge of the push for independence of Poland took place on the ground in October–November 1918. With the end of the war, Austro-Hungarian and German units were being disarmed, and the Austrian army's collapse freed Cieszyn and Kraków at the end of October. Lviv was then contested in the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–19. Ignacy Daszyński headed the first short-lived independent Polish government in Lublin from November 7, the leftist Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, which was proclaimed as a democracy. Germany, now defeated, was forced by the Allies to stand down its large military forces in Poland. Overtaken by the German Revolution of 1918–19 at home, the Germans released Piłsudski from prison. He arrived in Warsaw on November 10 and was granted extensive authority by the Kingdom's Regency Council, which was also recognized by the Lublin government. On November 22 Piłsudski became the temporary head of state. He was held by many in high regard, but was resented by the right-wing National Democrats. The emerging Polish state was internally divided, heavily war-damaged and economically dysfunctional.
Second Polish Republic (1918–39)
Securing national borders, war with Soviet Russia
After more than a century of foreign rule, Poland regained its independence at the end of World War I as one of the outcomes of the negotiations that took place at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The Treaty of Versailles that emerged from the conference set up an independent nation with an outlet to the sea, but left some of its boundaries to be decided by plebiscites. The largely German Free City of Danzig was granted a separate status that guaranteed its use as a port by Poland. In the end, the settlement of the German-Polish border turned out to be a prolonged and convoluted process. It helped engender the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–19, the three Silesian Uprisings of 1919–21, the East Prussian plebiscite of 1920, the Upper Silesia plebiscite of 1921 and the 1922 Silesian Convention in Geneva.
Other boundaries were settled by war and subsequent treaties. A total of six border wars were fought in 1918–21, including the Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts over Cieszyn Silesia in January 1919.
As distressing as these border conflicts were, the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–21 was the most important conflict of the era. Piłsudski had entertained far-reaching anti-Russian cooperative designs in Eastern Europe, and in 1919 the Polish forces pushed eastward into Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine by taking advantage of the Russian preoccupation with the civil war, but they were soon confronted with the Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19. Western Ukraine was already a theater of the Polish–Ukrainian War, which eliminated the proclaimed West Ukrainian People's Republic in July 1919. In the autumn of 1919, Piłsudski rejected urgent pleas from the former Entente powers to support Anton Denikin's White movement in its advance on Moscow. The Polish–Soviet War proper began with the Polish Kiev Offensive in April 1920. Allied with the Directorate of Ukraine of the Ukrainian People's Republic, by June the Polish armies had advanced past Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev. At that time, a massive Soviet counter-offensive pushed the Poles out of most of Ukraine. On the northern front, the Soviet army reached the outskirts of Warsaw in early August. A Soviet triumph and the quick end of Poland seemed inevitable. However, the Poles scored a stunning victory at the Battle of Warsaw. Afterwards, more Polish military successes followed, the Soviets had to pull back and left swathes of territory occupied largely by Belarusians or Ukrainians to Polish rule. The new eastern boundary was finalized by the Peace of Riga in 1921.
The defeat of the Russian armies forced Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet leadership to postpone their strategic objective of linking up with the German and other European revolutionary-minded comrades and spread communist revolution. Lenin's hope of generating support for the Red Army in Poland had already failed to materialize. Piłsudski's seizure of Vilnius in October 1920 (known as Żeligowski's Mutiny) was a nail in the coffin of the already poor Polish–Lithuanian relations that had been strained by the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1919–20; both states would remain hostile to one another for the remainder of the interwar period. Piłsudski's planned Intermarium (an East European federation of states inspired by the tradition of the multiethnic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that would include a hypothetical multinational successor state to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) thus became incompatible with his assumption of Polish domination and encroachment on neighboring peoples' lands and aspirations at the time of rising national movements. It soon ceased to be a feature of Poland's politics. A larger federated structure was also opposed by Dmowski's National Democrats. Their representative at the Peace of Riga talks, Stanisław Grabski, opted for leaving Minsk, Berdychiv, Kamianets-Podilskyi and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border, since the National Democrats did not want to permit population shifts that they considered politically undesirable, especially if the transfers would result in a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.
The Peace of Riga settled the eastern border by preserving for Poland a substantial portion of the old Commonwealth's eastern territories, at the cost of partitioning the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuania and Belarus) and Ukraine. The Ukrainians ended up with no state of their own and felt betrayed by the Riga arrangements; their resentment gave rise to extreme nationalism and anti-Polish hostility. The Kresy (or borderland) territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943–45, who at that time compensated the re-emerging Polish state for the eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with conquered areas of eastern Germany.
The successful outcome of the Polish–Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of its prowess as a self-sufficient military power and encouraged the government to try to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions. The territorial and ethnic policies of the interwar period contributed to bad relations with most of Poland's neighbors and to uneasy cooperation with the more distant centers of power, including France, Britain and the League of Nations.
Democratic politics
Among the chief difficulties faced by the government of the new Polish republic was the lack of an integrated infrastructure among the formerly separate partitions, a deficiency that disrupted industry, transportation, trade and other areas.
The first Polish legislative election for the re-established Sejm of the Republic of Poland took place in January 1919. A temporary Small Constitution was passed by the body the following month.
The rapidly growing population of Poland within its new boundaries was ¾ agricultural and ¼ urban; Polish was the primary language of only ⅔ of the inhabitants of the new country. The minorities had very little voice in the government. The permanent March Constitution of Poland was adopted in March 1921. At the insistence of the National Democrats, who were concerned how aggressively Józef Piłsudski might exercise presidential powers if he were elected to office, the constitution mandated limited prerogatives for the presidency.
The proclamation of the March Constitution was followed by a short and turbulent period of constitutional order and parliamentary democracy that lasted until 1926. The legislature remained fragmented, without stable majorities, and governments changed frequently. The open-minded Gabriel Narutowicz was elected president constitutionally (without a popular vote) by the National Assembly in 1922. However, members of the nationalist right-wing faction did not regard his elevation as legitimate. They viewed Narutowicz rather as a traitor whose election was pushed through by the votes of alien minorities. Narutowicz and his supporters were subjected to an intense harassment campaign, and the president was assassinated on December 16, 1922, after serving only five days in office.
Corruption was held to be commonplace in the political culture of the early Polish Republic. However, the investigations conducted by the new regime after the 1926 May Coup failed to uncover any major affair or corruption scheme within the state apparatus of its predecessors.
Land reform measures were passed in 1919 and 1925 under pressure from an impoverished peasantry. They were partially implemented, but resulted in the parcellation of only 20% of the great agricultural estates. Poland endured numerous economic calamities and disruptions in the early 1920s, including waves of workers' strikes such as the 1923 Kraków riot. The German–Polish customs war, initiated by Germany in 1925, was one of the most damaging external factors that put a strain on Poland's economy. On the other hand, there were also signs of progress and stabilization, for example a critical reform of finances carried out by the competent government of Władysław Grabski, which lasted almost two years. Certain other achievements of the democratic period having to do with the management of governmental and civic institutions necessary to the functioning of the reunited state and nation, were too easily overlooked. Lurking on the sidelines was a disgusted army officer corps, unwilling to subject itself to civilian control but ready to follow the retired Piłsudski, who was highly popular with Poles and just as dissatisfied with the Polish system of government as his former colleagues in the military.
Piłsudski's coup and the Sanation Era
On May 12, 1926, Piłsudski staged the May Coup, a military overthrow of the civilian government mounted against President Stanisław Wojciechowski and the troops loyal to the legitimate government. Hundreds died in fratricidal fighting. Piłsudski was supported by several leftist factions, who ensured the success of his coup by blocking the railway transportation of government forces. He also had the support of the conservative great landowners, which left the right-wing National Democrats as the only major social force opposed to the takeover.
Following the coup, the new regime initially respected many parliamentary formalities, but gradually tightened its control and abandoned pretenses. Centrolew, a coalition of center-left parties, was formed in 1929, and in 1930 called for the "abolition of dictatorship". In 1930 the Sejm was dissolved and a number of opposition deputies were imprisoned at the Brest Fortress. Five thousand political opponents were arrested ahead of the Polish legislative election of 1930, which was rigged to award a majority of seats to the pro-regime Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR).
The authoritarian "Sanation" regime (meant to denote a "healing" regime) that Piłsudski led until his death in 1935 (and would remain in place until 1939) reflected the dictator's evolution from his center-left past to conservative alliances. Political institutions and parties were allowed to function, but the electoral process was manipulated and those not willing to cooperate submissively were subjected to repression. From 1930, persistent opponents of the regime, many of the leftist persuasion, were imprisoned and subjected to staged legal processes with harsh sentences, such as the Brest trials, or else detained in the Bereza Kartuska prison and similar camps for political prisoners. About three thousand were detained without trial at different times at the Bereza concentration camp between 1934 and 1939. In 1936 for example, 369 activists were taken there, including 342 Polish communists. Rebellious peasants staged riots in 1932, 1933 and the 1937 peasant strike in Poland. Other civil disturbances were caused by striking industrial workers (e.g. events of the "Bloody Spring" of 1936), nationalist Ukrainians and the activists of the incipient Belarusian movement. All became targets of ruthless military pacification. Besides sponsoring political repression, the regime also fostered the Piłsudski cult of personality that had already existed long before he assumed dictatorial powers.
Piłsudski signed the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1932 and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934, but in 1933 he insisted that there was no threat from the East or West and said that Poland's politics were focused on becoming fully independent without serving foreign interests. He initiated the policy of maintaining an equal distance and an adjustable middle course regarding the two great neighbors, later continued by Józef Beck. Piłsudski kept personal control of the army, but it was poorly equipped, poorly trained and had poor preparations in place for possible future conflicts. His only war plan was a defensive war against a Soviet invasion. The slow modernization after Piłsudski's death fell far behind the progress made by Poland's neighbors and measures to protect the western border, discontinued by Piłsudski from 1926, were not undertaken until March 1939.
Sanation deputies in the Sejm used a parliamentary maneuver to abolish the democratic March Constitution and push through a more authoritarian April Constitution in 1935; it reduced the powers of the Sejm, which Piłsudski despised. The process and the resulting document were seen as illegitimate by the anti-Sanation opposition, but during World War II, the Polish government-in-exile recognized the April Constitution in order to uphold the legal continuity of the Polish state.
When Marshal Piłsudski died in 1935, he retained the support of the main sections of Polish society even though he never risked testing his popularity in an honest election. His regime was dictatorial, but at that time only Czechoslovakia remained democratic in all of the regions neighboring Poland. Historians have taken widely divergent views of the meaning and consequences of the coup he perpetrated and his personal rule that followed.
Social and economic trends
Independence stimulated the development of Polish culture in the Interbellum and intellectual achievement was high. Warsaw, whose population had almost doubled between World War I and World War II, was a restless, burgeoning metropolis. It outpaced Kraków, Lwów and Wilno, the other major population centers of the country.
Mainstream Polish society was not affected by the repressions of the Sanation authorities overall; many Poles enjoyed relative stability, and the economy improved markedly between 1926 and 1929, only to become caught up in the global Great Depression. After 1929, the country's industrial production and gross national income slumped by about 50%.
The Great Depression brought low prices for farmers and unemployment for workers. Social tensions increased, including rising antisemitism. A major economic transformation and multi-year state plan to achieve national industrial development, as embodied in the Central Industrial Region initiative launched in 1936, was led by Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski. Motivated primarily by the need for a native arms industry, it was in progress at the time of the outbreak of World War II. Kwiatkowski was also the main architect of the earlier Gdynia seaport project.
The prevalent nationalism in political circles was fueled by the large size of Poland's minority populations and their separate agendas. According to the language criterion of the Polish census of 1931, the Poles constituted 69% of the population, Ukrainians 15%, Jews (defined as speakers of the Yiddish language) 8.5%, Belarusians 4.7%, Germans 2.2%, Lithuanians 0.25%, Russians 0.25% and Czechs 0.09%, with some geographical areas dominated by a particular minority. In time, the ethnic conflicts intensified, and the Polish state grew less tolerant of the interests of its national minorities. In interwar Poland, compulsory free general education substantially reduced illiteracy rates, but discrimination was practiced in a way that resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of Ukrainian language schools and official restrictions on Jewish attendance at selected schools in the late 1930s.
The population grew steadily, reaching 35 million in 1939. However, the overall economic situation in the interwar period was one of stagnation. There was little money for investment inside Poland, and few foreigners were interested in investing there. Total industrial production barely increased between 1913 and 1939 (within the area delimited by the 1939 borders), but because of population growth (from 26.3 millions in 1919 to 34.8 millions in 1939), the per capita output actually decreased by 18%.
Conditions in the predominant agricultural sector kept deteriorating between 1929 and 1939, which resulted in rural unrest and a progressive radicalization of the Polish peasant movement that became increasingly inclined toward militant anti-state activities. It was firmly repressed by the authorities. According to Norman Davies, the failures of the Sanation regime (combined with the objective economic realities) caused a radicalization of the Polish masses by the end of the 1930s, but he warns against drawing parallels with the incomparably more destructive precedents of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Final years
After Piłsudski's death in 1935, Poland was governed until the German invasion of 1939 by old allies and subordinates known as "Piłsudski's colonels". They had neither the vision nor the resources to cope with the perilous situation facing Poland in the late 1930s. The colonels had gradually assumed greater powers during Piłsudski's life by manipulating the ailing marshal behind the scenes. Eventually they achieved an overt politicization of the army that did nothing to help prepare the country for war.
Foreign policy was the responsibility of Józef Beck, under whom Polish diplomacy attempted balanced approaches toward Germany and the Soviet Union, unfortunately without success, on the basis of a flawed understanding of the European geopolitics of his day. Beck had numerous foreign policy schemes and harbored illusions of Poland's status as a great power. He alienated most of Poland's neighbors, but is not blamed by historians for the ultimate failure of relations with Germany. The principal events of his tenure were concentrated in its last two years. In the case of the 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania, the Polish action nearly resulted in a German takeover of southwest Lithuania. Also in 1938, the Polish government opportunistically undertook a hostile action against the Czechoslovak state as weakened by the Munich Agreement and annexed a small piece of territory on its borders. In this case, Beck's understanding of the consequences of the Polish military move turned out to be completely mistaken. In the end, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia ushered in by the Munich Agreement markedly weakened Poland's own position. Furthermore, Beck mistakenly believed that Nazi-Soviet ideological contradictions would preclude their cooperation.
At home, increasingly alienated minorities threatened unrest and violence and were suppressed. Extreme nationalist circles such as the National Radical Camp grew more outspoken. One of the groups, the Camp of National Unity, combined many nationalists with Sanation supporters and was connected to the new strongman, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, whose faction of the Sanation ruling movement was increasingly nationalistic.
In the late 1930s, the exile bloc Front Morges united several major Polish anti-Sanation figures, including Ignacy Paderewski, Władysław Sikorski, Wincenty Witos, Wojciech Korfanty and Józef Haller. It gained little influence inside Poland, but its spirit soon reappeared during World War II, within the Polish government-in-exile.
In October 1938, Joachim von Ribbentrop first proposed German-Polish territorial adjustments and Poland's participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Soviet Union. The status of the Free City of Danzig was one of the key bones of contention. Approached by Ribbentrop again in March 1939, the Polish government expressed willingness to address issues causing German concern, but effectively rejected Germany's stated demands and thus refused to allow Poland to be turned by Adolf Hitler into a German puppet state. Hitler, incensed by the British and French declarations of support for Poland, abrogated the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in late April 1939.
To protect itself from an increasingly aggressive Nazi Germany, already responsible for the annexations of Austria (in the Anschluss of 1938), Czechoslovakia (in 1939) and a part of Lithuania after the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, Poland entered into a military alliance with Britain and France (the 1939 Anglo-Polish military alliance and the earlier Franco-Polish military alliance of 1921, as updated in 1939). However, the two Western powers were defense-oriented and not in a strong position, either geographically or in terms of resources, to assist Poland. Attempts were therefore made by them to induce Soviet-Polish cooperation, which they viewed as the only militarily viable possibility. Diplomatic manoeuvers continued in the spring and summer of 1939, but in their final attempts, the Franco-British talks with the Soviets in Moscow on forming an anti-Nazi defensive military alliance failed. Warsaw's refusal to allow the Red Army to operate on Polish territory doomed the Western efforts. The final contentious Allied-Soviet exchanges took place on August 21 and 23, 1939. Stalin's regime was the target of an intense German counter-initiative and was concurrently involved in increasingly effective negotiations with Hitler's agents. On August 23, an outcome contrary to the exertions of the Allies became a reality: in Moscow, Germany and the Soviet Union hurriedly signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones.
World War II
Invasions and resistance
On September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland, the opening event of World War II. Poland had signed an Anglo-Polish military alliance as recently as August 25, and had long been in alliance with France. The two Western powers soon declared war on Germany, but they remained largely inactive (the period early in the conflict became known as the Phoney War) and extended no aid to the attacked country. The numerically and technically superior Wehrmacht formations rapidly advanced eastwards and engaged massively in the murder of Polish civilians over the entire occupied territory. On September 17, a Soviet invasion of Poland began. The Soviet Union quickly occupied most of the areas of eastern Poland that contained large populations of Ukrainians and Belarusians. The two invading powers divided up the country as they had agreed in the secret provisions of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Poland's top government officials and military high command fled the war zone and arrived at the Romanian Bridgehead in mid-September. After the Soviet entry they sought refuge in Romania.
Among the military operations in which Poles held out the longest (until late September or early October) were the Siege of Warsaw, the Battle of Hel and the resistance of the Independent Operational Group Polesie. Warsaw fell on 27 September after a heavy German bombardment that killed about 40,000 civilians. Poland was ultimately partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union according to the terms of the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation signed by the two powers in Moscow on September 29.
Gerhard Weinberg has argued that the most significant Polish contribution to World War II was sharing its code-breaking results. This allowed the British to perform the cryptanalysis of the Enigma and decipher the main German military code, which gave the Allies a major advantage in the conflict. As regards actual military campaigns, some Polish historians have argued that simply resisting the initial invasion of Poland was the country's greatest contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany, despite its defeat. The Polish Army of nearly one million men significantly delayed the start of the Battle of France, planned for 1939. When the Nazi offensive in the West did happen, the delay caused it to be less effective, a possibly crucial factor in the victory of the Battle of Britain.
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union as part of its Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the whole of pre-war Poland was overrun and occupied by German troops.
German-occupied Poland was divided from 1939 into two regions: Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany directly into the German Reich and areas ruled under a so-called General Government of occupation. The Poles formed an underground resistance movement and a Polish government-in-exile that operated first in Paris, then, from July 1940, in London. Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations, broken since September 1939, were resumed in July 1941 under the Sikorski–Mayski agreement, which facilitated the formation of a Polish army (the Anders' Army) in the Soviet Union. In November 1941, Prime Minister Sikorski flew to the Soviet Union to negotiate with Stalin on its role on the Soviet-German front, but the British wanted the Polish soldiers in the Middle East. Stalin agreed, and the army was evacuated there.
The members of the Polish Underground State that functioned in Poland throughout the war were loyal to and formally under the Polish government-in-exile, acting through its Government Delegation for Poland. During World War II, about 400,000 Poles joined the underground Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), a part of the Polish Armed Forces of the government-in-exile. About 200,000 fought in the Western Front in Polish armed forces loyal to the government-in-exile, and about 300,000 Poles fought under the Soviet command in the Eastern Front. The pro-Soviet resistance movement, led by the Polish Workers' Party, was active from 1941. It was opposed by the gradually forming extreme nationalistic National Armed Forces.
Beginning in late 1939, hundreds of thousands of Poles from the Soviet-occupied areas were deported and taken east. Of the upper-ranking military personnel and others deemed uncooperative or potentially harmful by the Soviets, about 22,000 were secretly executed.
In April 1943, the Soviet Union broke off deteriorating relations with the Polish government-in-exile after the German military announced the discovery of mass graves containing Polish army officers murdered by the Soviets at the Katyn massacre. The Soviets claimed that the Poles committed a hostile act by requesting that the Red Cross investigate these reports.
From 1941, the implementation of the Final Solution began, and the Holocaust in Poland proceeded with force. As the Jewish ghetto in occupied Warsaw was being liquidated by Nazi SS units, the city was the scene of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April–May 1943. The elimination of Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland took place in a number of cities besides Warsaw and other uprisings were waged against impossible odds by desperate Jewish insurgents, whose people were being removed and exterminated.
Soviet advance 1944–45, Warsaw Uprising
At a time of increasing cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union in the wake of the Nazi invasion of 1941, the influence of the Polish government-in-exile was seriously diminished by the death of Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski, its most capable leader, in a plane crash on July 4, 1943. His successors lacked the ability or willingness to negotiate effectively with the Soviets and proved equally ineffective in pressing for the interests of the Polish people with the Western Allies.
In July 1944, the Soviet Red Army and Soviet-controlled Polish People's Army entered the territory of future postwar Poland. In protracted fighting in 1944 and 1945, the Soviets and their Polish allies defeated and expelled the German army from Poland at a cost of over 600,000 Soviet and over 60,000 Polish soldiers lost.
The greatest single action of the Polish resistance movement in World War II and a major political event was the Warsaw Uprising that began on August 1, 1944. The uprising, in which most of the city's population participated, was instigated by the underground Home Army and approved by the Polish government-in-exile in an attempt to establish a non-communist Polish administration ahead of the arrival of the Red Army. The uprising was originally planned as a short-lived armed demonstration in expectation that the Soviet forces approaching Warsaw would assist in any battle to take the city. The Soviets had never agreed to an intervention, however, and they halted their advance at the Vistula River. The Germans used the opportunity to carry out a brutal suppression of the forces of the pro-Western Polish underground.
The bitterly fought uprising lasted for two months and resulted in the death or expulsion from the city of hundreds of thousands of civilians. After the Poles realised the hopelessness of the situation and surrendered on 2 October, the Germans carried out a planned destruction of Warsaw on Hitler's orders that obliterated the remaining infrastructure of the city. The Polish First Army, fighting alongside the Soviet Red Army, entered a devastated Warsaw on 17 January 1945.
Allied conferences, Polish governments
From the time of the Tehran Conference in late 1943, there was broad agreement among the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union that the locations of the borders between Germany and Poland and between Poland and the Soviet Union would be fundamentally changed after the conclusion of World War II. Stalin's proposal that Poland should be moved far to the west was readily accepted by the Polish communists, who were at that time in the early stages of forming a post-war government (the State National Council, a quasi-parliamentary body, was created). In July 1944, a communist-controlled Polish Committee of National Liberation was established in Lublin nominally to govern the areas liberated from German control, a move that prompted protests from Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk and his government-in-exile.
By the time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the communists had already established a Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland. The Soviet position at the conference was strong because of their decisive contribution to the war effort and as a result of their occupation of immense amounts of land in central and eastern Europe. The three Great Powers (the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) gave assurances that the communist provisional government would be converted into an entity that would include democratic forces from within the country and active abroad, but the London-based government-in-exile was not mentioned. A Provisional Government of National Unity and subsequent democratic elections were the agreed stated goals. The disappointing results of these plans and the failure of the Western powers to ensure the strong participation of non-communists in the immediate post-war Polish government were seen by many Poles as a manifestation of Western betrayal.
War losses, extermination of Jews
A lack of accurate data makes it difficult to document numerically the extent of the human losses suffered by Polish citizens during World War II. Additionally, many assertions made in the past must be considered suspect due to flawed methodology and a desire to promote certain political agendas. The last available enumeration of ethnic Poles and the large ethnic minorities is the Polish census of 1931. Exact population figures for 1939 are therefore not known.
Modern research indicates that about 5 million Polish citizens were killed during the war, including 3 million Polish Jews. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, at least 1.9 to 2 million ethnic Poles and 3 million Polish Jews were killed. Millions of Polish citizens were deported to Germany for forced labor or to German death camps such as Treblinka, Auschwitz and Sobibor. According to another estimate, between 2.35 and 2.9 million Polish Jews and about 2 million ethnic Poles were killed. Nazi Germany intended to exterminate the Jews completely, in actions that have come to be described collectively as the Holocaust. The Poles were to be expelled from areas controlled by Nazi Germany through a process of resettlement that started in 1939 and was expected to be completed within 15 years.
In an attempt to incapacitate Polish society, the Nazis and the Soviets executed tens of thousands of members of the intelligentsia and community leadership during events such as the German AB-Aktion in Poland, Operation Tannenberg and the Katyn massacre. Over 95% of the Jewish losses and 90% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused directly by Nazi Germany, whereas 5% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused by the Soviets and 5% by Ukrainian nationalists. The large-scale Jewish presence in Poland that had endured for centuries was rather quickly put to an end by the policies of extermination implemented by the Nazis during the war. Waves of displacement and emigration that took place both during and after the war removed from Poland a majority of the Jews who survived. Further significant Jewish emigration followed events such as the Polish October political thaw of 1956 and the 1968 Polish political crisis. The magnitudes of the losses of Polish citizens of German, Ukrainian, Belarusian and other nationalities, which were also great, are not known.
In 1940–41, some 325,000 Polish citizens were deported by the Soviet regime. The number of Polish citizens who died at the hands of the Soviets is estimated at less than 100,000. In 1943–44, Ukrainian nationalists associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army perpetrated the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
Approximately 90% of Poland's war casualties were the victims of prisons, death camps, raids, executions, the annihilation of ghettos, epidemics, starvation, excessive work and ill treatment. The war left one million children orphaned and 590,000 persons disabled. The country lost 38% of its national assets (whereas Britain lost only 0.8%, and France only 1.5%). Nearly half of pre-war Poland was expropriated by the Soviet Union, including the two great cultural centers of Lwów and Wilno.
Changing boundaries and population transfers
By the terms of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, the Soviet Union retained most of the territories captured as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, including western Ukraine and western Belarus, and gained others. Lithuania and the Königsberg area of East Prussia were officially incorporated into the Soviet Union, in the case of the former without the recognition of Western powers. Poland was compensated with the bulk of Silesia, including Breslau (Wrocław) and Grünberg (Zielona Góra), the bulk of Pomerania, including Stettin (Szczecin), and the greater southern portion of the former East Prussia, along with Danzig (Gdańsk). Collectively referred to as the "Recovered Territories", they were included in the reconstituted Polish state. With Germany's defeat, the re-established Polish state was thus shifted west to the area between the Oder–Neisse and Curzon lines. The Poles lost 70% of their pre-war oil capacity to the Soviets, but gained from the Germans a highly developed industrial base and infrastructure that made a diversified industrial economy possible for the first time in Polish history.
The flight and expulsion of Germans from what was eastern Germany prior to the war began before and during the Soviet conquest of those regions from the Nazis, and the process continued in the years immediately after the war. Of those who remained, many chose to emigrate to post-war Germany. On the other hand, 1.5–2 million Poles moved or were expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The vast majority were resettled in the former German territories.
Many exiled Poles could not return to the country for which they had fought because they belonged to political groups incompatible with the new communist regimes, or because they originated from areas of pre-war eastern Poland that were incorporated into the Soviet Union (see Polish population transfers of the period 1944-46). Some were deterred from returning simply on the strength of warnings that anyone who had served in Western military units would be endangered under the new communist regimes. Many Poles were pursued, arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities for belonging to the Home Army or other formations (see Anti-communist resistance in Poland during the period 1944-46), or were persecuted because they had fought on the Western front.
Territories on both sides of the new Polish-Ukrainian border were also "ethnically cleansed". Of the Ukrainians and Lemkos living in Poland within the new borders (about 700,000), close to 95% were forcibly moved to the Soviet Ukraine, or (in 1947) to the new territories in northern and western Poland under Operation Vistula. In Volhynia, 98% of the Polish pre-war population was either killed or expelled; in Eastern Galicia, the Polish population was reduced by 92%. In all, about 70,000 Poles and about 20,000 Ukrainians were killed in the ethnic violence that occurred in the 1940s, both during and after the war.
According to an estimate by Polish researchers, 40–60,000 of the 200–250,000 Polish Jews who escaped the Nazis survived without leaving Poland (the remainder perished). More were repatriated from the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the February 1946 population census showed about 300,000 Jews within the new borders. Of the surviving Jews, many chose to emigrate or felt compelled to because of anti-Jewish violence in Poland.
Because of changing borders and the mass movements of people of various nationalities, the emerging communist Poland ended up with a mainly homogeneous, ethnically Polish population (97.6% according to the December 1950 census). Minority members were not encouraged by the authorities or their neighbors to emphasize their ethnic identities.
Polish People's Republic (1945–89)
Post-war struggle for power
In response to the February 1945 Yalta Conference directives, a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in June 1945 under Soviet auspices; it was soon recognized by the United States and many other countries. Communist rule and Soviet domination were apparent from the beginning: sixteen prominent leaders of the Polish anti-Nazi underground were brought to trial in Moscow ("the Trial of the Sixteen") already in June 1945. In the immediate post-war years, emerging communist rule was challenged by opposition groups ("cursed soldiers"), and many thousands perished in the fight or were pursued by the Ministry of Public Security and executed. Such insurgents often pinned their hopes on expectations of the imminent outbreak of a World War III and the defeat of the Soviet Union. The Polish right-wing insurgency faded after the amnesty of February 1947.
The Polish people's referendum of June 1946 was arranged by the communist Polish Workers' Party to legitimize its dominance over Polish politics and claim widespread support for the Party's policies. Although the Yalta agreement called for free elections, the Polish legislative election of January 1947 was controlled by the communists. Some democratic and pro-Western elements, led by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, the former prime minister-in-exile, participated in the Provisional Government and the 1947 elections, but were ultimately eliminated through electoral fraud, intimidation and violence. In times of radical political and economic change, members of Mikołajczyk's agrarian movement (the Polish People's Party) attempted to preserve some degree of market economy to protect rights and interests of limited property ownership. After the 1947 elections, the Government of National Unity ceased to exist and the communist-dominated Front of National Unity was officially the only source of governmental authority. The Polish government-in-exile remained in continuous existence until 1990, although its influence declined.
Under Stalinism
The Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) was established under the rule of the communist Polish United Workers' Party. The name change from the Polish Republic was not officially adopted, however, until the proclamation of the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic in 1952.
The ruling party itself was formed by the forced amalgamation in December 1948 of the communist Polish Workers' Party and the historically non-communist Polish Socialist Party. The latter, re-established in 1944 by its left wing, had since been allied with the communists. The ruling communists, who in post-war Poland preferred to use the term "socialism" instead of "communism" to identify their ideological basis, needed to include the socialist junior partner to broaden their appeal, claim greater legitimacy and eliminate competition on the political Left. The socialists, who were losing their organization, were subjected to political pressure, ideological cleansing and purges in order to become suitable for unification on the terms of the "Workers' Party". The leading pro-communist leaders of the socialists were the prime ministers Edward Osóbka-Morawski and Józef Cyrankiewicz.
During the most oppressive phase of the Stalinist period (1948–53), terror was justified in Poland as necessary to eliminate reactionary subversion. Many thousands of perceived opponents of the regime were arbitrarily tried, and large numbers were executed. The People's Republic was led by discredited Soviet operatives such as Bolesław Bierut, Jakub Berman and Konstantin Rokossovsky. The independent Catholic Church in Poland was subjected to property confiscations and other curtailments from 1949, and in 1950 was pressured into signing an accord with the government. In 1953 and later, despite a partial thaw after the death of Joseph Stalin that year, the persecution of the Church intensified and its head, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, was detained. A key event in the persecution of the Polish church was the Stalinist show trial of the Kraków Curia in January 1953.
In the Warsaw Pact, formed in 1955, the army of the Polish People's Republic was the second largest, after the Soviet Army.
Economic and social developments
In 1944, large agricultural holdings and former German property in Poland started to be redistributed through land reform and industry started to be nationalized. Communist restructuring and the imposition of work-space rules encountered active worker opposition already in the years 1945–47. The Three-Year Plan of 1947–49 continued with the rebuilding, socialization and socialist restructuring of the economy. It was followed by the Six-Year Plan of 1950–55 for heavy industry. The rejection of the Marshall Plan in 1947 made aspirations for catching up with West European standards of living unrealistic.
The government's highest economic priority was the development of heavy industry useful to the military. State-run or controlled institutions common in all the socialist countries of eastern Europe were imposed on Poland, including collective farms and worker cooperatives. The latter were dismantled in the late 1940s as not socialist enough, although they were later re-established; even small-scale private enterprises were eradicated. Stalinism introduced heavy political and ideological propaganda and indoctrination in social life, culture and education.
Great strides were made, however, in the areas of employment (which became nearly full), universal public education (which nearly eradicated adult illiteracy), health care and recreational amenities. Many historic sites, including the central districts of Warsaw and Gdańsk, both devastated during the war, were rebuilt at great cost.
The communist industrialization program led to increased urbanization and educational and career opportunities for the intended beneficiaries of the social transformation along the lines of the peasants-workers-working intelligentsia paradigm. The most significant improvement was accomplished in the lives of Polish peasants, many of whom were able to leave their impoverished and overcrowded village communities for better conditions in urban centers. Those who stayed behind took advantage of the implementation of the 1944 land reform decree of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, which terminated the antiquated, but widespread parafeudal socioeconomic relations in Poland. Under Stalinism, attempts were made at establishing collective farms; they generally failed. Due to urbanization, the national percentage of the rural population decreased in communist Poland by about 50%. A majority of Poland's residents of cities and towns still live in apartment blocks built during the communist era in part to accommodate migrants from rural areas.
Thaw
In March 1956, after the 20th Soviet Party Congress in Moscow ushered in de-Stalinization, Edward Ochab was chosen to replace the deceased Bolesław Bierut as first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party. As a result, Poland was rapidly overtaken by social restlessness and reformist undertakings; thousands of political prisoners were released and many people previously persecuted were officially rehabilitated. Worker riots in Poznań in June 1956 were violently suppressed, but they gave rise to the formation of a reformist current within the communist party.
Amidst continuing social and national upheaval, a further shakeup took place in the party leadership as part of what is known as the Polish October of 1956. While retaining most traditional communist economic and social aims, the regime led by the new Polish Party's First Secretary Władysław Gomułka liberalized internal life in Poland. The dependence on the Soviet Union was somewhat mollified, and the state's relationships with the Church and Catholic lay activists were put on a new footing. A repatriation agreement with the Soviet Union allowed the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Poles who were still in Soviet hands, including many former political prisoners. Collectivization efforts were abandoned—agricultural land, unlike in other Comecon countries, mostly remained in the private ownership of farming families. State-mandated provisions of agricultural products at fixed, artificially low prices were reduced and, from 1972, eliminated.
Culture in the Polish People's Republic, to varying degrees linked to the intelligentsia's opposition to the authoritarian system, developed to a sophisticated level under Gomułka and his successors. The creative process was often compromised by state censorship, but significant works were created in fields such as literature, theater, cinema and music, among others. Journalism of veiled understanding and varieties of native and western popular culture were well represented. Uncensored information and works generated by émigré circles were conveyed through a variety of channels. The Paris-based Kultura magazine developed a conceptual framework for dealing with the issues of borders and the neighbors of a future free Poland, but Radio Free Europe was of foremost importance.
Stagnation and crackdown
The legislative election of 1957 was followed by several years of political stability that was accompanied by economic stagnation and curtailment of reforms and reformists. One of the last initiatives of the brief reform era was a nuclear weapons–free zone in Central Europe proposed in 1957 by Adam Rapacki, Poland's foreign minister. One of the confirmations of the end of an era of greater tolerance was the expulsion from the communist party of several prominent "Marxist revisionists" in the 1960s.
In 1965, the Conference of Polish Bishops issued the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops, a gesture intended to heal bad mutual feelings left over from World War II. In 1966, the celebrations of the 1,000th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland led by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and other bishops turned into a huge demonstration of the power and popularity of the Catholic Church in Poland.
The post-1956 liberalizing trend, in decline for a number of years, was reversed in March 1968, when student demonstrations were suppressed during the 1968 Polish political crisis. Motivated in part by the Prague Spring movement, the Polish opposition leaders, intellectuals, academics and students used a historical-patriotic Dziady theater spectacle series in Warsaw (and its termination forced by the authorities) as a springboard for protests, which soon spread to other centers of higher education and turned nationwide. The authorities responded with a major crackdown on opposition activity, including the firing of faculty and the dismissal of students at universities and other institutions of learning. At the center of the controversy was also the small number of Catholic deputies in the Sejm (the Znak Association members) who attempted to defend the students.
In an official speech, Gomułka drew attention to the role of Jewish activists in the events taking place. This provided ammunition to a nationalistic and antisemitic communist party faction headed by Mieczysław Moczar that was opposed to Gomułka's leadership. Using the context of the military victory of Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, some in the Polish communist leadership waged an antisemitic campaign against the remnants of the Jewish community in Poland. The targets of this campaign were accused of disloyalty and active sympathy with Israeli aggression. Branded "Zionists", they were scapegoated and blamed for the unrest in March, which eventually led to the emigration of much of Poland's remaining Jewish population (about 15,000 Polish citizens left the country).
With the active support of the Gomułka regime, the People's Army of Poland took part in the infamous Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 after the informal announcement of the Brezhnev Doctrine.
In December 1970, the governments of Poland and West Germany signed the Treaty of Warsaw, which normalized their relations and made possible meaningful cooperation in a number of areas of bilateral interest. West Germany recognized the post-war de facto border between Poland and East Germany.
Worker revolts and Solidarity
Price increases for essential consumer goods triggered the Polish protests of 1970. In December, there were disturbances and strikes in the port cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Szczecin that reflected deep dissatisfaction with living and working conditions in the country. The activity was centered in the industrial shipyard areas of the three coastal cities. Dozens of protesting workers and bystanders were killed in police and military actions, generally under the authority of Gomułka and Minister of Defense Wojciech Jaruzelski. In the aftermath, Edward Gierek replaced Gomułka as first secretary of the communist party. The new regime was seen as more modern, friendly and pragmatic, and at first it enjoyed a degree of popular and foreign support.
Gierek's regime between 1970 and 1980 introduced wide-ranging (but ultimately unsuccessful) government reforms to revitalize the economy. Another attempt to raise food prices resulted in the June 1976 protests. Jacek Kuroń was among the activists who defended accused rioters from Radom and other towns. The Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), established in response to the crackdown, consisted of dissident intellectuals willing to support industrial workers, farmers and students who were struggling with and persecuted by the authorities throughout the late 1970s. During this period the opposition circles were emboldened by the Helsinki Conference processes.
In October 1978, the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła, became Pope John Paul II, head of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics and others rejoiced at the elevation of a Pole to the papacy and greeted his June 1979 visit to Poland with an outpouring of emotion.
Fueled by large infusions of Western credit, Poland's economic growth rate was one of the world's highest during the first half of the 1970s, but much of the borrowed capital was misspent, and the centrally planned economy was unable to use the new resources effectively. The 1973 oil crisis caused recession and high interest rates in the West, to which the Polish government had to respond with sharp domestic consumer price increases. The growing debt burden became insupportable in the late 1970s, and negative economic growth set in by 1979.
Around July 1, 1980, with the Polish foreign debt standing at more than $20 billion, the government made another attempt to increase meat prices. Workers responded with escalating work stoppages that culminated in the 1980 general strikes in Lublin. In mid-August, labor protests at the Gdańsk Shipyard gave rise to a chain reaction of strikes that virtually paralyzed the Baltic coast by the end of the month and, for the first time, closed most coal mines in Silesia. The Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee coordinated the strike action across hundreds of workplaces and formulated the 21 demands as the basis for negotiations with the authorities. The Strike Committee was sovereign in its decision-making, but was aided by a team of "expert" advisers that included Bronisław Geremek and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, well-known intellectuals and dissidents.
On August 31, 1980, representatives of workers at the Gdańsk Shipyard, led by an electrician and activist Lech Wałęsa, signed the Gdańsk Agreement with the government that ended their strike. Similar agreements were concluded in Szczecin (the Szczecin Agreement) and in Silesia. The key provision of these agreements was the guarantee of the workers' right to form independent trade unions and the right to strike. Following the successful resolution of the largest labor confrontation in communist Poland's history, nationwide union organizing movements swept the country.
Edward Gierek was blamed by the Soviets for not following their "fraternal" advice, not shoring up the Party and the official trade unions and allowing "anti-socialist" forces to emerge. On September 5, 1980, Gierek was replaced by Stanisław Kania as first secretary.
Delegates of the emergent worker committees from all over Poland gathered in Gdańsk on September 17 and decided to form a single national union organization named "Solidarity" (the name was adopted following a suggestion by Karol Modzelewski).
While party–controlled courts took up the contentious issues of Solidarity's legal registration as a trade union (finalized by November 10), planning had already begun for the imposition of martial law. A parallel farmers' union was organized and strongly opposed by the regime, but Rural Solidarity was finally registered on May 12, 1981. In the meantime, a rapid deterioration of the authority of the communist party, the disintegration of state power and an escalation of demands and threats by the various Solidarity–affiliated groups were occurring. According to Kuroń, a "tremendous social democratization movement in all spheres" was taking place and could not be contained. Wałęsa had meetings with Kania, which brought no resolution to the impasse. Following the Warsaw Pact summit in Moscow, the Soviet Union proceeded with a massive military build-up along Poland's border in December 1980, but during the summit, Kania forcefully argued with Leonid Brezhnev and other allied communists leaders against the feasibility of an external military intervention, and no action was taken. The United States, under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, repeatedly warned the Soviets about the consequences of a direct intervention, while discouraging an open insurrection in Poland and signaling to the Polish opposition that there would be no rescue by the NATO forces.
In February 1981, Defense Minister General Wojciech Jaruzelski assumed the position of prime minister. A World War II veteran with a generally positive image, Jaruzelski engaged in preparations for calming the Polish unrest by the use of force, utilizing ZOMO troops and other security forces backed up by the Polish and Soviet bloc military. The 1980–81 Solidarity social revolt had thus far been free of any major use of force, but in March 1981 in Bydgoszcz, three activists were beaten up by the secret police. A nationwide "warning strike" took place, in which the 9.5-million-strong Solidarity union was supported by the population at large. A general strike was called off by Wałęsa after the March 30 settlement with the government. Both Solidarity and the Party were badly split and the Soviets were losing patience. Kania was re-elected at the Party Congress in July, but the collapse of the economy continued and so did the general disorder.
At the first Solidarity National Congress in September–October 1981 in Gdańsk, Lech Wałęsa was elected national chairman of the Union with 55% of the vote. An appeal was issued to the workers of the other East European countries, urging them to follow in the footsteps of Solidarity. To the Soviets, the gathering was an "anti-socialist and anti-Soviet orgy" and the Polish communist leaders, increasingly led by Jaruzelski and General Czesław Kiszczak, were ready to apply force.
In October 1981, Jaruzelski was named the Party's first secretary, an unusual advancement for a military figure in the communist world. The Plenum's vote was 180 to 4, and he kept his government posts. Jaruzelski asked parliament to ban strikes and allow him to exercise extraordinary powers, but when neither request was granted, he decided to proceed with his plans anyway.
Martial law and end of communism
On December 12–13, 1981, the regime declared martial law in Poland, under which the army and ZOMO riot police were used to crush Solidarity. In the Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–81, the Soviet leaders insisted that Jaruzelski pacify the opposition with the forces at his disposal, without direct Soviet involvement or backup. Virtually all Solidarity leaders and many affiliated intellectuals were arrested or detained. Nine workers were killed in the Pacification of Wujek. The United States and other Western countries responded by imposing economic sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union. Unrest in the country was subdued but continued.
During martial law, Poland was ruled by the so-called Military Council of National Salvation. The open or semi-open opposition communications, as recently practiced, were replaced by underground publishing (known in the eastern bloc as Samizdat), and Solidarity was reduced to a few thousand underground activists.
Having achieved some semblance of stability, the Polish regime relaxed and then rescinded martial law over several stages. By December 1982, martial law was suspended, and a small number of political prisoners, including Wałęsa, were released. Although martial law formally ended in July 1983 and a partial amnesty was enacted, several hundred political prisoners remained in jail. Jerzy Popiełuszko, a popular pro-Solidarity priest, was abducted and murdered by security functionaries in October 1984.
Further developments in Poland occurred concurrently with and were influenced by the reformist leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union (processes known as Glasnost and Perestroika). In September 1986, a general amnesty was declared, and the government released nearly all political prisoners, but the authorities continued to harass dissidents and Solidarity activists. The regime's efforts to organize society from the top down had failed, while the opposition's attempts at creating an "alternate society" were also unsuccessful. With the economic crisis unresolved and societal institutions dysfunctional, both the ruling establishment and the opposition led by Solidarity leading figures began looking for ways out of the stalemate. Facilitated by the indispensable mediation of the Catholic Church, exploratory contacts were established.
Student protests resumed from February 1988. The government's inability to forestall Poland's economic decline led to the 1988 Polish strikes across the country in April, May and August. The Soviet Union was becoming increasingly destabilized and unwilling to apply military and other pressure to prop up allied regimes in trouble. The Polish government felt compelled to negotiate with the opposition and in September 1988 preliminary talks with Solidarity leaders ensued in Magdalenka. Numerous meetings took place involving Wałęsa and General Kiszczak, among others, and the regime made a major public relations mistake by allowing a televised debate in November between Wałęsa and Alfred Miodowicz, chief of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions, the official trade union organization. The fitful bargaining and intra-party squabbling led to the official Round Table Negotiations in the following year, followed by the Polish legislative election of 1989, a watershed event marking the fall of communism in Poland.
Third Polish Republic (1989–today)
Transition from communism
The Polish Round Table Agreement of April 1989 called for local self-government, policies of job guarantees, legalization of independent trade unions and many wide-ranging reforms. The current Sejm promptly implemented the deal and agreed to partly open National Assembly elections that were set for June 4 and June 18. Only 35% of the seats in the Sejm (the national legislature's lower house) and all of the Senate seats were freely contested; the remaining Sejm seats (65%) were guaranteed for the communists and their allies.
The failure of the communists at the polls (almost all of the contested seats were won by the opposition) resulted in a political crisis. The new April constitutional agreement called for the re-establishment of the Polish presidency and on July 19 the National Assembly elected the communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski to that office. His election, seen at the time as politically necessary, was barely accomplished with tacit support from some Solidarity deputies, and the new president's position was not strong. Moreover, the unexpected definitiveness of the parliamentary election results created new dynamics and attempts by the communists to form a government failed.
On August 19, President Jaruzelski asked journalist and Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to form a government; on September 12, the Sejm voted approval of Prime Minister Mazowiecki and his cabinet. Mazowiecki decided to leave the economic reform entirely in the hands of economic liberals led by the new Deputy Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz, who proceeded with the design and implementation of his "shock therapy" policy. For the first time in post-war history, Poland had a government led by non-communists, setting a precedent soon to be followed by many other communist-ruled nations in a phenomenon known as the Revolutions of 1989. Mazowiecki's acceptance of the "thick line" formula meant no "witch-hunt", an absence of revenge seeking or exclusion from politics in regard to former communist officials.
In part because of the attempted indexation of wages, inflation reached 900% by the end of 1989, but was soon dealt with by the shock therapy. In December 1989, the Sejm approved the Balcerowicz Plan to transform the Polish economy rapidly from a centrally planned one to a free market economy. The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was amended to eliminate references to the "leading role" of the communist party and the country was renamed the "Republic of Poland". The communist Polish United Workers' Party dissolved itself in January 1990, creating in its place a new party, Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. "Territorial self-government", abolished in 1950, was legislated back in March 1990, to be led by locally elected officials; its fundamental unit was the administratively independent gmina.
In October 1990, the constitution was amended to curtail the term of President Jaruzelski. In November 1990, the German–Polish Border Treaty was signed.
In November 1990, Lech Wałęsa was elected president for a five-year term; in December, he became the first popularly elected president of Poland. Poland's first free parliamentary election was held in October 1991. 18 parties entered the new Sejm, but the largest representation received only 12% of the total vote.
Democratic constitution, NATO and European Union memberships
Several post-Solidarity governments were in existence between the 1989 election and the 1993 election, after which the "post-communist" left-wing parties took over. In 1993, the formerly Soviet Northern Group of Forces, a vestige of past domination, left Poland.
In 1995, Aleksander Kwaśniewski of the social democratic party was elected president and remained in that capacity for the next ten years (two terms).
In 1997, the new Constitution of Poland was finalized and approved in a referendum; it replaced the Small Constitution of 1992, an amended version of the communist constitution.
Poland joined NATO in 1999. Elements of the Polish Armed Forces have since participated in the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. Poland joined the European Union as part of its enlargement in 2004. The two memberships were indicative of the Third Polish Republic's integration with the West. Poland has not adopted the euro currency, however.
See also
History of Europe
List of Kings of Poland
List of Presidents of Poland
List of Prime Ministers of Poland
Military history of Poland
Politics of Poland
Notes
a.Piłsudski's family roots in the Polonized gentry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the resulting perspective of seeing himself and people like him as legitimate Lithuanians put him in conflict with modern Lithuanian nationalists (who in Piłsudski's lifetime redefined the scope of the meaning of "Lithuanian"), and by extension with other nationalists and also with the Polish modern nationalist movement.
b.In 1938 Poland and Romania refused to agree to a Franco-British proposal that in the event of war with Germany Soviet forces would be allowed to cross their territories to aid Czechoslovakia. The Polish ruling elites considered the Soviets in some ways more threatening than the Nazis.
The Soviet Union repeatedly declared its intention to fulfill its obligations under the 1935 treaty with Czechoslovakia and defend Czechoslovakia militarily. A transfer of land and air forces through Poland and/or Romania was required and the Soviets approached the French about it, who also had a treaty with Czechoslovakia (and with Poland and with the Soviet Union). Edward Rydz-Śmigły rebuked the French suggestion on that matter in 1936, and in 1938 Józef Beck pressured Romania not to allow even Soviet warplanes to fly over its territory. Like Hungary, Poland was looking into using the German-Czechoslovak conflict to settle its own territorial grievances, namely disputes over parts of Zaolzie, Spiš and Orava.
c.An establishment of Poland restricted to "minimal size", according to ethnographic boundaries, such as the lands common to both the prewar Poland and postwar Poland, was planned by the Soviet People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in 1943–44, and recommended by Ivan Maisky to Vyacheslav Molotov in early 1944 because of what Maisky saw as Poland's historically unfriendly disposition toward Russia and the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin opted for a larger version, allowing a "swap" (territorial compensation for Poland), which involved the eastern lands gained by Poland at the Peace of Riga of 1921 and now lost, and eastern Germany conquered from the Nazis in 1944–45. In regard to the several disputed areas, including Stettin, "Zakerzonia" and the Białystok region (Białystok was claimed by the communists of the Byelorussian SSR), the Soviet leader made decisions that favored Poland.
Other territorial and ethnic scenarios were also possible, generally with outcomes less advantageous to Poland than its present form.
d.Timothy Snyder spoke of about 100,000 Jews killed by Poles during the Nazi occupation, the majority probably by members of the collaborationist Blue Police. This number would have likely been many times higher had Poland entered into an alliance with Germany in 1939, as advocated by some Polish historians and others.
e.Some may have falsely claimed Jewish identity hoping for permission to emigrate. The communist authorities, pursuing the concept of a Poland of single ethnicity (in accordance with the recent border changes and expulsions), were allowing the Jews to leave the country. For a discussion of early communist Poland's ethnic politics, see Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations, chapters on modern "Ukrainian Borderland".
f.A Communist Party of Poland had existed in the past, but was eliminated in Stalin's purges in 1938.
g.The Soviet leadership, which had previously ordered the crushing of the Uprising in East Germany, the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring, now became worried about the demoralization of the Polish army, a crucial Warsaw Pact component, because of its deployment against Polish workers. The Soviets withdrew their support for Gomułka, who insisted on the use of force; he and his close associates were subsequently ousted from the Polish Politburo by the Polish Central Committee.
h.East of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line, the population was 43% Polish, 33% Ukrainian, 8% Belarusian and 8% Jewish. The Soviet Union did not want to appear as an aggressor, and moved its troops to Eastern Poland under the pretext of offering protection to "the kindred Ukrainian and Belorussian people".
i.Joseph Stalin at the 1943 Tehran Conference discussed with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt new post-war borders in central-eastern Europe, including the shape of a future Poland. He endorsed the Piast Concept, which justified a massive shift of Poland's frontiers to the west. Stalin resolved to secure and stabilize the western reaches of the Soviet Union and disable the future military potential of Germany by constructing a compact and ethnically defined Poland (along with the Soviet ethnic Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania) and by radically altering the region's system of national borders. After 1945, the Polish communist regime wholeheartedly adopted and promoted the Piast Concept, making it the centerpiece of their claim to be the true inheritors of Polish nationalism. After all the killings and population transfers during and after the war the country was 99% "Polish".
j."All the currently available documents of Nazi administration show that, together with the Jews, the stratum of the Polish intelligentsia was marked for total extermination. In fact, Nazi Germany achieved this goal almost by half, since Poland lost 50 percent of her citizens with university diplomas and 35 percent of those with a gimnazium diploma."
k.Decisive political events took place in Poland shortly before the Soviet intervention in Hungary. Władysław Gomułka, a reformist leader at that time, was reinstated to the Polish Politburo and the Eighth Plenum of the Party's Central Committee was announced to convene on October 19, 1956, all without seeking a Soviet approval. The Soviet Union responded with military moves and intimidation and its "military-political delegation", led by Nikita Khrushchev, quickly arrived in Warsaw. Gomułka tried to convince them of his loyalty but insisted on the reforms that he considered essential, including a replacement of Poland's Soviet-trusted minister of defense, Konstantin Rokossovsky. The disconcerted Soviets returned to Moscow, the Polish Plenum elected Gomułka first secretary and removed Rokossovsky from the Politburo. On October 21, the Soviet Presidium followed Khrushchev's lead and decided unanimously to "refrain from military intervention" in Poland, a decision likely influenced also by the ongoing preparations for the invasion of Hungary. The Soviet gamble paid off because Gomułka in the coming years turned out to be a very dependable Soviet ally and an orthodox communist.
Unlike the other Warsaw Pact countries, Poland did not endorse the Soviet armed intervention in Hungary. The Hungarian Uprising was intensely supported by the Polish public.
l.The delayed reinforcements were coming and the government military commanders General Tadeusz Rozwadowski and Władysław Anders wanted to keep on fighting the coup perpetrators, but President Stanisław Wojciechowski and the government decided to surrender to prevent the imminent spread of civil war. The coup brought to power the "Sanation" regime under Józef Piłsudski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły after Piłsudski's death. The Sanation regime persecuted the opposition within the military and in general. Rozwadowski died after abusive imprisonment, according to some accounts murdered. According to Aleksandra Piłsudska, the marshal's wife, following the coup and for the rest of his life Piłsudski lost his composure and appeared over-burdened.
At the time of Rydz-Śmigły's command, the Sanation camp embraced the ideology of Roman Dmowski, Piłsudski's nemesis. Rydz-Śmigły did not allow General Władysław Sikorski, an anti-Sanation enemy, to participate as a soldier in the defense of the country in September 1939. During World War II in France and Britain the Polish government in exile became dominated by anti-Sanation politicians. The perceived Sanation followers were in turn persecuted (in exile) under prime ministers Sikorski and Stanisław Mikołajczyk.
m.General Zygmunt Berling of the Soviet-allied First Polish Army attempted in mid-September a crossing of the Vistula and landing at Czerniaków to aid the insurgents, but the operation was defeated by the Germans and the Poles suffered heavy losses.
n.The decision to launch the Warsaw Uprising resulted in the destruction of the city, its population and its elites and has been a source of lasting controversy. According to the historians Czesław Brzoza and Andrzej Leon Sowa, orders of further military offensives, issued at the end of August 1944 as a part of Operation Tempest, show the loss of a sense of responsibility for the country's fate on the part of the Polish leadership.
o.One of the party leaders Mieczysław Rakowski, who abandoned his mentor Gomułka following the 1970 crisis, saw the demands of the demonstrating workers as "exclusively socialist" in character, because of the way they were phrased. Most people in communist Poland, including opposition activists, did not question the supremacy of socialism or the socialist idea; misconduct by party officials, such as not following the provisions of the constitution, was blamed. This assumed standard of political correctness was increasingly challenged in the decades that followed, when pluralism became a frequently used concept.
p.The Polish Sanation authorities were provoked by the independence-seeking Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). OUN engaged in political assassinations, terror and sabotage, to which the Polish state responded with a repressive campaign in the 1930s, as Józef Piłsudski and his successors imposed collective responsibility on the villagers in the affected areas. After the disturbances of 1933 and 1934, a prison camp in Bereza Kartuska was established, which became notorious for its brutal regime. The government brought Polish settlers and administrators to Volhynian areas with a centuries-old tradition of Ukrainian peasant rising against Polish land owners (and to Eastern Galicia). In the late 1930s, after Piłsudski's death, military persecution intensified and a policy of "national assimilation" was aggressively pursued. Military raids, public beatings, property confiscations and the closing and destruction of Orthodox churches aroused lasting enmity in Galicia and antagonized Ukrainian society in Volhynia at, according to Timothy Snyder, the worst possible moment. However, he also notes that "Ukrainian terrorism and Polish reprisals touched only part of the population, leaving vast regions unaffected" and "the OUN's nationalist prescription, a Ukrainian state for ethnic Ukrainians alone was far from popular". Halik Kochanski wrote of the legacy of bitterness between the Ukrainians and Poles that soon exploded in the context of the World War II. See also: History of the Ukrainian minority in Poland.
r.Foreign policy was one of the few governmental areas in which Piłsudski took an active interest. He saw Poland's role and opportunity as lying in Eastern Europe and advocated passive relations with the West. He felt that a German attack should not be feared because, even if this unlikely event were to take place, the Western powers would be bound to restrain Germany and come to Poland's rescue.
s.According to the researcher Jan Sowa, the Commonwealth failed as a state because it was not able to conform to the emerging new European order established at the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Poland's elective kings, restricted by the self-serving but short-sighted nobility, could not impose a strong and efficient central government, with its characteristic post-Westphalian internal and external sovereignty. The inability of Polish kings to levy and collect taxes (and therefore sustain a standing army) and conduct independent foreign policy were among the chief obstacles to Poland competing effectively on the changed European scene, where absolutist power was a prerequisite for survival and became the foundation for the abolition of serfdom and gradual formation of parliamentarism.
t.Besides the Home Army there were other major underground fighting formations: Bataliony Chłopskie, National Armed Forces (NSZ) and Gwardia Ludowa (later Armia Ludowa). In 1943, the leaders of the nationalistic NSZ collaborated with Nazi Germany in a case unique in occupied Poland. The NSZ conducted an anti-communist civil war. According to the historians Czesław Brzoza and Andrzej Leon Sowa, participation figures given for the underground resistance are often inflated. In the spring of 1944, the time of the most extensive involvement of the underground organizations, there were most likely considerably fewer than 500,000 military and civilian personnel participating, over the entire spectrum, from the right wing to the communists.
u.According to Jerzy Eisler, about 1.1 million people may have been imprisoned or detained in 1944–56 and about 50,000 may have died because of the struggle and persecution, including about 7,000 soldiers of the right-wing underground killed in the 1940s. According to Adam Leszczyński, up to 30,000 people were killed by the communist regime during the first several years after the war.
v.According to Andrzej Stelmachowski, one of the key participants of the Polish systemic transformation, Minister Leszek Balcerowicz pursued extremely liberal economic policies, often unusually painful for society. The December 1989 Sejm statute of credit relations reform introduced an "incredible" system of privileges for banks. Banks were allowed to alter unilaterally interest rates on already existing contracts. The exceedingly high rates they instantly introduced ruined many previously profitable enterprises and caused a complete breakdown of the apartment block construction industry, which had long-term deleterious effects on the state budget as well. Balcerowicz's policies also caused permanent damage to Polish agriculture, which Balcerowicz "did not understand", and to the often successful and useful Polish cooperative movement.
w.Led by Władysław Anders, the Polish II Corps fought at the famous Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, as part of the Allied Italian Campaign.
x.The concept which had become known as the Piast Idea, the chief proponent of which was Jan Ludwik Popławski, was based on the statement that the Piast homeland was inhabited by so-called "native" aboriginal Slavs and Slavonic Poles since time immemorial and only later was "infiltrated" by "alien" Celts, Germans and others. After 1945, the so-called "autochthonous" or "aboriginal" school of Polish prehistory received official backing in Poland and a considerable degree of popular support. According to this view, the Lusatian Culture which archaeologists have identified between the Oder and the Vistula in the early Iron Age, was said to be Slavonic; all non-Slavonic tribes and peoples recorded in the area at various points in ancient times were dismissed as "migrants" and "visitors". In contrast, the critics of this theory, such as Marija Gimbutas, regarded it as an unproved hypotheses and for them the date and origin of the westward migration of the Slavs were largely uncharted; the Slavonic connections of the Lusatian Culture were entirely imaginary; and the presence of an ethnically mixed and constantly changing collection of peoples on the North European Plain was taken for granted.
References
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
More recent general history of Poland books in English
Biskupski, M. B. The History of Poland. Greenwood, 2000. 264 pp. online edition
The Cambridge History of Poland, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941 (1697–1935), 1950 (to 1696). New York: Octagon Books, 1971 online edition vol 1 to 1696, old fashioned but highly detailed
Frucht, Richard. Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism Garland Pub., 2000 online edition
Oskar Halecki. History of Poland, New York: Roy Publishers, 1942. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993, ISBN 0-679-51087-7
Kenney, Padraic. “After the Blank Spots Are Filled: Recent Perspectives on Modern Poland,” Journal of Modern History Volume 79, Number 1, March 2007 pp 134–61, historiography
Stefan Kieniewicz, History of Poland, Hippocrene Books, 1982, ISBN 0-88254-695-3
Kloczowski, Jerzy. A History of Polish Christianity. Cambridge U. Pr., 2000. 385 pp.
Lerski, George J. Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966–1945. Greenwood, 1996. 750 pp. online edition
Leslie, R. F. et al. The History of Poland since 1863. Cambridge U. Press, 1980. 494 pp.
Lewinski-Corwin, Edward Henry. The Political History of Poland (1917), well-illustrated; 650pp online at books.google.com
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski. Poland: An Illustrated History, New York: Hippocrene Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7818-0757-3
Pogonowski, Iwo Cyprian. Poland: A Historical Atlas. Hippocrene, 1987. 321 pp.
Radzilowski, John. A Traveller's History of Poland, Northampton, Massachusetts: Interlink Books, 2007, ISBN 1-56656-655-X
Roos, Hans. A History of Modern Poland (1966)
Sanford, George. Historical Dictionary of Poland. Scarecrow Press, 2003. 291 pp.
Wróbel, Piotr. Historical Dictionary of Poland, 1945–1996. Greenwood, 1998. 397 pp.
Published in Poland
History of Poland, Aleksander Gieysztor et al. Warsaw: PWN, 1968
History of Poland, Stefan Kieniewicz et al. Warsaw: PWN, 1979
An Outline History of Poland, by Jerzy Topolski. Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1986, ISBN 83-223-2118-X
An Illustrated History of Poland, by Dariusz Banaszak, Tomasz Biber, Maciej Leszczyński. Poznań: Publicat, 2008, ISBN 978-83-245-1587-5
Poland: History of Poland, by Stanisław Kołodziejski, Roman Marcinek, Jakub Polit. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Ryszard Kluszczyński, 2005, 2009, ISBN 83-7447-018-6
External links
Publications and academic lectures on History of Poland, full text
Movie (on-line)
Animated history of Poland, (PARP, Expo 2010 Shanghai China)
Borders of Poland, A.D. 990–2008
Other
History of Poland, in paintings
History of Poland on Historycy.org forum
History of Poland: Primary Documents
Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage
"Poland, Christianity in" The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1910) vol 9 pp. 104–8
Maps
Poland and West-Slavs 800–950
Poland 990–1040
Poland 1040–1090
Poland 1090–1140
Poland 1140–1250
Poland 1250–1290
Poland 1290–1333
Poland 1333–1350
Poland 1350–1370
Poland 1550
Poland 1773
Poland 2004
Poland (flash version)
Category:History of Poland |
2016-01 | M1_Abrams-697333457 | M1_Abrams | M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is an American third-generation main battle tank produced by the United States. It is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff and Commander of U.S. military forces in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. Highly mobile, designed for modern armored ground warfare, the M1 is well armed and heavily armored. Notable features include the use of a powerful multifuel turbine engine, the adoption of sophisticated composite armor, and separate ammunition storage in a blow-out compartment for crew safety. Weighing nearly 68 short tons (almost 62 metric tons), it is one of the heaviest main battle tanks in service.
The M1 Abrams entered U.S. service in 1980, replacing the M60 tank. It served for over a decade alongside the improved M60A3, which had entered service in 1978. The M1 remains the principal main battle tank of the United States Army and Marine Corps, and the armies of Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Iraq.
Three main versions of the M1 Abrams have been deployed, the M1, M1A1, and M1A2, incorporating improved armament, protection and electronics. These improvements and other upgrades to in-service tanks have allowed this long-serving vehicle to remain in front-line service. In addition, development for the improved M1A3 version has been known since 2009.
History
The M1 Abrams was developed during the Cold War as a successor to the canceled MBT-70. The M1 Abrams contract went to Chrysler Defense and was the first vehicle to adopt Chobham armor. Adaptations before the Persian Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm) gave the vehicle better firepower and NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) protection. Being vastly superior to Iraqi tanks, very few M1 tanks were hit by enemy fire. Upgrades after the war improved the tank's weapons sights and fire control unit. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 destroyed Iraq's military. The subsequent insurgency exposed the tanks' vulnerability to rocket-propelled grenades and mines. These problems were partially rectified with the TUSK modification. The Marine Corps sent a company of M1A1 Abrams to Afghanistan in late 2010.
Development
The first attempt to replace the aging M60 tank was the MBT-70, developed in partnership with West Germany in the 1960s. The MBT-70 had advanced features such as a height-adjustable air suspension and a very low-profile chassis with the driver located in the turret. The MBT-70 ultimately proved to be too heavy, complex, and expensive. As a result of the imminent failure of this project, the U.S. Army introduced the XM803, using some technologies from the MBT-70 but removing some of the more troublesome features. This succeeded only in producing an expensive system with capabilities similar to the M60.
Congress canceled the MBT-70 in November and XM803 December 1971, and redistributed the funds to the new XM815, later renamed the XM1 Abrams after General Creighton Abrams. Prototypes were delivered in 1976 by Chrysler Defense and General Motors armed with the license-built version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun along with a Leopard 2 for comparison. The turbine-powered Chrysler Defense design was selected for development as the M1; Chrysler had significant experience designing turbine-powered land vehicles going back to the 1950s. In March 1982, General Dynamics Land Systems Division (GDLS) purchased Chrysler Defense, after Chrysler built over 1,000 M1s.
A total of 3,273 M1 Abrams were produced 1979–85 and first entered U.S. Army service in 1980. Production at the government-owned, GDLS-operated Lima Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, was joined by vehicles built at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan from 1982 to 1996. The M1 was armed with the license-built version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun. An improved model called the M1IP was produced briefly in 1984 and contained small upgrades. The M1IP models were used in the Canadian Army Trophy NATO tank gunnery competition in 1985 and 1987.
About 5,000 M1A1 Abrams were produced from 1986–92 and featured the M256 smoothbore cannon developed by Rheinmetall AG of Germany for the Leopard 2, improved armor, and a CBRN protection system. Production of M1 and M1A1 tanks totaled some 9,000 tanks at a cost of approximately $4.3 million per unit. By 1999, costs for the tank were upwards of a vehicle.
In 1990, Project on Government Oversight in a report criticized the M1's high costs and low fuel efficiency in comparison with other tanks of similar power and effectiveness such as the Leopard 2. The report was based on data from U.S. Army sources and the Congressional record.
As the Abrams entered service in the 1980s, they operated alongside M60A3 within the United States military, and with other NATO tanks in numerous Cold War exercises. These exercises usually took place in Western Europe, especially West Germany, but also in some other countries, including South Korea. The exercises were aimed at countering Soviet forces. However, by January 1991 the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Abrams was instead deployed in the Middle East.
Gulf War
The Abrams remained untested in combat until the Persian Gulf War in 1991, during Operation Desert Storm. A total of 1,848 M1A1s were deployed to Saudi Arabia to participate in the liberation of Kuwait. The M1A1 was superior to Iraq's Soviet-era T-55 and T-62 tanks, as well as T-72 versions imported from the Soviet Union and Poland. The existence of license-produced T-72 (nicknamed Lion of Babylon) has been disputed; according to Polish officials none were finished prior to the Iraqi Taji tank plant being destroyed in 1991. The T-72s, like most Soviet export designs, lacked night vision systems and then-modern rangefinders, though they did have some night-fighting tanks with older active infrared systems or floodlights. A total of 23 M1A1s were damaged or destroyed during the war. Of the nine Abrams destroyed, seven were destroyed by friendly fire, and two were purposely destroyed to prevent capture after being damaged. Some others took minor combat damage, with little effect on their operational readiness. Very few M1 tanks were hit by enemy fire, which resulted in no fatalities and only a handful of wounded.
The M1A1 was capable of making kills at ranges in excess of . This range was crucial in combat against previous generation tanks of Soviet design in Desert Storm, as the effective range of the main gun in the Soviet/Iraqi tanks was less than . This meant Abrams tanks could hit Iraqi tanks before the enemy got in range—a decisive advantage in this kind of combat. In friendly fire incidents, the front armor and fore side turret armor survived direct armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot (APFSDS) hits from other M1A1s. This was not the case for the side armor of the hull and the rear armor of the turret, as both areas were penetrated on at least two occasions by friendly depleted uranium ammunition during the Battle of Norfolk.
During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm some M1IP and M1A1s were modified locally in theater by modification work orders (MWO) with additional rolled homogenous armor plating welded on the turret front. The M1 can be equipped with mine plow and mine roller attachments.
Upgrades
The M1A2 was a further improvement of the M1A1 with a commander's independent thermal viewer, weapon station, position navigation equipment, and a full set of controls and displays linked by a digital data bus. These upgrades also provided the M1A2 with an improved fire control system. The M1A2 System Enhancement Package (SEP) added digital maps, FBCB2 capabilities, and an improved cooling system to compensate for heat generated by the additional computer systems. The M1A2 SEP also serves as the basis for the M104 Wolverine heavy assault bridge. The M1A2 SEPv2 (version 2) added Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS or CROWS II) support, color displays, better interfaces, a new operating system, better front and side armor, and an upgraded transmission for better durability. Further upgrades included depleted uranium armor for all variants, a system overhaul that returns all A1s to like-new condition (M1A1 AIM), a digital enhancement package for the A1 (M1A1D), and a commonality program to standardize parts between the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps (M1A1HC).
Iraq War
Further combat was seen during 2003 when U.S. forces invaded Iraq and deposed Ba'athist Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War's Operation Iraqi Freedom. As of March 2005, approximately 80 Abrams tanks were forced out of action by enemy attacks.
The most lopsided achievement of the M1A1s was the destruction of seven T-72s in a point-blank skirmish (less than ) near Mahmoudiyah, about south of Baghdad, with no losses for the American side. In addition to the Abrams's already heavy armament, some crews were also issued M136 AT4 shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons under the assumption that they might have to engage heavy armor in tight urban areas where the main gun could not be brought to bear.
Following lessons learned in Desert Storm, the Abrams and many other U.S. combat vehicles used in the conflict were fitted with Combat Identification Panels to reduce friendly fire incidents. These were fitted on the sides and rear of the turret, with flat panels equipped with a four-cornered 'box' image on either side of the turret front. Some Abrams were also fitted with a secondary storage bin on the back of the existing bustle rack on the rear of the turret (referred to as a bustle rack extension) to enable the crew to carry more supplies and personal belongings.
Several Abrams that were irrecoverable due to loss of mobility or other circumstances were destroyed by friendly forces, usually by other Abrams, to prevent their capture. Some Abrams were disabled by Iraqi infantrymen in ambushes during the invasion. Some troops employed short-range anti-tank rockets and fired at the tracks, rear and top. Other tanks were put out of action by engine fires when flammable fuel stored externally in turret racks was hit by small arms fire and spilled into the engine compartment. A majority of Abrams damaged in post-invasion Iraq were by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). By December 2006 more than 530 Abrams tanks had been shipped back to the U.S. for repair.
Due to the vulnerability of tanks in urban combat, the Tank Urban Survival Kit (or TUSK) was issued to some M1 Abrams. It added protection in the rear and side of the tank to improve fighting ability in urban environments.
In May 2008 it was reported that an American M1 tank had also been damaged by an RPG-29, which uses a tandem-charge high explosive anti-tank warhead to penetrate explosive reactive armor (ERA) as well as composite armor behind it, in Iraq. The U.S. considered the RPG-29 threat to American armor high and refused to allow the newly formed Iraqi Army to buy it, fearing that it would fall into the insurgents' hands.
Between 2010 and 2012 the U.S. supplied 140 refurbished M1A1 Abrams tanks to Iraq. In mid-2014, the Abrams saw action when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also called ISIS and IS) launched the June 2014 Northern Iraq offensive. Some Iraqi Army M1 Abrams were captured or destroyed by ISIL forces. ISIL's ability to effectively maintain and employ American armor in the long term is questionable.
War in Afghanistan
Tanks may have limited utility in Afghanistan due to the mountainous terrain, although Canada and Denmark have deployed Leopard 1 and 2 MBTs that have been specially modified to operate in the relatively flat and arid conditions of south-western Afghanistan. In late 2010, at the request of Regional Command Southwest, the U.S. Marine Corps deployed a small detachment of 14 M1A1 Abrams from Delta Company, 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division (Forward), to southern Afghanistan in support of operations in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Yemen
After the start of the Saudi Arabian operations in Yemen during the 2015 Yemeni Civil War, two M1A2 MBTs were deployed near the Saudi/Yemeni border.
Future
The tracked M8 Armored Gun System was conceived as a possible supplement for the Abrams in U.S. service for low-intensity conflict in the early 1990s. Prototypes were made but the program was canceled. The eight-wheeled M1128 Mobile Gun System was designed to supplement the Abrams in U.S. service for low-intensity conflict. It has been introduced into service and serves with Stryker brigades and Airborne units.
The U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems XM1202 Mounted Combat System was to replace the Abrams in U.S. service and was in development when funding for the program was cut from the DoD's budget.
Engineering Change Proposal 1 is a two-part upgrade process. ECP1A adds space, weight, and entertainment and power improvements and active protection against improvised explosive devices. Nine ECP1A prototypes have been produced as of October 2014. ECP1B, which will begin development in 2015, may include sensor upgrades and the convergence of several tank round capabilities into an multi-purpose round.
The M1A3 Abrams was in the early design period with the U.S. Army in 2009. At that time, the service was seeking a lighter tank version with the same protection as current versions. It aimed to build prototypes by 2014 and begin fielding the first combat-ready M1A3s by 2017. Recent program documents suggest that the U.S. Army plans to start the research and development for the M1A3 in 2020.
The M1A2 SEP TUSK Abrams and a modernized M1 Abrams were included in the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Analysis of Alternatives (AOA). Vehicles included in the AOA were determined to be inferior to the planned GCV. The U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli commended the M1 Abrams program and recommended a similar approach for the GCV program. The Ground Combat Vehicle family of vehicles was the planned successor to the M1 as well as many other U.S. Army vehicles. However, the Army anticipates that the remaining M1A1 fleet will remain in U.S. service until at least 2021, and the M1A2 to beyond 2050.
Production shutdown
The U.S. Army planned to end production at the Lima Army Tank Plant from 2013 to 2016 in an effort to save over $1 billion; it would be restarted in 2017 to upgrade existing tanks. General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), which operates the factory, opposed the move, arguing that suspension of operations would increase long-term costs and reduce flexibility. Specifically, GDLS estimated that closing the plant would cost $380 million and restarting production would cost $1.3 billion. If passed, a bill in the U.S. Senate from the first session of the 112th Congress would allocate $272 million in funds toward the plant to allow it to continue regular operations through 2013.
By August 2013, Congress had allocated $181 million for buying parts and upgrading Abrams systems to mitigate industrial base risks and sustain development and production capability. Congress and General Dynamics were criticized for redirecting money to keep production lines open and accused of "forcing the Army to buy tanks it didn't need." General Dynamics asserted that a four-year shutdown would cost $1.1–1.6 billion to reopen the line, depending on the length of the shutdown, whether machinery would be kept operating, and whether the plant's components would be completely removed. They contended that the move was to upgrade Army National Guard units to expand a "pure fleet" and maintain production of identified "irreplaceable" subcomponents; a prolonged shutdown could cause their makers to lose their ability to produce them and foreign tank sales were not guaranteed to keep production lines open. Even though money is being spent to protect the industrial base, some feel those strategic choices should not be made by members of Congress, especially those with the facilities in their district. There is still risk of production gaps even with production extended through 2015; with funds awarded before recapitalization is needed, budgetary pressures may push planned new upgrades for the Abrams from 2017 to 2019. In December 2014, Congress again allocated $120 million, against the wishes of the Army, for Abrams upgrades including improving gas mileage by integrating an auxiliary power unit to decrease idle time fuel consumption and upgrading the tank's sights and sensors.
Design
Countermeasures
Camouflage
Earlier U.S. military vehicles, used from World War II through the Vietnam War, used a scheme of dark brownish green known as "olive drab" with large white stars. Prototypes, early production M1 (105 mm gun) and M1-IP models switched to a flat medium green paint scheme. The large white insignia stars have also transitioned to much smaller black markings. Some units painted their M1s with the older Mobility Equipment Research and Design Command (MERDC) 4-color paint scheme but the turn-in requirements for these tanks required repainting them to solid green. Therefore, even though a large number of the base model M1s were camouflaged in the field, few or none exist today.
M1A1s came from the factory with the NATO three color camouflage Black/Med-Green/Dark-Brown Chemical Agent Resistant Coating (CARC) paint jobs. Today M1A1s are given the NATO three color paint job during rebuilds. M1s and M1A1s deployed to Operation Desert Storm were hastily painted desert tan. Some, but not all, of these tanks were re-painted to their "authorized" paint scheme. M1A2s built for Middle Eastern countries were painted in desert tan. Some M1 series tanks are being painted desert tan for service in Iraq and some are not. Replacement parts (roadwheels, armor skirt panels, drive sprockets, etc.) are painted overall green, which can sometimes lead to vehicles with a patchwork of green and desert tan parts.
Australian M1A1s were desert tan when delivered but have undergone a transition to the Australian Army vehicle standard 'Disruptive Pattern Camouflage'; a scheme that consists of black, olive drab and brown.
The U.S. Army can equip its Abrams' with the Saab Group Barracuda camouflage system, which provides concealment against visual, infrared, thermal infrared, and broad-band radar detection.
Concealment
The turret is fitted with two six-barreled smoke grenade launchers (USMC M1A1s use an eight-barreled version). These can create a thick smoke that blocks both vision and thermal imaging. The engine is also equipped with a smoke generator that is triggered by the driver. When activated, fuel is sprayed into the hot turbine exhaust, creating the thick smoke. However, due to the change from diesel as a primary fuel to the use of JP-8, this system is disabled on most Abrams tanks today because of a slightly elevated risk of fire damage to the engine compartment.
Active protection system
In addition to the armor, some Abrams are equipped with a Softkill Active protection system, the AN/VLQ-6 Missile Countermeasure Device (MCD) that can impede the function of guidance systems of some semi-active control line-of-sight (SACLOS) wire- and radio guided anti-tank missiles (such as the Russian 9K114 Shturm) and infrared homing missiles. The MCD works by emitting a massive, condensed infrared signal to confuse the infrared homing seeker of an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). However, the drawback to the system is that the ATGM is not destroyed, it is merely directed away from its intended target, leaving the missile to detonate elsewhere. This device is mounted on the turret roof in front of the loader's hatch, and can lead some people to mistake Abrams fitted with these devices for the M1A2 version, since the Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer on the latter is mounted in the same place, though the MCD is box-shaped and fixed in place as opposed to cylindrical and rotating like the CITV.
Armor
In July 1973 a trip to the United Kingdom, in order to witness the progress of British developed Chobham special armor, was made by representatives from Chrysler and General Motors escorted by the personnel from the Ballistic Research Laboratory and the XM1 Project Manager, Major General Robert J. Baer. They observed the manufacturing processes required for the production of this special armor and saw a proposed design for a new British vehicle utilizing this special armor. Both contractors reevaluated their proposed armor configurations based upon the newly obtained data. This led to major changes in the General Motors XM1. The most prominent of which is the turret front changing from vertical to sloped armor. The Chrysler XM1 on the other hand retained its basic shape although a number of changes were made. The Ballistic Research Laboratory had to develop new special armor combinations in order to accommodate the changes made by the contractors.
For the base model M1 Abrams, Steven J. Zaloga gives a frontal armor estimate of 350 mm vs armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot (APFSDS) and 700 mm vs high-explosive anti-tank warhead (HEAT) in M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank 1982–1992 (1993). In M1 Abrams vs T-72 Ural (2009), he uses Soviet estimates of 470 mm vs APFSDS and 650 mm vs HEAT for the base model Abrams. He also gives the Soviet estimates for the M1A1, 600 mm vs APFSDS, and 700 mm vs HEAT.
Armor protection was improved by implementing a new special armor incorporating depleted uranium. This was introduced into the M1A1 production starting October 1988. This new armor increased effective armor particularly against kinetic energy rounds but at the expense of adding considerable weight to the tank, as depleted uranium is 1.7 times more dense than lead. The first M1A1 tanks to receive this upgrade were tanks stationed in Germany. US-based tank battalions participating in Operation Desert Storm received an emergency program to upgrade their tanks with depleted uranium armor immediately before the onset of the campaign. M1A2 tanks uniformly incorporate depleted uranium armor, and all M1A1 tanks in active service have been upgraded to this standard as well. This variant was designated as the M1A1HA (HA for Heavy Armor).
For the M1A1HA, Zaloga gives a frontal armor estimate of 600 mm vs APFSDS and 1300 mm vs HEAT in M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank 1982–1992, nearly double the original protection of the Abrams. In M1 Abrams vs T-72 Ural, he uses different estimates of 600 mm vs APFSDS and 700 mm vs HEAT for the front hull and 800 mm vs APFSDS and 1300 mm vs HEAT for the front of the turret.
The Abrams may also be fitted with reactive armor over the track skirts if needed (as in the Tank Urban Survival Kit) and slat armor over the rear of the tank and rear fuel cells to protect against ATGMs. Protection against spalling is provided by a Kevlar liner.
Damage control
The tank has a halon firefighting system to automatically extinguish fires in the crew compartment. The engine compartment has a firefighting system that is engaged by pulling a T-handle located on the left side of the tank. The crew compartment also contains small hand-held fire extinguishers. Fuel and ammunition are stored in armored compartments with blowout panels to protect the crew from the risk of the tank's own ammunition cooking off if the tank is damaged — the main gun's ammunition is stored in the rear section of the turret, with blast doors that open under power by sliding sideways only to remove a round for firing, then automatically close.
Armament
Primary
M68A1 rifled gun
The main armament of the original model M1 was the M68A1 105 mm rifled tank gun firing a variety of high explosive anti-tank, high explosive, white phosphorus and an anti-personnel (multiple flechette) round. This gun is a license-built version of the British Royal Ordnance L7 gun. However, it proved to be inadequate; a cannon with lethality beyond the range was needed to combat newer armor technologies. To attain that lethality, projectile diameter needed to be increased.
M256 smoothbore gun
The main armament of the M1A1 and M1A2 is the M256A1 120 mm smoothbore gun, designed by Rheinmetall AG of Germany, manufactured under license in the U.S. by Watervliet Arsenal, New York. The M256A1 is a variant of the Rheinmetall 120 mm L/44 gun carried on the German Leopard 2 on all variants up to the Leopard 2A5. Leopard 2A6 replaced the L/44 barrel with a longer L/55.
The M256A1 fires a variety of rounds. The M829A2 APFSDS round was developed specifically to address the improved protection of a Russian T-72, T-80U or T-90 main battle tank equipped with Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armor. Later, the M829A3 APFSDS round was introduced to improve its effectiveness against next generation ERA equipped tanks. As a counter to that, the Russian army introduced Relikt, the most modern Russian ERA, which is claimed to be twice as effective as Kontakt-5. Development of the M829 series is continuing with the M829A4 currently entering production. The Abrams also fires High-explosive anti-tank warhead shaped charge rounds such as the M830, the latest version of which (M830A1) incorporates a sophisticated multi-mode electronic sensing fuse and more fragmentation which allows it to be used effectively against armored vehicles, personnel, and low-flying aircraft. The Abrams uses a manual loader. The fourth tank crew member on the Abrams also provides additional support for maintenance, observation post/listening post (OP/LP) operations, and other tasks.
The new M1028 120 mm anti-personnel canister cartridge was brought into service early for use in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It contains 1,098 tungsten balls which spread from the muzzle to produce a shotgun effect lethal out to . The tungsten balls can be used to clear enemy dismounts, break up hasty ambush sites in urban areas, clear defiles, stop infantry attacks and counter-attacks and support friendly infantry assaults by providing covering fire. The canister round is also a highly effective breaching round and can level cinder block walls and knock man-sized holes in reinforced concrete walls for infantry raids at distances up to . Also in use is the M908 obstacle-reduction round. It is designed to destroy obstacles and barriers. The round is a modified M830A1 with the front fuse replaced by a steel nose to penetrate into the obstacle before detonation.
The Army is developing a new round to replace the M830/M830A1, M1028, and M908. Called the Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP) round, it will have point detonation, delay, and airburst modes through an ammunition data-link and a multi-mode, programmable fuse in a single munition. Having one round that does the job of four would simplify logistics and be able to be used on a variety of targets. The AMP is to be effective against bunkers, infantry, light armor, and obstacles out to 500 meters, and will be able to breach reinforced concrete walls and defeat ATGM teams from 500 to 2,000 meters. Orbital ATK was awarded a contract to begin the first phase of development for the AMP XM1147 High Explosive Multi-Purpose with Tracer cartridge in October 2015.
In addition to these, the XM1111 (Mid-Range-Munition Chemical Energy) was also in development. The XM1111 was a guided munition using a dual-mode seeker that combined imaging-infrared and semi-active laser guidance. The MRM-CE was selected over the competing MRM-KE which used a rocket-assisted kinetic energy penetrator. The CE variant was chosen due to its better effects against secondary targets, providing a more versatile weapon. The Army hoped to achieve IOC with the XM1111 by 2013. However, the Mid-Range Munition was cancelled in 2009 along with Future Combat Systems.
Secondary
The Abrams tank has three machine guns:
A .50 cal. (12.7 mm) M2HB machine gun in front of the commander's hatch. On the M1, M1A1, and M1A2 this gun is mounted on the Commander's Weapons Station. This allows the weapon to be aimed and fired from within the tank. With the Common Remote Operated Weapons System (CROWS) add-on kit, an M2A1 .50 Caliber Machinegun, M240, or M249 SAW can be mounted on a CROWS remote weapons platform (similar to the Protector M151 remote weapon station used on the Stryker family of vehicles). Current variants of the TUSK kit on the M1A2 have forgone this, instead adding transparent gun shields to the commander's weapon station. The upgrade variant called the M1A1 Abrams Integrated Management (AIM) equips the .50 caliber gun with a thermal sight for accurate night and other low-visibility shooting.
A 7.62 mm M240 machine gun in front of the loader's hatch on a skate mount (seen at right). Some of these were fitted with gun shields during the Iraq War, as well as night-vision scopes for low-visibility engagements.
A second 7.62 mm M240 machine gun in a coaxial mount to the right of the main gun. The coaxial MG is aimed and fired with the same computer fire control system used for the main gun.
(Optional) A second coaxial 12.7 mm M2HB machine gun can be mounted directly above the main gun in a remote weapons platform as part of the TUSK upgrade kit.
Aiming
The Abrams is equipped with a ballistic fire-control computer that uses user and system-supplied data from a variety of sources, to compute, display, and incorporate the three components of a ballistic solution—lead angle, ammunition type, and range to the target—to accurately fire the tank. These three components are determined using a YAG rod laser rangefinder, crosswind sensor, a pendulum static cant sensor, data concerning performance and flight characteristics of each specific type of round, tank-specific boresight alignment data, ammunition temperature, air temperature, barometric pressure, a muzzle reference system (MRS) that determines and compensates for barrel drop at the muzzle due to gravitational pull and barrel heating due to firing or sunlight, and target speed determined by tracking rate tachometers in the Gunner's or Commander's Controls Handles. All of these factors are computed into a ballistic solution and updated 30 times per second. The updated solution is displayed in the Gunner's or Tank Commander's field of view in the form of a reticle in both day and Thermal modes. The ballistic computer manipulates the turret and a complex arrangement of mirrors so that all one has to do is keep the reticle on the target and fire to achieve a hit. Proper lead and gun tube elevation are applied to the turret by the computer, greatly simplifying the job of the gunner.
The fire-control system uses this data to compute a firing solution for the gunner. The ballistic solution generated ensures a hit percentage greater than 95 percent at nominal ranges. Either the commander or gunner can fire the main gun. Additionally, the Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV) on the M1A2 can be used to locate targets and pass them on for the gunner to engage while the commander scans for new targets. In the event of a malfunction or damage to the primary sight system, the main and coaxial weapons can be manually aimed using a telescopic scope boresighted to the main gun known as the Gunner's Auxiliary Sight (GAS). The GAS has two interchangeable reticles; one for High-explosive anti-tank warhead and MPAT (MultiPurpose AntiTank) rounds and one for APFSDS and STAFF (Smart Target-Activated Fire and Forget) ammunition. Turret traverse and main gun elevation can be accomplished with manual handles and cranks in the event of a Fire Control System or Hydraulic System failure. The commander's M2HB .50 caliber machine gun on the M1 and M1A1 is aimed by a 3× magnification sight incorporated into the Commander's Weapon Station (CWS), while the M1A2 uses either the machine gun's own iron sights, or a remote aiming system such as the CROWS system when used as part of the TUSK (Tank Urban Survival Kit). The loader's M240 machine gun is aimed either with the built-in iron sights or with a thermal scope mounted on the machine gun.
Mobility
Tactical
The M1 Abrams's powertrain comprises a Honeywell AGT 1500 (originally made by Lycoming) multi-fuel gas turbine, and a six speed (four forward, two reverse) Allison X-1100-3B Hydro-Kinetic automatic transmission, giving it a governed top speed of on paved roads, and cross-country. With the engine governor removed, speeds of around are possible on an improved surface; however, damage to the drivetrain (especially to the tracks) and an increased risk of injuries to the crew can occur at speeds above . The tank was built around this engine and it is multifuel capable; meaning that it can be powered with diesel, kerosene, any grade of motor gasoline, and jet fuel (such as JP-4 or JP-8). For logistical reasons, JP-8 is the US military's universal fuel powering both aircraft and vehicle fleets. On the other hand, Australian M1A1 AIM SA burn diesel fuel, since the use of JP-8 is less common in the Australian Army.
The gas turbine propulsion system has proven quite reliable in practice and combat, but its high fuel consumption is a serious logistic issue (starting up the turbine alone consumes nearly of fuel). The engine burns more than per mile ( per hour) when traveling cross-country and per hour when idle. The high speed, high temperature jet blast emitted from the rear of M1 Abrams tanks makes it difficult for the infantry to proceed shadowing the tank in urban combat. The turbine is very quiet when compared to diesel engines of similar power output and produces a significantly different sound from a contemporary diesel tank engine, reducing the audible distance of the sound, thus earning the Abrams the nickname "whispering death" during its first REFORGER exercise.
Honeywell was developing another gas turbine engine with General Electric for the XM2001 Crusader program that was to be a replacement for the Abrams's AGT-1500 engine. The new LV100-5 engine was lighter and smaller (43% fewer parts) with rapid acceleration, quieter running, and no visible exhaust. It also featured a 33% reduction in fuel consumption (50% less when idle) and near drop-in replacement. The Abrams-Crusader Common Engine Program was shelved when the Crusader program was canceled, however Phase 2 of Army's PROSE (Partnership for Reduced O&S Costs, Engine) program called for further development of the LV100-5 and replacement of the current AGT-1500 engine.
General Dynamics has been working on a drop-in diesel engine to replace the gas turbine engine. It is smaller than the turbine, 14% cheaper to operate per mile, and has a four-fan cooling system which is to greatly reduce the tank's heat signature. General Dynamics is offering the Tognum America/12V883 diesel engine with new Diehl 570P3 tracks. The engine represents advancements in diesel engine design since the Abrams was first designed, including a common rail fuel injector system where fuel is pressurized and atomized in the cylinder rather than mechanically sprayed. It also has greater torque, an altered nuclear, biological, and chemical protection system that operates independently of the engine, uses less fuel while idle, is quieter, and gives off significantly less heat and pollutants. Incorporating the diesel engine into the Abrams would decrease the operating cost of an armored brigade combat team by 14 percent per mile, increase its operating range from 205 miles to 300+ miles, and use half the amount of fuel on a combat day than the turbine engine. The tracks are a version of the Leopard 2's tracks with different rubber pads and a larger center guide. The improved engine and tracks are not part of an Army upgrade program, but may be included in a near-term engineering change proposal (ECP) phase.
Using a high power density Wankel rotary engine modified to use diesel and military grade jet fuel, the Army's TARDEC developed a Auxiliary Power Unit designed to fit into the M1 Abrams, replacing an existing battery pack that weighs about . The new APU will also be more fuel efficient than the tank's main engine. Testing of the first APUs began in 2009.
Although the M1 tank is not designed to carry riders easily, provisions exist for the Abrams to transport troops in tank desant with the turret stabilization device switched off. A battle equipped infantry squad may ride on the rear of the tank, behind the turret. The soldiers can use ropes and equipment straps to provide handholds and snap links to secure themselves. If and when enemy contact is made, the tank conceals itself allowing the infantry to dismount.
Strategic
Strategic mobility is the ability of the tanks of an armed force to arrive in a timely, cost effective, and synchronized fashion. The Abrams can be carried by a C-5 Galaxy or a C-17 Globemaster III. The limited capacity (two combat-ready in a C-5, one combat-ready tank in a C-17) caused serious logistical problems when deploying the tanks for the first Persian Gulf War, though there was enough time for 1,848 tanks to be transported by ship.
Marines transport their Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF)-attached Abrams by combat ship. A Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) typically carries a platoon of 4 to 5 tanks attached to the deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit, which are then amphibiously transported to shore by Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) at 1 combat-ready tank per landing craft.
The Abrams is also transportable by truck, namely the M1070 Heavy Equipment Transporter (HET). The HET can operate on highways, secondary roads, and cross-country. The HET accommodates the 4 tank crewmen.
The first instance of the Abrams being airlifted directly into a battlefield occurred in April 2003, when armored elements of the 1st Infantry Division were lifted by C-17s into northern Iraq from Ramstein, Germany to support Task Force Viking.
Variants and upgrades
XM1-FSED: Preproduction test model. Eleven Full-Scale Engineering Development test bed vehicles were produced in 1977–78. These vehicles were also called Pilot Vehicles and were numbered PV-1 through PV-11.
M1: First production variant. Production began (at Chrysler) in 1979 and continued to 1985 (at General Dynamics) (3,273 built for the US). The first 110 tanks were Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) models, still called XM1s, because they were built prior to the tank being type-classified as the M1.
M1IP (Improved Performance): Produced briefly in 1984 before the M1A1, contained upgrades and reconfigurations like new turret with thicker frontal armor, new turret is referred as "long" turret instead of older "short" turret, armor upgraded from ~650mm line of sight thickness to ~880mm (894 build for US).
M1A1: Production started in 1985 and continued to 1992, pressurized NBC system, rear bustle rack for improved stowage of supplies and crew belongings, redesigned blow-off panels and M256 120 mm smoothbore cannon (4,976 built for the U.S. Army, 221 for USMC, 755 for Egypt, 59 M1A1 AIM SA sold to Australia).
M1A1HA (Heavy Armor): Added 1st generation depleted uranium armor components. Some tanks were later upgraded with 2nd generation depleted uranium armor components, and are unofficially designated M1A1HA+.
M1A1HC (Heavy Common): Added new 2nd generation depleted uranium armor components, digital engine control and other small upgrades common between Army and Marine Corps tanks.
M1A1D (Digital): A digital upgrade for the M1A1HC, to keep up with M1A2SEP, manufactured in quantity for only 2 battalions.
M1A1AIM v.1 (Abrams Integrated Management): A program whereby older units are reconditioned to zero hour conditions; and the tank is improved by adding Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) and Far Target Locate sensors, a tank-infantry phone, communications gear, including FBCB2 and Blue Force Tracking, to aid in crew situational awareness, and a thermal sight for the .50 caliber machine gun. General Dynamics has been awarded contracts by the U.S. Army to supply this variant.
M1A1AIM v.2/M1A1SA (Situational Awareness): Upgrades similar to AIM v.1 tanks + new 3rd generation depleted uranium armor components.
M1A1FEP (Firepower Enhancement Package): Similar upgrade to AIM v.2 for USMC tanks.
M1A1KVT (Krasnovian Variant Tank): M1A1s that have been visually modified to resemble Soviet-made tanks for use at the National Training Center, fitted with MILES gear and a Hoffman device.
M1A1M: An export variant ordered by the Iraqi Army.
M1A1SA (Special Armor): configuration for the Royal Moroccan Army.
M1A2 (Baseline): Production began in 1986 and entered service in 1992 (77 built for the US and more than 600 M1s upgraded to M1A2, 315 for Saudi Arabia, 218 for Kuwait). The M1A2 offers the tank commander an independent thermal sight and ability to, in rapid sequence, shoot at two targets without the need to acquire each one sequentially, also 2nd generation depleted uranium armor components.
M1A2SEP (System Enhancement Package): Has upgraded third-generation depleted uranium armor components with graphite coating (240 new built, 300 M1A2s upgraded to M1A2SEP for the USA, also unknown numbers of upgraded basic M1s and M1IPs, also 400 oldest M1A1s upgraded to M1A2SEP).
M1A2S (Saudi Package): Saudi Arabian variant upgrade of the M1A2 based on M1A2SEP (442 M1A2s upgraded to M1A2S)
M1A2SEPv3: Has updated electronics and software, an Ammunition DataLink (ADL) to use airburst rounds, improved FLIR using long- and mid-wave infrared on 1080 screens, a low-profile CROWS RWS, and relocated Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) under armor to run electronics while stationary instead of the engine. Expected in 2017.
M1A3: Under development, with development planned to start by 2020. Improvements are to include a lighter 120 mm gun, added road wheels with improved suspension, a more durable track, lighter armor, long-range precision armaments, and infrared camera and laser detectors. A new internal computer system is also desired, with current wiring replaced by fiber-optic lines that could decrease weight by some two tons.
M1 TTB (Tank Test Bed): Prototype with unmanned turret, 3 crew members in armored capsule in front of the heavy armored hull, main armament was 120 mm smoothbore gun, M256 derivative or modification, mechanical loading system under turret, never fielded.
CATTB – Experimental model with a 140 mm smoothbore gun, heavy armored turret and upgraded hull based on the M1's chassis. It had a mechanical loading system in turret bustle, a new engine and probably other upgrades, never fielded. The tank went into trials in 1987–1988. CATTB stands for Component Advanced Technology Test Bed.
M1 Grizzly Combat Mobility Vehicle (CMV)
M1 Panther II Remote Controlled Mine Clearing Vehicle
M104 Wolverine Heavy Assault Bridge
M1 Panther II Mine Clearing Blade/Roller System.
M1 Assault Breacher Vehicle: Assault variant for the USMC. Based upon the M1A1 Abrams chassis, the Assault Breacher Vehicle has a variety of systems installed, such as a full-width mine plow, two linear demolition charges, and a lane-marking system. Reactive armor has been fitted to the vehicle providing additional protection against High-explosive anti-tank warhead-based weapons. The turret has been replaced by a new smaller one with two MICLIC launchers at its rear. A M2HB .50 machine gun in a remote weapons station is mounted on the commander's cupola and a bank of grenade launchers are fitted to each side of the superstructure to cover the frontal arc are provided for self-protection.
M1 Armored Recovery Vehicle. Only a prototype produced.
Specifications
Note: All of the above produce a power of .
Tank Urban Survival Kit
The Tank Urban Survival Kit (TUSK) is a series of improvements to the M1 Abrams intended to improve fighting ability in urban environments. Historically, urban and other close battlefields have been the worst place for tanks to fight. A tank's front armor is much stronger than that on the sides, top, or rear. In an urban environment, attacks can come from any direction, and attackers can get close enough to reliably hit weak points in the tank's armor or gain sufficient elevation to hit the top armor.
Armor upgrades include reactive armor on the sides of the tank and slat armor (similar to that on the Stryker) on the rear to protect against rocket-propelled grenades and other shaped charge warheads. A Transparent Armor Gun Shield and a thermal sight system are added to the loader's top-mounted M240B 7.62 mm machine gun, and a Kongsberg Gruppen Remote Weapon Turret carrying a .50 caliber machine gun (again similar to that used on the Stryker) is in place of the tank commander's original .50 caliber machine gun mount, wherein the commander had to expose himself to fire the weapon manually. An exterior telephone allows supporting infantry to communicate with the tank commander.
The TUSK system is a field-installable kit that allows tanks to be upgraded without needing to be recalled to a maintenance depot. While the reactive armor may not be needed in most situations, in maneuver warfare, items like the rear slat armor, loader's gun shield, infantry phone (which saw use on Marine Corps M1A1s as early as 2003), and Kongsberg Remote Weapons Station for the .50 in caliber machine gun will be added to the entire M1A2 fleet over time.
On 29 August 2006, General Dynamics Land Systems received a U.S. Army order for 505 Tank Urban Survivability Kits (TUSK) for Abrams main battle tanks supporting operations in Iraq, under a US$45 million contract. Deliveries were expected to be completed by April 2009. Under a separate order, the U.S. Army awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products (GDATP) US$30 million to produce reactive armor kits to equip M1A2s. The reactive tiles for the M1 will be locally produced at GDATP's Burlington Technology Center. Tiles will be produced at the company's reactive armor facility in Stone County Operations, McHenry, Mississippi. On 8 December 2006, the U.S. Army added Counter Improvised Explosive Device enhancements to the M1A1 and M1A2 TUSK, awarding GDLS $11.3 million contract, part of the $59 million package mentioned above. In December, GDLS also received an order, amounting to around 40% of a US$48 million order, for loader's thermal weapon sights being part of the TUSK system improvements for the M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams Tanks.
Operators
– Australian Army: 59 M1A1 (AIM) configuration tanks (hybrids with a mix of equipment used by U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps but without depleted uranium layers in armor). These tanks were bought from the U.S. in 2006 and replaced the Leopard AS1 in 2007.
– Egyptian Army: 1,005 M1A1 tanks co-produced by the U.S. and Egypt for the Egyptian army. Another 200 tanks have been ordered.
– Iraqi Army: 140 M1A1Ms (without depleted uranium layers in armor). Iraq was leasing 22 U.S. Army M1A1s for training in 2008. The first 11 tanks were delivered to the Iraqi Army in August 2010. All were delivered by August 2011. In October 2012, it was reported that six more tanks were being delivered.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): More than 40 Iraqi Army M1A1Ms captured as of June 2015, some destroyed by U.S. airstrikes.
– Kuwaiti Army: 218 M1A2s (without depleted uranium layers in armor)
– Saudi Arabian Army: 373 Abrams tanks, To be upgraded to M1A2S configuration in Saudi Arabia. 69 more M1A2S tanks ordered on 8 January 2013, to be delivered by 31 July 2014.
– United States Army and United States Marine Corps have received over 8,100 M1, M1A1 and M1A2 tanks combined.
U.S. Army
1,174 M1A2 and M1A2SEP variants
4,393 M1A1 variants
U.S. Marine Corps
403 M1A1
Potential operators
– Hellenic Army: 400 ex-U.S. Army M1A1 tanks have been offered to Greece, from which 90 might be procured.
– Royal Moroccan Army: 200 excess M1A1s were requested in 2011. The U.S. DSCA notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale for upgrades in June 2012. The proposed sale is for enhancement to Abrams tanks to the Special Armor (SA) configuration, refurbishment of Abrams tanks, and associated parts.
– Peruvian Army: In May 2013, the M1A1 Abrams was reported to be part of comparative tests to be conducted by Peru to find a replacement for their aging T-55s. Between 120 and 170 tanks may be acquired. The Abrams competed against the T-90S, Leopard 2A4 and A6, T-64, and T-84. By September 2013, only the M1A1 Abrams, Russian T-90S and T-80, and Ukrainian T-84 were still competing.
– Republic of China Army: According to a report, the Taiwanese government is considering placing an order for 200 used M1A1s from the U.S.
See also
List of "M" series military vehicles
List of main battle tanks by generation
Tanks of comparable role, performance and era
Al Khalid: Pakistani main battle tank
Challenger 2: British main battle tank
AMX Leclerc French main battle tank
Leopard 2: German main battle tank
Merkava: Israeli main battle tank
T-80: Russian main battle tank
T-90: Russian main battle tank
Type 99: Chinese main battle tank
Oplot-M: Ukrainian main battle tank
Arjun MBT: Indian main battle tank
MBT 2000 Chinese MBT
References
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography
Orr, Kelly. King of the Killing Zone. W.W. Norton Company, 1989.
United States General Accounting Office:Operation Desert Storm: Early Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams. Washington, January 1992.PDF.
Halberstadt, Hans. Desert Storm Ground War. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1991. 128 pp.
Hunnicutt, R.P. "Patton: A History of the American Main Battle Tank". Presidio Press, 1984 ISBN 0-89141-230-1.
Forty, George: Tank Action. From the Great War to the Persian Gulf, Allan Sutton Publishing Ltd., Phoenix Mill 1995.
Army Times – Two soldiers die in attack on Abrams tank, October 29, 2003
Practical Applications of Vehicle Control within the Distributed Processing Architecture, Proceedings of the 1992 American Control Conference, Ruggirello, Joseph A., Bielawski, Dennis A., and Diaz, R. Gary, General Dynamics, IEEE, Published Jun. 1992
External links
Abrams Tank Fact File for the United States Army
M1A1 main battle tank on armyrecognition.com
M1 Abrams page, with a detailed overview of how the tank works on howstuffworks.com
M1 Tank Urban Survivability Kit (TUSK), M1A1 AIM Upgrade, and M1A2 SEP Upgrade on Defense-Update.com
M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank page on GlobalSecurity.org
AGT1500 Turbine Technology on Honeywell.com
M1 Abrams Tanks for Iraq
The Abrams is back - the419.com
M1A2 on Armour.ws
M1A1/2 Abrams page on the Armor Site
Main Battle Tank M1A1 Abrams on Enemyforces.com
M1 Abrams modernisation 2011
M1 Abrams modernisation 2012
Category:Main battle tanks of the United States
Category:Cold War tanks of the United States
Category:Main battle tanks of the Cold War
Category:Military vehicles 1980–1989
Category:General Dynamics land vehicles |
2016-01 | Photography-696711018 | Photography | Photography
Photography is the science, art and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.
Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an electronic image sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. The result with photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically "developed" into a visible image, either negative or positive depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.
Photography is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., photolithography) and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.
Etymology
The word "photography" was created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), "light" and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".
Several people may have coined the same new term from these roots independently. Hercules Florence, a French painter and inventor living in Campinas, Brazil, used the French form of the word, photographie, in private notes which a Brazilian photography historian believes were written in 1834. Johann von Maedler, a Berlin astronomer, is credited in a 1932 German history of photography as having used it in an article published on 25 February 1839 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung. Both of these claims are now widely reported but apparently neither has ever been independently confirmed as beyond reasonable doubt. Credit has traditionally been given to Sir John Herschel both for coining the word and for introducing it to the public. His uses of it in private correspondence prior to 25 February 1839 and at his Royal Society lecture on the subject in London on 14 March 1839 have long been amply documented and accepted as settled facts.
History
Precursor technologies
Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries. Long before the first photographs were made, Chinese philosopher Mo Di and Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. In the 6th century CE, Byzantine mathematician Anthemius of Tralles used a type of camera obscura in his experiments, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) studied the camera obscura and pinhole camera, Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georg Fabricius (1516–71) discovered silver chloride. Techniques described in the Book of Optics are capable of producing primitive photographs using medieval materials.
Daniele Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1566. Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. The fiction book Giphantie, published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, described what can be interpreted as photography.
The discovery of the camera obscura that provides an image of a scene dates back to ancient China. Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camerae obscurae that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley. A hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. So the birth of photography was primarily concerned with inventing means to fix and retain the image produced by the camera obscura.
Renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art. The camera obscura literally means "dark chamber" in Latin. It is a box with a hole in it which allows light to go through and create an image onto the piece of paper.
Invention of photography
Around the year 1800, Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Although he succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight, and even made shadow-copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that "the images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver." The shadow images eventually darkened all over.
The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it. Niépce was successful again in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he made the View from the Window at Le Gras, the earliest surviving photograph from nature (i.e., of the image of a real-world scene, as formed in a camera obscura by a lens).
Because Niépce's camera photographs required an extremely long exposure (at least eight hours and probably several days), he sought to greatly improve his bitumen process or replace it with one that was more practical. In partnership with Louis Daguerre, he worked out post-exposure processing methods that produced visually superior results and replaced the bitumen with a more light-sensitive resin, but hours of exposure in the camera were still required. With an eye to eventual commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy.
Niépce died in 1833 and Daguerre then redirected the experiments toward the light-sensitive silver halides, which Niépce had abandoned many years earlier because of his inability to make the images he captured with them light-fast and permanent. Daguerre's efforts culminated in what would later be named the daguerreotype process, the essential elements of which were in place in 1837. The required exposure time was measured in minutes instead of hours. Daguerre took the earliest confirmed photograph of a person in 1838 while capturing a view of a Paris street: unlike the other pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic on the busy boulevard, which appears deserted, one man having his boots polished stood sufficiently still throughout the approximately ten-minute-long exposure to be visible. The existence of Daguerre's process was publicly announced, without details, on 7 January 1839. The news created an international sensation. France soon agreed to pay Daguerre a pension in exchange for the right to present his invention to the world as the gift of France, which occurred when complete working instructions were unveiled on 19 August 1839.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, Hercules Florence had apparently started working out a silver-salt-based paper process in 1832, later naming it Photographie, and an English inventor, William Fox Talbot, succeeded in making crude but reasonably light-fast silver images on paper as early as 1834 but had kept his work secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention in January 1839, Talbot published his method and set about improving on it. At first, like other pre-daguerreotype processes, Talbot's paper-based photography typically required hours-long exposures in the camera, but in 1840 he created the calotype process, with exposures comparable to the daguerreotype. In both its original and calotype forms, Talbot's process, unlike Daguerre's, created a translucent negative which could be used to print multiple positive copies, the basis of most chemical photography up to the present day. Daguerreotypes could only be replicated by rephotographing them with a camera. Talbot's famous tiny paper negative of the Oriel window in Lacock Abbey, one of a number of camera photographs he made in the summer of 1835, may be the oldest camera negative in existence.
John Herschel made many contributions to the new field. He invented the cyanotype process, later familiar as the "blueprint". He was the first to use the terms "photography", "negative" and "positive". He had discovered in 1819 that sodium thiosulphate was a solvent of silver halides, and in 1839 he informed Talbot (and, indirectly, Daguerre) that it could be used to "fix" silver-halide-based photographs and make them completely light-fast. He made the first glass negative in late 1839.
In the March 1851 issue of The Chemist, Frederick Scott Archer published his wet plate collodion process. It became the most widely used photographic medium until the gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, eventually replaced it. There are three subsets to the collodion process; the Ambrotype (a positive image on glass), the Ferrotype or Tintype (a positive image on metal) and the glass negative, which was used to make positive prints on albumen or salted paper.
Many advances in photographic glass plates and printing were made during the rest of the 19th century. In 1891, Gabriel Lippmann introduced a process for making natural-color photographs based on the optical phenomenon of the interference of light waves. His scientifically elegant and important but ultimately impractical invention earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908.
Glass plates were the medium for most original camera photography from the late 1850s until the general introduction of flexible plastic films during the 1890s. Although the convenience of film greatly popularized amateur photography, early films were somewhat more expensive and of markedly lower optical quality than their glass plate equivalents, and until the late 1910s they were not available in the large formats preferred by most professional photographers, so the new medium did not immediately or completely replace the old. Because of the superior dimensional stability of glass, the use of plates for some scientific applications, such as astrophotography, continued into the 1990s, and in the niche field of laser holography it has persisted into the 2010s.
Film photography
Hurter and Driffield began pioneering work on the light sensitivity of photographic emulsions in 1876. Their work enabled the first quantitative measure of film speed to be devised.
The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by George Eastman in 1885, but this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose ("celluloid"), now usually called "nitrate film".
Although cellulose acetate or "safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908, at first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for X-ray films until 1933, and although safety film was always used for 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm motion pictures until it was finally discontinued in 1951.
Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century, when advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats. Although modern photography is dominated by digital users, film continues to be used by enthusiasts and professional photographers. The distinctively "look" of film based photographs compared to digital images is likely due to a combination of factors, including: (1) differences in spectral and tonal sensitivity (S-shaped density-to-exposure (H&D curve) with film vs. linear response curve for digital CCD sensors (2) resolution and (3) continuity of tone.
Black-and-white
Originally, all photography was monochrome, or black-and-white. Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost and its "classic" photographic look. The tones and contrast between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography. It is important to note that monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites, and intermediate shades of gray, but can involve shades of one particular hue depending on the process. The cyanotype process, for example, produces an image composed of blue tones. The albumen print process, first used more than years ago, produces brownish tones.
Many photographers continue to produce some monochrome images, sometimes because of the established archival permanence of well-processed silver-halide-based materials. Some full-color digital images are processed using a variety of techniques to create black-and-white results, and some manufacturers produce digital cameras that exclusively shoot monochrome. Monochrome printing or electronic display can be used to salvage certain photographs taken in color which are unsatisfactory in their original form; sometimes when presented as black-and-white or single-color-toned images they are found to be more effective. Although color photography has long predominated, monochrome images are still produced, mostly for artistic reasons. Almost all digital cameras have an option to shoot in monochrome, and almost all image editing software can combine or selectively discard RGB color channels to produce a monochrome image from one shot in color.
Color
Color photography was explored beginning in the 1840s. Early experiments in color required extremely long exposures (hours or days for camera images) and could not "fix" the photograph to prevent the color from quickly fading when exposed to white light.
The first permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 using the three-color-separation principle first published by physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855. Maxwell's idea was to take three separate black-and-white photographs through red, green and blue filters. This provides the photographer with the three basic channels required to recreate a color image. Transparent prints of the images could be projected through similar color filters and superimposed on the projection screen, an additive method of color reproduction. A color print on paper could be produced by superimposing carbon prints of the three images made in their complementary colors, a subtractive method of color reproduction pioneered by Louis Ducos du Hauron in the late 1860s.
Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made extensive use of this color separation technique, employing a special camera which successively exposed the three color-filtered images on different parts of an oblong plate. Because his exposures were not simultaneous, unsteady subjects exhibited color "fringes" or, if rapidly moving through the scene, appeared as brightly colored ghosts in the resulting projected or printed images.
Implementation of color photography was hindered by the limited sensitivity of early photographic materials, which were mostly sensitive to blue, only slightly sensitive to green, and virtually insensitive to red. The discovery of dye sensitization by photochemist Hermann Vogel in 1873 suddenly made it possible to add sensitivity to green, yellow and even red. Improved color sensitizers and ongoing improvements in the overall sensitivity of emulsions steadily reduced the once-prohibitive long exposure times required for color, bringing it ever closer to commercial viability.
Autochrome, the first commercially successful color process, was introduced by the Lumière brothers in 1907. Autochrome plates incorporated a mosaic color filter layer made of dyed grains of potato starch, which allowed the three color components to be recorded as adjacent microscopic image fragments. After an Autochrome plate was reversal processed to produce a positive transparency, the starch grains served to illuminate each fragment with the correct color and the tiny colored points blended together in the eye, synthesizing the color of the subject by the additive method. Autochrome plates were one of several varieties of additive color screen plates and films marketed between the 1890s and the 1950s.
Kodachrome, the first modern "integral tripack" (or "monopack") color film, was introduced by Kodak in 1935. It captured the three color components in a multi-layer emulsion. One layer was sensitized to record the red-dominated part of the spectrum, another layer recorded only the green part and a third recorded only the blue. Without special film processing, the result would simply be three superimposed black-and-white images, but complementary cyan, magenta, and yellow dye images were created in those layers by adding color couplers during a complex processing procedure.
Agfa's similarly structured Agfacolor Neu was introduced in 1936. Unlike Kodachrome, the color couplers in Agfacolor Neu were incorporated into the emulsion layers during manufacture, which greatly simplified the processing. Currently available color films still employ a multi-layer emulsion and the same principles, most closely resembling Agfa's product.
Instant color film, used in a special camera which yielded a unique finished color print only a minute or two after the exposure, was introduced by Polaroid in 1963.
Color photography may form images as positive transparencies, which can be used in a slide projector, or as color negatives intended for use in creating positive color enlargements on specially coated paper. The latter is now the most common form of film (non-digital) color photography owing to the introduction of automated photo printing equipment. After a transition period centered around 1995–2005, color film was relegated to a niche market by inexpensive multi-megapixel digital cameras. Film continues to be the preference of some photographers because of its distinctive "look".
Digital photography
In 1981, Sony unveiled the first consumer camera to use a charge-coupled device for imaging, eliminating the need for film: the Sony Mavica. While the Mavica saved images to disk, the images were displayed on television, and the camera was not fully digital. In 1991, Kodak unveiled the DCS 100, the first commercially available digital single lens reflex camera. Although its high cost precluded uses other than photojournalism and professional photography, commercial digital photography was born.
Digital imaging uses an electronic image sensor to record the image as a set of electronic data rather than as chemical changes on film. An important difference between digital and chemical photography is that chemical photography resists photo manipulation because it involves film and photographic paper, while digital imaging is a highly manipulative medium. This difference allows for a degree of image post-processing that is comparatively difficult in film-based photography and permits different communicative potentials and applications.
Digital photography dominates the 21st century. More than 99% of photographs taken around the world are through digital cameras, increasingly through smartphones.
Synthesis photography
Synthesis photography is part of computer-generated imagery (CGI) where the shooting process is modeled on real photography. The CGI, creating digital copies of real universe, requires a visual representation process of these universes. Synthesis photography is the application of analog and digital photography in digital space. With the characteristics of the real photography but not being constrained by the physical limits of real world, synthesis photography allows to get away from real photography.
Evolution of the camera
Technical aspects
The camera is the image-forming device, and a photographic plate, photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the capture medium. The respective recording medium can be the plate or film itself, or a digital magnetic or electronic memory.
Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light-recording material to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on plate or film) or RAW file (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on a paper.
The camera (or 'camera obscura') is a dark room or chamber from which, as far as possible, all light is excluded except the light that forms the image. The subject being photographed, however, must be illuminated. Cameras can range from small to very large, a whole room that is kept dark while the object to be photographed is in another room where it is properly illuminated. This was common for reproduction photography of flat copy when large film negatives were used (see Process camera).
As soon as photographic materials became "fast" (sensitive) enough for taking candid or surreptitious pictures, small "detective" cameras were made, some actually disguised as a book or handbag or pocket watch (the Ticka camera) or even worn hidden behind an Ascot necktie with a tie pin that was really the lens.
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on recording medium. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame". This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures together to create the illusion of motion.
Camera controls
In all but certain specialized cameras, the process of obtaining a usable exposure must involve the use, manually or automatically, of a few controls to ensure the photograph is clear, sharp and well illuminated. The controls usually include but are not limited to the following:
Many other elements of the imaging device itself may have a pronounced effect on the quality and/or aesthetic effect of a given photograph; among them are:
Focal length and type of lens (normal, long focus, wide angle, telephoto, macro, fisheye, or zoom)
Filters placed between the subject and the light recording material, either in front of or behind the lens
Inherent sensitivity of the medium to light intensity and color/wavelengths.
The nature of the light recording material, for example its resolution as measured in pixels or grains of silver halide.
Exposure and rendering
Camera controls are interrelated. The total amount of light reaching the film plane (the 'exposure') changes with the duration of exposure, aperture of the lens, and on the effective focal length of the lens (which in variable focal length lenses, can force a change in aperture as the lens is zoomed). Changing any of these controls can alter the exposure. Many cameras may be set to adjust most or all of these controls automatically. This automatic functionality is useful for occasional photographers in many situations.
The duration of an exposure is referred to as shutter speed, often even in cameras that do not have a physical shutter, and is typically measured in fractions of a second. It is quite possible to have exposures from one up to several seconds, usually for still-life subjects, and for night scenes exposure times can be several hours. However, for a subject that is in motion use a fast shutter speed. This will prevent the photograph from coming out blurry.
The effective aperture is expressed by an f-number or f-stop (derived from focal ratio), which is proportional to the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the aperture. Longer lenses will pass less light even though the diameter of the aperture is the same due to the greater distance the light has to travel; shorter lenses (a shorter focal length) will be brighter with the same size of aperture.
The smaller the f/number, the larger the effective aperture. The present system of f/numbers to give the effective aperture of a lens was standardized by an international convention. There were earlier, different series of numbers in older cameras.
If the f-number is decreased by a factor of , the aperture diameter is increased by the same factor, and its area is increased by a factor of 2. The f-stops that might be found on a typical lens include 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32, where going up "one stop" (using lower f-stop numbers) doubles the amount of light reaching the film, and stopping down one stop halves the amount of light.
Image capture can be achieved through various combinations of shutter speed, aperture, and film or sensor speed. Different (but related) settings of aperture and shutter speed enable photographs to be taken under various conditions of film or sensor speed, lighting and motion of subjects and/or camera, and desired depth of field. A slower speed film will exhibit less "grain", and a slower speed setting on an electronic sensor will exhibit less "noise", while higher film and sensor speeds allow for a faster shutter speed, which reduces motion blur or allows the use of a smaller aperture to increase the depth of field.
For example, a wider aperture is used for lower light and a lower aperture for more light. If a subject is in motion, then a high shutter speed may be needed. A tripod can also be helpful in that it enables a slower shutter speed to be used.
For example, f/8 at 8 ms (1/125 of a second) and f/5.6 at 4 ms (1/250 of a second) yield the same amount of light. The chosen combination has an impact on the final result. The aperture and focal length of the lens determine the depth of field, which refers to the range of distances from the lens that will be in focus. A longer lens or a wider aperture will result in "shallow" depth of field (i.e., only a small plane of the image will be in sharp focus). This is often useful for isolating subjects from backgrounds as in individual portraits or macro photography.
Conversely, a shorter lens, or a smaller aperture, will result in more of the image being in focus. This is generally more desirable when photographing landscapes or groups of people. With very small apertures, such as pinholes, a wide range of distance can be brought into focus, but sharpness is severely degraded by diffraction with such small apertures. Generally, the highest degree of "sharpness" is achieved at an aperture near the middle of a lens's range (for example, f/8 for a lens with available apertures of f/2.8 to f/16). However, as lens technology improves, lenses are becoming capable of making increasingly sharp images at wider apertures.
Image capture is only part of the image forming process. Regardless of material, some process must be employed to render the latent image captured by the camera into a viewable image. With slide film, the developed film is just mounted for projection. Print film requires the developed film negative to be printed onto photographic paper or transparency. Prior to the advent of laser jet and inkjet printers, celluloid photographic negative images had to be mounted in an enlarger which projected the image onto a sheet of light-sensitive paper for a certain length of time (usually measured in seconds or fractions of a second). This sheet then was soaked in a chemical bath of developer (to bring out the image) followed immediately by a stop bath (to neutralize the progression of development and prevent the image from changing further once exposed to normal light). After this, the paper was hung until dry enough to safely handle. This post-production process allowed the photographer to further manipulate the final image beyond what had already been captured on the negative, adjusting the length of time the image was projected by the enlarger and the duration of both chemical baths to change the image's intensity, darkness, clarity, etc. This process is still employed by both amateur and professional photographers, but the advent of digital imagery means that the vast majority of modern photographic work is captured digitally and rendered via printing processes that are no longer dependent on chemical reactions to light. Such digital images may be uploaded to an image server (e.g., a photo-sharing web site), viewed on a television, or transferred to a computer or digital photo frame. Every type can then be produced as a hard copy on regular paper or photographic paper via a printer.
Prior to the rendering of a viewable image, modifications can be made using several controls. Many of these controls are similar to controls during image capture, while some are exclusive to the rendering process. Most printing controls have equivalent digital concepts, but some create different effects. For example, dodging and burning controls are different between digital and film processes. Other printing modifications include:
Chemicals and process used during film development.
Duration of print exposure – equivalent to shutter speed
Printing aperture – equivalent to aperture, but has no effect on depth of field
Contrast – changing the visual properties of objects in an image to make them distinguishable from other objects and the background
Dodging – reduces exposure of certain print areas, resulting in lighter areas
Burning in – increases exposure of certain areas, resulting in darker areas
Paper texture – glossy, matte, etc.
Paper type – resin-coated (RC) or fiber-based (FB)
Paper size
Exposure Shape — resulting prints in shapes such as circular, oval, loupe, etc.
Toners – used to add warm or cold tones to black-and-white prints
Other photographic techniques
Stereoscopic
Photographs, both monochrome and color, can be captured and displayed through two side-by-side images that emulate human stereoscopic vision. Stereoscopic photography was the first that captured figures in motion. While known colloquially as "3-D" photography, the more accurate term is stereoscopy. Such cameras have long been realized by using film, and more recently in digital electronic methods (including cellphone cameras).
Full-spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared
Ultraviolet and infrared films have been available for many decades and employed in a variety of photographic avenues since the 1960s. New technological trends in digital photography have opened a new direction in full spectrum photography, where careful filtering choices across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared lead to new artistic visions.
Modified digital cameras can detect some ultraviolet, all of the visible and much of the near infrared spectrum, as most digital imaging sensors are sensitive from about 350 nm to 1000 nm. An off-the-shelf digital camera contains an infrared hot mirror filter that blocks most of the infrared and a bit of the ultraviolet that would otherwise be detected by the sensor, narrowing the accepted range from about 400 nm to 700 nm.
Replacing a hot mirror or infrared blocking filter with an infrared pass or a wide spectrally transmitting filter allows the camera to detect the wider spectrum light at greater sensitivity. Without the hot-mirror, the red, green and blue (or cyan, yellow and magenta) colored micro-filters placed over the sensor elements pass varying amounts of ultraviolet (blue window) and infrared (primarily red and somewhat lesser the green and blue micro-filters).
Uses of full spectrum photography are for fine art photography, geology, forensics and law enforcement.
Light field photography
Digital methods of image capture and display processing have enabled the new technology of "light field photography" (also known as synthetic aperture photography). This process allows focusing at various depths of field to be selected after the photograph has been captured. As explained by Michael Faraday in 1846, the "light field" is understood as 5-dimensional, with each point in 3-D space having attributes of two more angles that define the direction of each ray passing through that point.
These additional vector attributes can be captured optically through the use of microlenses at each pixel-point within the 2-dimensional image sensor. Every pixel of the final image is actually a selection from each sub-array located under each microlens, as identified by a post-image capture focus algorithm.
Other imaging techniques
Besides the camera, other methods of forming images with light are available. For instance, a photocopy or xerography machine forms permanent images but uses the transfer of static electrical charges rather than photographic medium, hence the term electrophotography. Photograms are images produced by the shadows of objects cast on the photographic paper, without the use of a camera. Objects can also be placed directly on the glass of an image scanner to produce digital pictures.
Modes of production
Amateur
An amateur photographer is one who practices photography as a hobby / passion and not for profit. The quality of some amateur work is comparable to that of many professionals and may be highly specialized or eclectic in choice of subjects. Amateur photography is often pre-eminent in photographic subjects which have little prospect of commercial use or reward. Amateur photography grew during the late 19th century due to the popularization of the hand-held camera.
Commercial
Commercial photography is probably best defined as any photography for which the photographer is paid for images rather than works of art. In this light, money could be paid for the subject of the photograph or the photograph itself. Wholesale, retail, and professional uses of photography would fall under this definition. The commercial photographic world could include:
Advertising photography: photographs made to illustrate and usually sell a service or product. These images, such as packshots, are generally done with an advertising agency, design firm or with an in-house corporate design team.
Fashion and glamour photography usually incorporates models and is a form of advertising photography. Fashion photography, like the work featured in Harper's Bazaar, emphasizes clothes and other products; glamour emphasizes the model and body form. Glamour photography is popular in advertising and men's magazines. Models in glamour photography sometimes work nude.
Crime scene photography consists of photographing scenes of crime such as robberies and murders. A black and white camera or an infrared camera may be used to capture specific details.
Still life photography usually depicts inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life is a broader category for food and some natural photography and can be used for advertising purposes.
Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food photography is similar to still life photography, but requires some special skills.
Editorial photography illustrates a story or idea within the context of a magazine. These are usually assigned by the magazine and encompass fashion and glamour photography features.
Photojournalism can be considered a subset of editorial photography. Photographs made in this context are accepted as a documentation of a news story.
Portrait and wedding photography: photographs made and sold directly to the end user of the images.
Landscape photography depicts locations.
Wildlife photography demonstrates the life of animals.
Paparazzi is a form of photojournalism in which the photographer captures candid images of athletes, celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people.
Pet photography involves several aspects that are similar to traditional studio portraits. It can also be done in natural lighting, outside of a studio, such as in a client's home.
The market for photographic services demonstrates the aphorism "A picture is worth a thousand words", which has an interesting basis in the history of photography. Magazines and newspapers, companies putting up Web sites, advertising agencies and other groups pay for photography.
Many people take photographs for commercial purposes. Organizations with a budget and a need for photography have several options: they can employ a photographer directly, organize a public competition, or obtain rights to stock photographs. Photo stock can be procured through traditional stock giants, such as Getty Images or Corbis; smaller microstock agencies, such as Fotolia; or web marketplaces, such as Cutcaster.
Art
During the 20th century, both fine art photography and documentary photography became accepted by the English-speaking art world and the gallery system. In the United States, a handful of photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, John Szarkowski, F. Holland Day, and Edward Weston, spent their lives advocating for photography as a fine art.
At first, fine art photographers tried to imitate painting styles. This movement is called Pictorialism, often using soft focus for a dreamy, 'romantic' look. In reaction to that, Weston, Ansel Adams, and others formed the Group f/64 to advocate 'straight photography', the photograph as a (sharply focused) thing in itself and not an imitation of something else.
The aesthetics of photography is a matter that continues to be discussed regularly, especially in artistic circles. Many artists argued that photography was the mechanical reproduction of an image. If photography is authentically art, then photography in the context of art would need redefinition, such as determining what component of a photograph makes it beautiful to the viewer. The controversy began with the earliest images "written with light"; Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and others among the very earliest photographers were met with acclaim, but some questioned if their work met the definitions and purposes of art.
Clive Bell in his classic essay Art states that only "significant form" can distinguish art from what is not art.
On 14 February 2004, Sotheby's London sold the 2001 photograph 99 Cent II Diptychon for an unprecedented $3,346,456 to an anonymous bidder, making it the most expensive at the time.
Conceptual photography turns a concept or idea into a photograph. Even though what is depicted in the photographs are real objects, the subject is strictly abstract.
Science and forensics
The camera has a long and distinguished history as a means of recording phenomena from the first use by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot, such as astronomical events (eclipses for example), small creatures and plants when the camera was attached to the eyepiece of microscopes (in photomicroscopy) and for macro photography of larger specimens. The camera also proved useful in recording crime scenes and the scenes of accidents, such as the Wootton bridge collapse in 1861. The methods used in analysing photographs for use in legal cases are collectively known as forensic photography. Crime scene photos are taken from three vantage point. The vantage points are overview, mid-range, and close up.
By 1853, Charles Brooke had invented a technology for the automatic registration of instruments by photography. These instruments included barometers, thermometers, psychrometers, and magnetometers, which recorded their readings by means of an automated photographic process.
Science uses image technology that has derived from the design of the Pin Hole camera. X-Ray machine are similar in design to Pin Hole cameras with high grade filters and laser radiation.
Photography has become ubiquitous in recording events and data in science and engineering, and at crime scenes or accident scenes. The method has been much extended by using other wavelengths, such as infrared photography and ultraviolet photography, as well as spectroscopy. Those methods were first used in the Victorian era and improved much further since that time.
Social and cultural implications
There are many ongoing questions about different aspects of photography. In her writing "On Photography" (1977), Susan Sontag discusses concerns about the objectivity of photography. This is a highly debated subject within the photographic community. Sontag argues, "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting one's self into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge, and therefore like power." Photographers decide what to take a photo of, what elements to exclude and what angle to frame the photo, and these factors may reflect a particular socio-historical context. Along these lines it can be argued that photography is a subjective form of representation.
Modern photography has raised a number of concerns on its impact on society. In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), the camera is presented as promoting voyeurism. 'Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than passive observing'.
The camera doesn't rape or even possess, though it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate – all activities that, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some detachment.
Digital imaging has raised ethical concerns because of the ease of manipulating digital photographs in post-processing. Many photojournalists have declared they will not crop their pictures, or are forbidden from combining elements of multiple photos to make "photomontages", passing them as "real" photographs. Today's technology has made image editing relatively simple for even the novice photographer. However, recent changes of in-camera processing allows digital fingerprinting of photos to detect tampering for purposes of forensic photography.
Photography is one of the new media forms that changes perception and changes the structure of society. Further unease has been caused around cameras in regards to desensitization. Fears that disturbing or explicit images are widely accessible to children and society at large have been raised. Particularly, photos of war and pornography are causing a stir. Sontag is concerned that "to photograph is to turn people into objects that can be symbolically possessed." Desensitization discussion goes hand in hand with debates about censored images. Sontag writes of her concern that the ability to censor pictures means the photographer has the ability to construct reality.
One of the practices through which photography constitutes society is tourism. Tourism and photography combine to create a "tourist gaze"
in which local inhabitants are positioned and defined by the camera lens. However, it has also been argued that there exists a "reverse gaze" through which indigenous photographees can position the tourist photographer as a shallow consumer of images.
Additionally, photography has been the topic of many songs in popular culture.
Law
Photography is both restricted as well as protected by the law in many jurisdictions. Protection of photographs is typically achieved through the granting of copyright or moral rights to the photographer. In the UK a recent law (Counter-Terrorism Act 2008) increases the power of the police to prevent people, even press photographers, from taking pictures in public places.
See also
Outline of photography
Science of photography
List of photographers
Image Editing
References
Further reading
Introduction
Photography. A Critical Introduction [Paperback], ed. by Liz Wells, 3rd edition, London [etc.]: Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-30704-X
History
A New History of Photography, ed. by Michel Frizot, Köln : Könemann, 1998
Franz-Xaver Schlegel, Das Leben der toten Dinge – Studien zur modernen Sachfotografie in den USA 1914–1935, 2 Bände, Stuttgart/Germany: Art in Life 1999, ISBN 3-00-004407-8.
Reference works
Hans-Michael Koetzle: Das Lexikon der Fotografen: 1900 bis heute, Munich: Knaur 2002, 512 p., ISBN 3-426-66479-8
John Hannavy (ed.): Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, 1736 p., New York: Routledge 2005 ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2
Lynne Warren (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography, 1719 p., New York, NY [et.] : Routledge, 2006
The Oxford Companion to the Photograph, ed. by Robin Lenman, Oxford University Press 2005
"The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography", Richard Zakia, Leslie Stroebel, Focal Press 1993, ISBN 0-240-51417-3
Other books
Photography and The Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson, Key Porter Books 1989, ISBN 1-55013-099-4.
The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression by Bruce Barnbaum, Rocky Nook 2010, ISBN 1-933952-68-7.
Image Clarity: High Resolution Photography by John B. Williams, Focal Press 1990, ISBN 0-240-80033-8.
External links
World History of Photography From The History of Art.
Daguerreotype to Digital: A Brief History of the Photographic Process From the State Library & Archives of Florida.
Photography Changes Everything is a collection of original essays, stories and images—contributed by experts from a spectrum of professional worlds and members of the project's online audience—that explore the many ways photography shapes our culture and our lives, by the Smithsonian Institution.
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2016-01 | Tutankhamun-697136549 | Tutankhamun | Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (; alternatively spelled with Tutenkh-, -amen, -amon) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (ruled ca. 1332–1323 BC in the conventional chronology), during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom.
He is colloquially referred to as King Tut. His original name, Tutankhaten, means "Living Image of Aten", while Tutankhamun means "Living Image of Amun". In hieroglyphs, the name Tutankhamun was typically written Amen-tut-ankh, because of a scribal custom that placed a divine name at the beginning of a phrase to show appropriate reverence. He is possibly also the Nibhurrereya of the Amarna letters, and likely the 18th dynasty king Rathotis who, according to Manetho, an ancient historian, had reigned for nine years—a figure that conforms with Flavius Josephus's version of Manetho's Epitome.
The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter and George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon of Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage. It sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's mask, now in Cairo Museum, remains the popular symbol. Exhibits of artifacts from his tomb have toured the world. In February 2010, the results of DNA tests confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten (mummy KV55) and Akhenaten's sister and wife (mummy KV35YL), whose name is unknown but whose remains are positively identified as "The Younger Lady" mummy found in KV35. The "mysterious" deaths of a few of those who excavated Tutankhamun's tomb has been popularly attributed to the curse of the pharaohs.
Life
Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten (formerly Amenhotep IV) and one of Akhenaten's sisters, or perhaps one of his cousins. As a prince he was known as Tutankhaten. He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine or ten, taking the throne name Nebkheperure. His wet-nurse was a woman called Maia, known from her tomb at Saqqara. A teacher was most likely Sennedjem.
When he became king, he married his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. They had two daughters, both stillborn. Computed tomography studies released in 2011 revealed that one daughter died at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other at 9 months of pregnancy. No evidence was found in either mummy of congenital anomalies or an apparent cause of death.
Reign
Given his age, the king probably had very powerful advisers, presumably including General Horemheb and the Vizier Ay. Horemheb records that the king appointed him "lord of the land" as hereditary prince to maintain law. He also noted his ability to calm the young king when his temper flared.
In his third regnal year, Tutankhamun reversed several changes made during his father's reign. He ended the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy. The ban on the cult of Amun was lifted and traditional privileges were restored to its priesthood. The capital was moved back to Thebes and the city of Akhetaten abandoned. This is when he changed his name to Tutankhamun, "Living image of Amun", reinforcing the restoration of Amun.
As part of his restoration, the king initiated building projects, in particular at Karnak in Thebes, where he dedicated a temple to Amun. Many monuments were erected, and an inscription on his tomb door declares the king had "spent his life in fashioning the images of the gods". The traditional festivals were now celebrated again, including those related to the Apis Bull, Horemakhet, and Opet. His restoration stela says:
The country was economically weak and in turmoil following the reign of Akhenaten. Diplomatic relations with other kingdoms had been neglected, and Tutankhamun sought to restore them, in particular with the Mitanni. Evidence of his success is suggested by the gifts from various countries found in his tomb. Despite his efforts for improved relations, battles with Nubians and Asiatics were recorded in his mortuary temple at Thebes. His tomb contained body armor and folding stools appropriate for military campaigns. However, given his youth and physical disabilities, which seemed to require the use of a cane in order to walk (he died c. age 19), historians speculate that he did not personally take part in these battles.
Health and appearance
Tutankhamun was slight of build, and was roughly tall. He had large front incisors and an overbite characteristic of the Thutmosid royal line to which he belonged. Between September 2007 and October 2009, various mummies were subjected to detailed anthropological, radiological, and genetic studies as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project. The research showed that Tutankhamun also had "a slightly cleft palate" and possibly a mild case of scoliosis, a medical condition in which the spine is curved from side to side. Examination of Tutankhamun's body has also revealed deformations in his left foot, caused by necrosis of bone tissue. The affliction may have forced Tutankhamun to walk with the use of a cane, many of which were found in his tomb. In DNA tests of Tutankhamun's mummy, scientists found DNA from the mosquito-borne parasites that cause malaria. This is currently the oldest known genetic proof of the disease. More than one strain of the malaria parasite was found, indicating that Tutankhamun contracted multiple malarial infections. According to National Geographic, "The malaria would have weakened Tutankhamun's immune system and interfered with the healing of his foot. These factors, combined with the fracture in his left thighbone, which scientists had discovered in 2005, may have ultimately been what killed the young king."
Genealogy
In 2008, a team began DNA research on Tutankhamun and the mummified remains of other members of his family. The results from the DNA samples finally put to rest questions about Tutankhamun's lineage, proving that his father was Akhenaten, but that his mother was not one of Akhenaten's known wives. His mother was one of his father's five sisters, although it is not known which one. The team was able to establish with a probability of better than 99.99 percent that Amenhotep III was the father of the individual in KV55, who was in turn the father of Tutankhamun. The young king's mother was found through the DNA testing of a mummy designated as 'The Younger Lady' (KV35YL), which was found lying beside Queen Tiye in the alcove of KV35. Her DNA proved that, like his father, she was a child of Amenhotep III and Tiye; thus, Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister. Queen Tiye held much political influence at court and acted as an adviser to her son after the death of her husband. Some geneticists dispute these findings, however, and "complain that the team used inappropriate analysis techniques."
While the data are still incomplete, the study suggests that one of the mummified fetuses found in Tutankhamun's tomb is the daughter of Tutankhamun himself, and the other fetus is probably his child as well. So far, only partial data for the two female mummies from KV21 has been obtained. One of them, KV21A, may well be the infants' mother, and, thus, Tutankhamun's wife, Ankhesenamun. It is known from history that she was the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and thus likely to be her husband's half-sister. One consequence of inbreeding can be children whose genetic defects do not allow them to be brought to term.
A further autopsy and genetic evidence in 2014 re-confirmed the 2010 findings that Tutankhamun was the product of a brother-sister relationship.
Death
There are no surviving records of Tutankhamun's final days. What caused Tutankhamun's death has been the subject of considerable debate. Major studies have been conducted in an effort to establish the cause of death. There is some evidence, advanced by Harvard microbiologist Ralph Mitchell, that his burial may have been hurried. Mitchell reported that dark brown splotches on the decorated walls of Tutankhamun's burial chamber suggested that he had been entombed even before the paint had a chance to dry.
Although there is some speculation that Tutankhamun was assassinated, the consensus is that his death was accidental. A CT scan taken in 2005 showed that he had suffered a compound left leg fracture shortly before his death, and that the leg had become infected. DNA analysis conducted in 2010 showed the presence of malaria in his system, leading to the belief that malaria and Köhler disease II combined led to his death. On 14 September 2012, ABC News presented a further theory about Tutankhamun's death, developed by lecturer and surgeon Dr. Hutan Ashrafian, who believed that temporal lobe epilepsy caused a fatal fall which also broke Tutankhamun's leg.
In June 2010, German scientists said they believed there was evidence that he had died of sickle cell disease. Other experts, however, rejected the hypothesis of homozygous sickle cell disease based on survival beyond the age of 5 and the location of the osteonecrosis which is characteristic of Freiberg-Kohler syndrome rather than sickle-cell disease. Research conducted in 2005 by archaeologists, radiologists, and geneticists, who performed CT scans on the mummy found that he was not killed by a blow to the head, as previously thought. New CT images discovered congenital flaws, which are more common among the children of incest. Siblings are more likely to pass on twin copies of harmful genes, which is why children of incest more commonly manifest genetic defects. It is suspected he also had a partially cleft palate, another congenital defect.
Various other diseases, invoked as possible explanations to his early demise, included Marfan syndrome, Wilson-Turner X-linked mental retardation syndrome, Fröhlich syndrome (adiposogenital dystrophy), Klinefelter syndrome, androgen insensitivity syndrome, aromatase excess syndrome in conjunction with sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, Antley–Bixler syndrome or one of its variants, and temporal lobe epilepsy.
A research team, consisting of Egyptian scientists Yehia Gad and Somaia Ismail from the National Research Centre in Cairo, conducted further CT scans under the direction of Ashraf Selim and Sahar Saleem of the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University. Three international experts served as consultants: Carsten Pusch of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany; Albert Zink of the EURAC-Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy; and Paul Gostner of the Central Hospital Bolzano. STR analysis based DNA fingerprinting analysis combined with the other techniques have rejected the hypothesis of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (e.g., Antley-Bixler syndrome) or Marfan syndrome, but an accumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident. Several pathologies including Köhler disease II were diagnosed in Tutankhamun; none alone would have caused death. Genetic testing for STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodium falciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4 mummies, including Tutankhamun's. However their exact contribution to the causality of his death still is highly debated.
As stated above, the team discovered DNA from several strains of a parasite proving he was infected with the most severe strain of malaria several times in his short life. Malaria can trigger circulatory shock or cause a fatal immune response in the body, either of which can lead to death. If Tutankhamun did suffer from a bone disease which was crippling, it may not have been fatal. "Perhaps he struggled against other [congenital flaws] until a severe bout of malaria or a leg broken in an accident added one strain too many to a body that could no longer carry the load", wrote Zahi Hawass, archeologist and head of Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquity involved in the research.
A review of the medical findings to date found that he suffered from mild kyphoscoliosis, pes planus, hypophalangism of the right foot, bone necrosis of second and third metatarsal bones of the left foot, malaria, and a complex fracture of the right knee shortly before death.
In late 2013, Egyptologist Dr. Chris Naunton and scientists from the Cranfield Institute performed a "virtual autopsy" of Tutankhamun, revealing a pattern of injuries down one side of his body. Car-crash investigators then created computer simulations of chariot accidents. Naunton concluded that Tutankhamun was killed in a chariot crash: a chariot smashed into him while he was on his knees, shattering his ribs and pelvis. Naunton also referenced Howard Carter's records of the body having been burnt. Working with anthropologist Dr. Robert Connolly and forensic archaeologist Dr. Matthew Ponting, Naunton produced evidence that Tutankhamun's body was burnt while sealed inside his coffin. Embalming oils combined with oxygen and linen had caused a chemical reaction, creating temperatures of more than . Naunton said, "The charring and possibility that a botched mummification led to the body spontaneously combusting shortly after burial was entirely unexpected."
A further investigation, in 2014, revealed that it was unlikely he had been killed in a chariot accident. Scans found that all but one of his bone fractures, including those to his skull, had been inflicted after his death. The scans also showed that he had a partially clubbed foot and would have been unable to stand unaided, thus making it unlikely he ever rode in a chariot; this was supported by the presence of many walking sticks among the contents of his tomb. Instead, it is believed that genetic defects arising from his parents being siblings, complications from a broken leg and his suffering from malaria, together caused his death.
Aftermath
With the death of Tutankhamun and the two stillborn children buried with him, the Thutmosid family line came to an end. The Amarna letters indicate that Tutankhamun's wife, recently widowed, wrote to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, asking if she could marry one of his sons. The letters do not say how Tutankhamun died. In the message, Ankhesenamun says that she was very afraid, but would not take one of her own people as husband. However, the son was killed before reaching his new wife. Shortly afterward, Ay married Tutankhamun's widow and became Pharaoh as a war was fought between the two countries, and Egypt was left defeated. The fate of Ankhesenamun is not known, but she disappears from record and Ay's second wife Tey became Great Royal Wife. After Ay's death, Horemheb usurped the throne and instigated a campaign of damnatio memoriae against him. Tutankhamun's father Akhenaten, stepmother Nefertiti, his wife Ankhesenamun, half sisters and other family members were also included. Not even Tutankhamun was spared. His images and cartouches were also erased. Horemheb himself, despite a possible marriage to Nefertiti's sister, Mutnedjmet, was left childless and willed the throne to Paramessu, who founded the Ramesside family line of pharaohs.
Significance
Tutankhamun was nine years old when he became Pharaoh, son of god Ra, and reigned for approximately ten years. In historical terms, Tutankhamun's significance stems from the fact that his reign was close to the apogee of Egypt as a world power and from his rejection of the radical religious innovations introduced by his predecessor and father, Akhenaten. Secondly, his tomb in the Valley of the Kings was discovered by Carter almost completely intact—the most complete ancient Egyptian royal tomb ever found. As Tutankhamun began his reign at such an early age, his vizier, and eventual successor Ay, was probably making most of the important political decisions during Tutankhamun's reign.
Kings were venerated after their deaths through mortuary cults and associated temples. Tutankhamun was one of the few kings worshiped in this manner during his lifetime. A stela discovered at Karnak and dedicated to Amun-Ra and Tutankhamun indicates that the king could be appealed to in his deified state for forgiveness and to free the petitioner from an ailment caused by sin. Temples of his cult were built as far away as in Kawa and Faras in Nubia. The title of the sister of the Viceroy of Kush included a reference to the deified king, indicative of the universality of his cult.
Tomb
Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was unusually small considering his status. His death may have occurred unexpectedly, before the completion of a grander royal tomb, so that his mummy was buried in a tomb intended for someone else. This would preserve the observance of the customary 70 days between death and burial.
King Tutankhamun's mummy still rests in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. On 4 November 2007, 85 years to the day after Carter's discovery, the 19-year-old pharaoh went on display in his underground tomb at Luxor, when the linen-wrapped mummy was removed from its golden sarcophagus to a climate-controlled glass box. The case was designed to prevent the heightened rate of decomposition caused by the humidity and warmth from tourists visiting the tomb.
His tomb was robbed at least twice in antiquity, but based on the items taken (including perishable oils and perfumes) and the evidence of restoration of the tomb after the intrusions, it seems clear that these robberies took place within several months at most of the initial burial. Eventually the location of the tomb was lost because it had come to be buried by stone chips from subsequent tombs, either dumped there or washed there by floods. In the years that followed, some huts for workers were built over the tomb entrance, clearly without anyone's knowing what lay beneath. When at the end of the 20th Dynasty the Valley of the Kings burial sites were systematically dismantled, Tutankhamun's tomb was overlooked, presumably because knowledge of it had been lost, and his name may have been forgotten.
For many years, rumors of a "Curse of the Pharaohs" (probably fueled by newspapers seeking sales at the time of the discovery) persisted, emphasizing the early death of some of those who had entered the tomb. However, a recent study of journals and death records indicated no statistical difference between the age of death of those who entered the tomb and those on the expedition who did not.
Legacy
If Tutankhamun is the world's best known pharaoh, it is largely because his tomb is among the best preserved, and his image and associated artifacts the most-exhibited. As Jon Manchip White writes, in his foreword to the 1977 edition of Carter's The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, "The pharaoh who in life was one of the least esteemed of Egypt's Pharoahs has become in death the most renowned."
5,398 items were found in the tomb, including a solid gold coffin, face mask, thrones, archery bows, food, wine, sandals and fresh linen underwear. Howard Carter took 10 years to catalog the items.
The discoveries in the tomb were prominent news in the 1920s. Tutankhamen came to be called by a modern neologism, "King Tut". Ancient Egyptian references became common in popular culture, including Tin Pan Alley songs; the most popular of the latter was "Old King Tut" by Harry Von Tilzer from 1923, which was recorded by such prominent artists of the time as Jones & Hare and Sophie Tucker. "King Tut" became the name of products, businesses, and even the pet dog of U.S. President Herbert Hoover.
Relics from Tutankhamun's tomb are among the most traveled artifacts in the world. They have been to many countries, but probably the best-known exhibition tour was The Treasures of Tutankhamun tour, which ran from 1972 to 1979. This exhibition was first shown in London at the British Museum from 30 March until 30 September 1972. More than 1.6 million visitors saw the exhibition, some queuing for up to eight hours. It was the most popular exhibition in the Museum's history. The exhibition moved on to many other countries, including the USA, USSR, Japan, France, Canada, and West Germany. The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the U.S. exhibition, which ran from 17 November 1976 through 15 April 1979. More than eight million attended.
In 2004, the tour of Tutankhamun funerary objects entitled Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter, consisting of fifty artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb and seventy funerary goods from other 18th Dynasty tombs, began in Basel, Switzerland and went on to Bonn, Germany, on the second leg of the tour. This European tour was organised by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and the Egyptian Museum in cooperation with the Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig. Deutsche Telekom sponsored the Bonn exhibition.
In 2005, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, in partnership with Arts and Exhibitions International and the National Geographic Society, launched a tour of Tutankhamun treasures and other 18th Dynasty funerary objects, this time called Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. It featured the same exhibits as Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter in a slightly different format. It was expected to draw more than three million people.
The exhibition started in Los Angeles, then moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Chicago and Philadelphia. The exhibition then moved to London before finally returning to Egypt in August 2008. An encore of the exhibition in the United States ran at the Dallas Museum of Art from October 2008 to May 2009. The tour continued to other U.S. cities. After Dallas the exhibition moved to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, followed by the Discovery Times Square Exposition in New York City.
In 2011, the exhibition visited Australia for the first time, opening at the Melbourne Museum in April for its only Australian stop before Egypt's treasures returned to Cairo in December 2011.
The exhibition included 80 exhibits from the reigns of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors in the Eighteenth dynasty, such as Hatshepsut, whose trade policies greatly increased the wealth of that dynasty and enabled the lavish wealth of Tutankhamun's burial artifacts, as well as 50 from Tutankhamun's tomb. The exhibition does not include the gold mask that was a feature of the 1972–1979 tour, as the Egyptian government has determined that the mask is too fragile to withstand travel and will never again leave the country.
A separate exhibition called Tutankhamun and the World of the Pharaohs began at the Ethnological Museum in Vienna from 9 March to 28 September 2008, showing a further 140 treasures. Renamed Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, the exhibition toured the US and Canada from November 2008 to 6 January 2013.
In popular culture
Film
We Want Our Mummy (1939), a film in which The Three Stooges explore the tomb of the midget King Rutentuten (pronounced "rootin'-tootin'") and his Queen, Hotsy Totsy.
Mummy's Dummies (1948), a film in which The Three Stooges are crooked used-chariot salesmen who ultimately assist a different King Rootentootin (Vernon Dent) with a toothache.
La Reine Soleil (2007), an animated film by Philippe Leclerc which features Akhenaten, Tutankhaten (later Tutankhamun), Akhesa (Ankhesenepaten, later Ankhesenamun), Nefertiti, and Horemheb in a complex struggle pitting the priests of Amun against Akhenaten's intolerant monotheism.
For Transformers (2007), the Decepticon character Frenzy repeats the name, "Tutankhamun."
Games
The video game Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (2003) features a fictional representation of Prince Tutankhamun, who is the victim of an unnamed magical ritual which results in almost instantaneous mummification and extraction of what appears to be his "life force". In the instruction manual, the Mummy is described as young, inexperienced and naive.
The arcade game Tutankham (1981) revolves around King Tutankhamun.
Literature
The novel Tutankhamun (2008) by novelist Nick Drake [not the musician] takes place during the reign of Tutankhamun and gives a possible explanation for his injury and death (and the aftermath) set amid a murder mystery.
The novel The Lost Queen of Egypt (1937) by novelist Lucile Morrison is about Ankhsenpaaten / Ankhesenamun, the wife of Tutankhamun. He is a major character, coming in about midway in the story. Here, his name is spelled as 'Tutankhamon.' It's strongly hinted that he was murdered.
Music
"King Tut" (1978), a whimsical song by (American comedian) "Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons" (a backup group consisting of members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band).
Television
King Tut, played by Victor Buono, was a villain on the Batman TV series which aired from 1966 to 1968. Mild-mannered Egyptologist William Omaha McElroy, after suffering a concussion, came to believe he was the reincarnation of Tutankhamun. His response to this knowledge was to embark upon a crime spree that required him to fight against the "Caped Crusaders", Batman and Robin.
The first episode of the 2005 BBC series Egypt: Rediscovering a Lost World focuses on the life and death of Tutankhamun and the serendipitous discovery of his tomb.
In the US documentary series, King Tut Unwrapped, Moroccan singer-actor, Faissal Oberon Azizi, portrayed Tutankhamun.
The Discovery Kids animated series Tutenstein stars a fictional mummy based on Tutankhamun, named Tutankhensetamun and nicknamed Tutenstein, in his afterlife. He is depicted as a lazy and spoiled 10-year-old mummy boy who must guard a magical artifact called the Scepter of Was from the evil Egyptian god Set.
Tut, a dramatized three part miniseries loosely based on the reign of Tutankhamun, premiered on Spike in July 2015.
Names
At the reintroduction of traditional religious practice, his name changed. It is transliterated as twt-ꜥnḫ-ỉmn ḥqꜣ-ỉwnw-šmꜥ, and according to modern Egyptological convention is written Tutankhamun Hekaiunushema, meaning "Living image of Amun, ruler of Upper Heliopolis". On his ascension to the throne, Tutankhamun took a praenomen. This is transliterated as nb-ḫprw-rꜥ, and, again, according to modern Egyptological convention is written Nebkheperure, meaning "Lord of the forms of Re". The name Nibhurrereya in the Amarna letters may be closer to how his praenomen was actually pronounced.
Ancestry
References
Further reading
Andritsos, John. Social Studies of Ancient Egypt: Tutankhamun. Australia 2006.
Booth, Charlotte. The Boy Behind the Mask, Oneworld, ISBN 978-1-85168-544-8.
Brier, Bob. The Murder of Tutankhamun: A True Story. Putnam Adult, 13 April 1998, ISBN 0-425-16689-9 (paperback)/ISBN 0-399-14383-1 (hardcover)/ISBN 0-613-28967-6 (School & Library Binding).
Carter, Howard and Arthur C. Mace, The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Courier Dover Publications, 1 June 1977, ISBN 0-486-23500-9 The semi-popular account of the discovery and opening of the tomb written by the archaeologist responsible.
Desroches-Noblecourt, Christiane. Sarwat Okasha (Preface), Tutankhamun: Life and Death of a Pharaoh. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1963, ISBN 0-8212-0151-4 (1976 reprint, hardcover) /ISBN 0-14-011665-6 (1990 reprint, paperback).
Edwards, I.E.S., Treasures of Tutankhamun. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976, ISBN 0-345-27349-4 (paperback)/ISBN 0-670-72723-7 (hardcover).
Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, The Mummy of Tutankhamun: The CT Scan Report, as printed in Ancient Egypt, June/July 2005.
Haag, Michael. The Rough Guide to Tutankhamun: The King: The Treasure: The Dynasty. London 2005. ISBN 1-84353-554-8.
Hoving, Thomas. The Search for Tutankhamun: The Untold Story of Adventure and Intrigue Surrounding the Greatest Modern archeological find. New York: Simon & Schuster, 15 October 1978, ISBN 0-671-24305-5 (hardcover)/ISBN 0-8154-1186-3 (paperback) This book details a number of anecdotes about the discovery and excavation of the tomb.
James, T. G. H. Tutankhamun. New York: Friedman/Fairfax, 1 September 2000, ISBN 1-58663-032-6 (hardcover) A large-format volume by the former Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, filled with colour illustrations of the funerary furnishings of Tutankhamun, and related objects.
Neubert, Otto. Tutankhamun and the Valley of the Kings. London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1972, ISBN 0-583-12141-1 (paperback) First hand account of the discovery of the Tomb.
Reeves, C. Nicholas. The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure. London: Thames & Hudson, 1 November 1990, ISBN 0-500-05058-9 (hardcover)/ISBN 0-500-27810-5 (paperback) Fully covers the complete contents of his tomb.
Rossi, Renzo. Tutankhamun. Cincinnati (Ohio) 2007 ISBN 978-0-7153-2763-0, a work all illustrated and coloured.
External links
Grim secrets of Pharaoh's city—BBC News
Tutankhamun and the Age of the Golden Pharaohs website
British Museum Tutankhamun highlight
"Swiss geneticists examine Tutankhamun's genetic profile" by Reuters
Ultimate Tut Documentary produced by the PBS Series Secrets of the Dead
Category:14th-century BC deaths
Category:14th-century BC births
Category:Amarna Period
Category:Ancient child rulers
Category:Ancient Egyptian mummies
Category:Atenism
Category:Curses
Category:Historical deletion in ancient Egypt
Category:Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Category:Historical people who were forensically reconstructed
Category:Royalty and nobility with disabilities |
2016-01 | AC_Omonia-697713156 | AC_Omonia | AC Omonia
Athletic Club Omonoia Nicosia (, ΑΣΟΛ), commonly referred to as Omonoia, is a Cypriot professional football club based in the capital city, Nicosia.
The club was established in 1948 and became a member of the Cyprus Football Association in 1953. Omonoia, which means 'Concord' in Greek, has won 20 League Championships, 14 Cypriot Cups and 16 Super Cups. Omonoia remains the only team to have won the Cypriot Cup 4 times in a row, between the years 1980 and 1983. In the UEFA rankings of the Cypriot clubs Omonoia is currently ranked in third place.
As an athletic club, Omonoia also operates basketball,volleyball, cycling and futsal. The latter one is being particularly successful, having won the league and cup in three consecutive years since 2011.
History
Creation and Early Years (1948-1953)
On 23 May 1948 the board of APOEL FC sent a telegram to the Hellenic Association of Amateur Athletics (Greek: Σ.Ε.Γ.Α.Σ.), with the opportunity of the annual Panhellenic Track and Field Competition stating its wish for the "communist mutiny" to be ended. Club players considering this action as a political comment on the Greek Civil War distanced themselves or were expelled from APOEL.
On 4 June 1948 Dr. Mattheos Papapetrou organized a meeting to form a new club in Nicosia . Many players expelled from APOEL were also invited and on 17 June 1948 Omonia was established. Along with other left-wing teams such as Nea Salamina, Alki Larnaca and Orfeas Nicosia, Omonoia helped create in December 1948 the Cyprus Amateur Football Federation. Omonoia took part in the CAFF league until 1953 having won 4 out of 5 played championships and 5 out of 5 played cups. Omonoia was then accepted by the Cyprus Football Association to participate in the Cypriot First Division.
Beginnings in the Cypriot First Division (1953-1969)
After joining the Cypriot First Division in 1953, Omonoia only managed to place 7th out of 9 teams in the 1953–54 season, barely avoiding relegation. During that decade, the club’s best placing came during the 1956–57 season when the club finished 3rd.
The team would make its closest push for the title during the 1959–60 season after finishing 2nd, 1 point behind Anorthosis Famagusta. The following year, after 7 seasons in the First Division, the club would win its first title in 1960–61 season. Omonia, in that season would score 91 goals in 24 matches on their way to their first ever Cyprus First Division title. Omonoia won their second title during the 1965–66 season.
Golden Era (1970s-1980s)
Omonia won its first trophies of the decade in 1972, when the club won both the league and the cup. Led by a young, Sotiris Kaiafas, Omonia won 7 league tittles in the 70s decade, six of them were consecutive in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979. By the time the decade would come to an end, Omonia had a total of 9 championship titles and 3 cups. At the end of the 1979 season, Omonia trailed its arch rival APOEL by two championships. In 1976, Sotiris Kaiafas would go on and win the European Golden Shoe for his single-season 36-goal performance. In 2003, he was awarded the UEFA Jubilee Awards for The Best Cypriot Footballer of the 20th Century.
The 1980s was a successful decade for the club as it won an additional seven Cypriot League Championship titles including another 5 consecutive in 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and in 1987 and in 1989. As the 1980s came to an end, Omonia had won 14 Cypriot Championship Titles becoming the most successful team on the island at the time.
General Decline (1990s)
The 1990s would prove to be less successful than the previous two decades. During this time, AC Omonia only mustered one Cypriot League title during the 1992–93 season. It would be eight years before Omonia would see its next title. In 1997 Omonia signed a German named Rainer Rauffmann who would later become the second top goal scorer ever for the club. With the help of other Omonia great and then captain, Costas Malekkos, and a young Costas Kaiafas (son of Sotiris Kaiafas), Rainer Rauffmann would become top scorer of the Cypriot First Division in the 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–00 and 2000–01 seasons and leading Omonoia to two titles.
Revival (2000s)
After a disappointing eight seasons, the 2000s decade began with a trophy . AC Omonia celebrated its 18th Cypriot League Championship title in 2001. Now captained by Costas Kaiafas, Omonia would win its 19th Cypriot League Championship again in 2003. However, since 2003, the team would stumble and be without a title for the next several years. After numerous seasons of poor signings and underachieving, Omonia’s reigns would be taken over by new chairman and team president, Miltiadis Neophytou in 2008.
The team would soon be put back on track starting in 2006, beginning with the signing of Cyprus national football team goalie, Antonis Georgallides. Omonia would continue its star-studded signings by acquiring Cypriot stars that had been playing abroad such as, Elias Charalambous and Stathis Aloneftis. Omonoia would then make headlines with the shocking signing of all-time leading scorer of the Cyprus national football team, Michalis Konstantinou. In 2009, Omonia would also sign another Cypriot star, Konstantinos Makrides. Along the way, Omonia would also acquire young Cypriot hopefuls, 21-year-old Dimitris Christofi, and 20-year-old Georgios Efrem. Efrem, who had been playing on the youth team of Arsenal FC and later Scottish side, Rangers, would be the final piece to the puzzle needed to win its 20th Cypriot League Championship. After putting the proper pieces in place, AC Omonia did just that. During the 2009–10 season, led by new captain, Elias Charalambous, AC Omonia would not lose a single derby, including play-offs matches against either, APOEL, Anorthosis Famagusta, nor Apollon. After defeating its rival APOEL three consecutive times, Omonia became the 2009–10 Cypriot League Champions for the 20th time.
Coach Takis Lemonis left the club after disappointing results and Dušan Bajević became the new coach in October 2010 but was fired in April 2011. He was replaced by Neophytos Larkou.Omonia would not be able to repeat as Champion during the 2010–11 regular season, and instead had to settle with finishing 2nd, despite the addition of yet another young Cypriot rising star, Andreas Avraam. However the team was to end on a positive note. Under interim coach Neophytos Larkou, Omonia defeated Apollon Limassol in the Cyprus Cup Final and won their 13th Coca-Cola Cup.
Omonia spent a difficult year but managed to win their 14th Coca-Cola Cup starring Andre Alves who scored the winning goal against AEL Limassol.
Under the guidance of newly appointed Director of Football Nickolas Danskalou AC Omonoia managed to finish 2nd in the Championship and 3rd after the playoff rounds all but assuring they would qualify for the Second round of the 2012–13 UEFA Cup Competition.
Financial Crisis (2012-present)
Coach Neophytos Larkou left the club in September 2012 and Toni Savevski was then appointed as coach. The team begun the season with a great win but found its second success after several games. A disappointing first round proved enough to exclude the club from contesting for the championship or the cup. The team managed better results in the second round finishing the season in 3rd place. Thousands of fans answered the president's call to donate as much as they could and the financial issues of the club improved. Omonoia's final match ended in a 3−1 victory over AEK Larnaca. Omonoia was knocked out in the semifinals of the cup by AEL Limassol.
In 2013 Omonoia begun the new season with Toni Savevski as manager but he was sacked halfway besides positive results. Miguel Ángel Lotina was hired as the replacer but was sacked just 37 days later. Kostas Kaiafas, ex-player was then appointed as the new coach. The club's financial difficulties returned despite the massive fundraiser organized the previous season. Omonoia ended 5th in the league finishing its worst season in 56 years since the 1957-1958 season.
In August 2014 Omonia was knocked out of the Europa League playoff stages by Dynamo Moscow. The club issued a complaint to UEFA regarding the refereeing of the match by Alexandru Tudor. In early September the club stopped supplying the fans' group Gate-9 with tickets resulting in the group's abstention from matches. Two weeks later after a meeting between the president and the coach it was decided that tickets were to be supplied again to Gate-9. Omonia managed to finish 4th in the league. The team was knocked out of the Cypriot Cup semifinals by APOEL FC.
Name
"Omonia" is the greek word for concord, showing the contrast of the club for discord and disruption.
Colours and badge
AC Omonia's colors are green and white. Their current alternate kit is black and red. AC Omonia's badge has a green shamrock in a white circle. Green symbolizing hope.
Stadium
Since 23 October 1999, Omonia has been using the 22,859-seat GSP Stadium, the largest stadium in Cyprus. They share the stadium with local rivals APOEL and Olympiakos. Omonia played in the Makario Stadium from 1978 until 1999 and in old GSP Stadium prior to 1978. When the club was first created, it used the Goal Stadium.
Kit manufacturers and shirt sponsors
Supporters
Omonoia is the most popular club in the country. A poll places the club as the most popular team on the island with 28.6% of asked Cypriot football fans stating they supported Omonoia. The fans are known for their left-leaning, socialist character, with over 60% stating in a survey that they associate themselves with the communist Progressive Party of Working People Omonia is also traditionally regarded as the club of Cyprus's working-class. Many of Omonia's supporters can be seen waving banners bearing Che Guevara's image. Gate 9, the team's ultras group, was established in 1992. The group occupies the North stand at the GSP stadium during home games. Omonia's fans are well known for their passion. The record for most tickets sold in a single season for Omonia stands at 162,061 tickets sold during the 2009–2010 season. The Omonoia fans which are called Gate 9 have friendship with other teams supporters such as Hapoel Tel-Aviv and Standard Liege fans.
Financial Crisis and 2013 Pan-Cypriot Fundraiser
By the end of February 2013 Omonia was struggling to meet the UEFA criteria due to the economic crisis that had engulfed the club. The president then decided to start a fundraiser and called for the supporters of the club to donate as much as they could. Hundreds of events were organised island wide with the motto; "ΕΙΜΑΙ ΟΜΟΝΟΙΑ ΔΗΛΩΝΩ ΠΑΡΩΝ" meaning "I'M WITH OMONOIA, I DECLARE MYSELF PRESENT". Current and former players contributed by signing autographs and selling club merchandise. Although the situation at the beginning was described as grim, money poured in from all over the island and from abroad including England and the United States. In about a month and a half €3.5 million was collected from the club's supporters.
Honours
Cyprus Football Association
Cypriot Championship: 20
1961, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2010
Cypriot Cup: 14
1965, 1972, 1974, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1991, 1994, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2012
Cyprus FA Shield: 16 (record)
1966, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2012
Cyprus Amateur Football Federation
CAFF Championship: 4 (record)
1949, 1950, 1951, 1952
CAFF Cup: 5 (record)
1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953
European record
European Cup/UEFA Champions League
UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League
Players
First team squad
For recent transfers, see List of Cypriot football transfers winter 2015–16.
On loan
Source: omonoia.com.cy
Former players
For details of former players, see :Category:AC Omonia players
Retired number
12 – Club supporters (the 12th man)
Club officials
Board of Directors
Staff
Technical staff
Source: omonoia.com.cy
Managerial history
Tikran Misirian (1948–52)
John Johnson (1952–53)
Pampos Avraamides (1953–55)
Hans Hounggehouizen (1955–57)
Karl Vigler (1957–59)
Eli Fuchs (1959–60)
Nako Tsiakmakov (1960–62)
Tourai (1962–63)
Stoyan Petrov (1963–64)
Andreas Keremezos (1964–65)
Georgi Pachedzhiev (1965–66), (first term)
Igor Netto (1966–67)
Georgi Barka (1967–68)
Georgi Pachedzhiev (1968–70), (second term)
Tziakarov (1970–71)
Dobromir Tashkov (1971–72), (first term)
Vasil Spasov (1972–74), (first term)
Andreas Constantinou (Esso) (1974–75)
Iltziev (1975–76)
Gavriel Stoyanov (1976–77)
Peter Argirov (1977–79)
Yoncho Arsov (1979–80), (first term)
Vasil Spasov (1980–82), (second term)
Dobromir Tashkov (1982–83), (second term)
Adanas Dramov (1983–85)
Georgi Tinkov (1985–86)
Yoncho Arsov (1986–89), (second term)
Bozhil Kolev (1989–90)
Helmut Senekowitsch (1990–91)
Graziano Zakarel (1991–92)
Yoncho Arsov (1992–94), (third term)
Gerhard Prokop (1994–96)
Walter Skocik (1995–96)
Angel Kolev (1996–97)
Andreas Michaelides (1997–99)
Dušan Galis (1999)
Yoncho Arsov (1999–00), (fourth term)
Asparuh Nikodimov (2000)
Arie Haan (14 Nov 2000 – 30 Nov 2000)
Henk Houwaart (1 Oct 2000 – 30 Nov 2001), (first term)
Andreas Mouskallis (2002)
Toni Savevski (2002–04), (first term)
Franciszek Smuda (2004)
Henk Houwaart (1 July 2004 – 31 Dec 2005), (second term)
Ioan Andone (28 Dec 2005 – 25 May 2007)
Dragan Okuka (23 May 2007 – 26 Nov 2007)
Ioannis Matzourakis (2007)
Giorgos Savvidis (2008)
Nedim Tutić (2008–09)
Takis Lemonis (17 March 2009 – 4 Oct 2010)
Dušan Bajević (13 Oct 2010 – 14 April 2011)
Neophytos Larkou (15 April 2011–Sept 18, 2012)
Toni Savevski (Sept 26, 2012–18 Dec 2013), (second term)
Miguel Ángel Lotina (1 Jan 2014 – 6 Feb 2014)
Kostas Kaiafas (12 March 2014 – 2 November 2015 )
Vladan Milojević (11 November 2015 – present )
Source: omonoia.com.cy
References
External links
Official website
Omonoia news website
Gate9 official website
Kifines fan page
national-football-teams
Players of A. C. Omonia Nicosia on Wikimedia Commons
Category:AC Omonia
Category:Football clubs in Cyprus
Category:Association football clubs established in 1948
Category:Football clubs in Nicosia
Category:Multi-sport clubs in Cyprus |
2016-01 | The_Incredibles-697768508 | The_Incredibles | The Incredibles
The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy superhero film written and directed by Brad Bird and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was the sixth film produced by Pixar. The film's title is the name of a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers and live a quiet suburban life. Mr. Incredible's desire to help people draws the entire family into a battle with a villain and his killer robot.
Bird, who was Pixar's first outside director, developed the film as an extension of 1960s comic books and spy films from his boyhood and personal family life. He pitched the film to Pixar after the box office disappointment of his first feature, The Iron Giant (1999), and carried over much of its staff to develop The Incredibles. The animation team was tasked with animating an all-human cast, which required creating new technology to animate detailed human anatomy, clothing and realistic skin and hair. Michael Giacchino composed the film's orchestral score.
The film premiered on October 27, 2004, at the BFI London Film Festival and had its general release in the United States on November 5, 2004. The film performed well at the box office, grossing $631 million worldwide during its original theatrical run. The Incredibles was met with high critical acclaim, garnering high marks from professional critics, and provoking commentary on its themes. The film received the 2004 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, along with two Academy Awards. It became the first entirely animated film to win the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
A sequel, The Incredibles 2, is scheduled for release on June 21, 2019.
Plot
"Supers" – humans with superpowers – are forced into civilian relocation programs after facing several lawsuits from peripheral damage caused by their crime fighting activities. Fifteen years after relocation, Bob and Helen Parr, formerly Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, respectively, and their children Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack live as a suburban family. Bob is dissatisfied with suburban life and his white-collar job and longs for the glory days. On some nights, Bob and his old friend Lucius Best, formerly Frozone, perform vigilante work.
One day, Bob loses his temper when his supervisor refuses to let him stop a mugging, causing him to lose his job. Returning home, Bob finds a message from a mysterious woman named Mirage, who convinces him to become Mr. Incredible again and gives him a mission to destroy a savage robot called the Omnidroid on the remote island of Nomanisan, promising a substantial reward. Arriving on Nomanisan Island, Bob is able to find and defeat the Omnidroid by tricking it into ripping out its own power source.
Bob is rejuvenated by being able to use his powers freely, improving his attitude and relationship with his family, and he begins rigorous training while waiting for more work from Mirage. Discovering a tear in his suit, Bob visits superhero costume designer Edna Mode who decides to make him and his whole family suits, unbeknownst to Helen and their kids. Leaving for Nomanisan once again, Bob discovers that Mirage is working for Buddy Pine, a former fan rejected by Mr. Incredible and now identifying as super-villain Syndrome. Syndrome intends to perfect the Omnidroid and defeat it in public while manipulating its controls to become a hero himself, and then sell his inventions so everyone will become equally "super", making the term meaningless. Bob sneaks in and finds Syndrome's computer. From it, Bob discovers Syndrome killed countless retired superheroes with previous Omnidroid prototypes to improve its design. Meanwhile, Helen visits Edna, finds out what Bob has been up to, and activates a homing beacon to find him, inadvertently causing Bob to be discovered and captured.
Helen borrows a private plane to head for Nomanisan, but finds Violet and Dash have stowed away wearing their own suits, leaving Jack-Jack in the care of a babysitter. Syndrome picks up Helen's radio transmissions and shoots down the plane, but Helen and the kids survive and make it to the island, though Bob thinks they are dead. Helen proceeds to the base to find Bob, discovering Syndrome's intentions to send the Omnidroid to Metroville in a rocket. Distraught by Syndrome's true plans, Mirage releases Bob and informs him that his family is alive. Helen appears and races off with Bob to find their children. Dash and Violet use their powers to counter a number of Syndrome's guards in Nomanisan's tropical jungle before meeting up with their parents. The family is captured by Syndrome, who heads off to initiate his plan.
With Mirage's help, the Parrs escape, and use a security RV and a rocket booster to pursue Syndrome. In Metroville, the Omnidroid proves to be too intelligent, and knocks the remote that controls it out of Syndrome's grasp, knocking him unconscious and rampaging through the city. The Parrs and Lucius team up to fight the robot, until Bob uses Syndrome's remote control and one of the Omnidroid's detached pincers to make it tear its power source out, destroying it. Returning home, the Parrs find Syndrome has Jack-Jack and intends on raising him as his own sidekick to seek revenge on the family. As Syndrome tries to escape to his jet, Jack-Jack's own shapeshifting superpowers start to manifest and distract Syndrome. Helen rescues Jack-Jack, and Bob kills Syndrome by throwing his own car at the jet, causing him to be sucked into the jet's turbine.
Three months later, the Parrs have readjusted to normal life, but the city is attacked by a villain called the Underminer. The family dons their superhero outfits, preparing to face the new threat.
Voice cast
Craig T. Nelson as Bob Parr / Mr. Incredible, the patriarch of the Parr family, possessing super-strength and limited invulnerability
Holly Hunter as Helen Parr / Elastigirl, Bob's wife, who possesses the ability to stretch her body like rubber
Sarah Vowell as Violet Parr, the Parrs' junior-high-aged first child, who possesses the ability to become invisible and generate an impact-resistant force shield
Spencer Fox as Dashiell Robert "Dash" Parr / The Dash, the Parrs' fourth-grader second child, possessing super-speed
Jason Lee as Buddy Pine / Incredi-Boy / Syndrome, who has no super powers of his own but uses advanced technology to give himself equivalent abilities
Eli Fucile and Maeve Andrews as Jack-Jack Parr, The Parrs' infant third child, who initially shows no powers but eventually reveals himself to have a wide range of abilities
Samuel L. Jackson as Lucius Best / Frozone, Bob's best friend, who has the ability to form ice from the humidity in the air
Elizabeth Peña as Mirage, Syndrome's agent
Brad Bird as Edna Mode, the fashion designer for the Supers
Bud Luckey as Rick Dicker, the government agent overseeing the relocation program
Wallace Shawn as Gilbert Huph, Bob's supervisor at his white-collar insurance job
John Ratzenberger as The Underminer, a new villain who appears at the end of the film
Dominique Louis as Bomb Voyage, a villain from the past who uses Buddy's interference in Mr. Incredible's heroism to escape
Michael Bird as Tony Rydinger, a popular boy at Violet's school who develops a crush on Violet
Jean Sincere as Mrs. Hogenson, an elderly woman who seeks help from Mr. Incredible for an insurance claim
Kimberly Adair Clark as Honey Best, Frozone's wife
Bret Parker as Kari McKeen, Jack-Jack's babysitter
Lou Romano as Bernie Kropp, Dash's teacher
Wayne Canney as John Walker, the principal of Dash's school
Production
Writing
The Incredibles as a concept dates back to 1993, when Bird sketched the family during a period in which he tried to break into film. Personal issues had percolated into the story as they weighed on him in life. During this time, Bird had inked a production deal with Warner Bros. Animation and was in the process of directing his first feature, The Iron Giant. Approaching middle age and having high aspirations for his filmmaking, Bird pondered whether his career goals were attainable only at the price of his family life. He stated, "Consciously, this was just a funny movie about superheroes. But I think that what was going on in my life definitely filtered into the movie." After the box office failure of The Iron Giant, Bird gravitated toward his superhero story.
He imagined it as an homage to the 1960s comic books and spy films from his boyhood and he initially tried to develop it as a traditionally animated film. When The Iron Giant became a box office bomb, he reconnected with old friend John Lasseter at Pixar in March 2000 and pitched his story idea to him. Bird and Lasseter knew each other from their college years at CalArts in the 1970s. Lasseter was sold on the idea and convinced Bird to come to Pixar, where the film would be done in computer animation. The studio announced a multifilm contract with Bird on May 4, 2000, breaking Pixar's mold of having directors who had all risen through the ranks. The Incredibles was written and directed solely by Brad Bird, a departure from previous Pixar productions which typically had two or three directors and as many screenwriters. In addition, it would be the company's first film in which all characters are human.
Bird came to Pixar with the lineup of the story's family members worked out: a mom and dad, both suffering through the dad's midlife crisis; a shy teenage girl; a cocky ten-year-old boy; and a baby. Bird had based their powers on family archetypes. After several failed attempts to cast Edna Mode, Bird took on her voice role himself. It was an extension of the Pixar custom of tapping in-house staff whose voices came across particularly well on scratch dialogue tracks. During production, Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli visited Pixar and saw the film's story reels. When Bird asked if the reels made any sense or if they were just "American nonsense," Miyazaki replied, through an interpreter, "I think it's a very adventurous thing you are trying to do in an American film."
Animation
Upon Pixar's acceptance of the project, Brad Bird was asked to bring in his own team for the production. He brought up a core group of people he worked with on The Iron Giant. Because of this, many 2-D artists had to make the shift to 3-D, including Bird himself. Bird found working with CG "wonderfully malleable" in a way that traditional animation is not, calling the camera's ability to easily switch angles in a given scene "marvelously adaptable." He found working in computer animation difficult in a different way than working traditionally, finding the software sophisticated and not particularly friendly. Bird wrote the script without knowing the limitations or concerns that went hand-in-hand with the medium of computer animation. As a result, this was to be the most complex film for Pixar yet. The film's characters were designed by Tony Fucile and Teddy Newton, whom Bird had brought with him from Warner Bros. Like most computer-animated films, The Incredibles had a year-long period of building the film from the inside out: modeling the exterior and understanding controls that work face and body – the articulation of the character – before animation could even begin. Bird and Fucile tried to emphasize the graphic quality of good 2-D animation to the Pixar team, who'd only worked primarily in CG. Bird attempted to incorporate teaching from Disney's Nine Old Men that the crew at Pixar had "never really emphasized."
For the technical crew members, the film's human characters posed a difficult set of challenges. Bird's story was filled with elements that were difficult to animate with CGI at the time. Humans are widely considered to be the most difficult thing to execute in animation. Pixar animators filmed themselves walking to better grasp proper human motion. Creating an all-human cast required creating new technology to animate detailed human anatomy, clothing and realistic skin and hair. Although the technical team had some experience with hair and cloth in Monsters, Inc. (2001), the amount of hair and cloth required for The Incredibles had never been done by Pixar until this point. Moreover, Bird would tolerate no compromises for the sake of technical simplicity. Where the technical team on Monsters, Inc. had persuaded director Pete Docter to accept pigtails on Boo to make her hair easier to animate, the character of Violet had to have long hair that obscured her face; it was integral to her character. Violet's long hair was extremely difficult to achieve and for the longest time during production, it was not possible. In addition, animators had to adapt to having hair underwater and blowing through the wind. Disney was initially reluctant to make the film because of these issues, feeling a live-action film would be preferable, though Lasseter vetoed this.
The Incredibles not only dealt with the trouble of animating CG humans, but also many other complications. The story was bigger than any prior story at the studio, was longer in running time, and had four times the number of locations. Supervising technical director Rick Sayre noted that the hardest thing about the film was that there was "no hardest thing," alluding to the amount of new technical challenges: fire, water, air, smoke, steam, and explosions were all additional to the new difficulty of working with humans. The film's organizational structure could not be mapped out like previous Pixar features, and it became a running joke to the team. Sayre said the team adopted “Alpha Omega," where one team was concerned with building modeling, shading and layout and another that dealt with final camera, lighting and effects. Another team, dubbed the character team, digitally sculpted, rigged and shaded the characters, and a simulation team was responsible for developing simulation technology for hair and clothing. There were 781 visual effects shots in the film, and they were quite often visual gags, such as the car window shattering when Bob angrily shuts the car door. In addition, the effects team improved upon the modeling of clouds, being able to model them for the first time with volumetric rendering.
The skin of the characters gained a new level of realism from a technology to produce what is known as "subsurface scattering." The challenges did not stop with modeling humans. Bird decided that in a shot near the film's end, baby Jack-Jack would undergo a series of transformations, and in one of the five planned he would turn himself into a kind of goo. Technical directors believed it would take upwards of two months to work out the goo effect, and production was at a point where two months of their time was indescribably precious. They petitioned to the film's producer, John Walker for help. Bird, who had brought Walker over from Warner Bros., took great exception to the idea that Jack-Jack could undergo a mere four transformations and that the film could do without the goo-baby. They argued over the issue in several invective-laced meetings for two months until Bird finally gave in. Bird also insisted that the storyboards define the blocking of characters' movements, lighting, and camera moves, which had previously been left to other departments rather than storyboarded.
Bird self-admitted that he "had the knees of [the studio] trembling under the weight" of The Incredibles, but called the film a testament to the talent of the animators at Pixar, who were admiring the challenges the film provoked. He recalled, "Basically, I came into a wonderful studio, frightened a lot of people with how many presents I wanted for Christmas, and then got almost everything I asked for."
Music
The Incredibles is the first Pixar film to be scored by Michael Giacchino. Brad Bird was looking for a specific sound as inspired by the film's design – the future as seen from the 1960s. John Barry was the first choice to do the film's score, with a trailer of the film given a rerecording of Barry's theme to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. However, Barry did not wish to duplicate the sound of some of his earlier soundtracks; the assignment was instead given to Giacchino. Giacchino noted that recording in the 1960s was largely different from modern day recording and Dan Wallin, the recording engineer, said that Bird wanted an old feel, and as such the score was recorded on analogue tapes. Wallin noted that brass instruments, which are at the forefront of the film's score, sound better on analog equipment rather than digital. Wallin came from an era in which music was recorded, according to Giacchino, "the right way," which consists of everyone in the same room, "playing against each other and feeding off each other's energy." Tim Simonec was the conductor/orchestrator for the score's recording.
The film's orchestral score was released on November 2, 2004, three days before the film opened in theaters. It won numerous awards for best score including Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, BMI Film & TV Award, ASCAP Film and Television Music Award, Annie Award, Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award and Online Film Critics Society Award and was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, Satellite Award and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award.
Themes
Several film reviewers drew precise parallels between the film and certain superhero comic books, like Powers, Watchmen, Fantastic Four and The Avengers. Indeed, the producers of the 2005 adaptation of the Fantastic Four were forced to make significant script changes and add more special effects because of similarities to The Incredibles. Bird was not surprised that comparisons arose due to superheroes being "the most well-trod turf on the planet," but noted that he had not been inspired by any comic books specifically, only having heard of Watchmen. He did comment that it was nice to be compared to something as highly regarded as Watchmen.
Some commentators took Bob's frustration with celebrating mediocrity and Syndrome's comment that if "everyone is super, then no one is" as a reflection of views shared by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche or an extension of Russian-American novelist's Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy, which Bird felt was "ridiculous." He stated that a large portion of the audience understood the satire whereas "two percent thought I was doing The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged." Some purported that The Incredibles exhibited a right-wing bias, which Bird found silly. "I think that's as silly of an analysis as saying The Iron Giant was left-wing. I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd."
The film also explored Bird's dislike for the tendency of the children's comics and Saturday morning cartoons of his youth to portray villains as unrealistic, ineffectual, and non-threatening. In the film, Dash and Violet have to deal with villains who are perfectly willing to use deadly force against children. On another level, both Dash and Violet display no emotion or regret at the deaths of those who are trying to kill them, such as when Dash outruns pursuers who crash their vehicles while chasing him, or when both of them witness their parents destroy several attacking vehicles with people inside, in such a manner that the deaths of those piloting them is undeniable. Despite disagreeing with some analysis, Bird felt it gratifying for his work to be considered on many different levels, which was his intention: "The fact that it was written about in the op/ed section of The New York Times several times was really gratifying to me. Look, it's a mainstream animated movie, and how often are those considered thought provoking?"
Release
The film opened on November 5, 2004, as Pixar's first film to be rated PG (for "action violence"). Its theatrical release was accompanied with a Pixar short film Boundin'. While Pixar celebrated another triumph with The Incredibles, Steve Jobs was embroiled in a public feud with the head of its distribution partner, The Walt Disney Company. This would eventually lead to the ousting of Michael Eisner and Disney's acquisition of Pixar the following year.
In March 2014, Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger announced that the film will be reformatted and re-released in 3D.
Home media
The film's 2-disc collector's edition DVD set was released on March 15, 2005. This release also includes Jack-Jack Attack and Mr. Incredible and Pals, two Pixar short films made especially for the release of the film, and Boundin''', a Pixar short film which the film premiered with in theaters. It was the highest-selling DVD of 2005, with 17.38 million copies sold. The film was also released on UMD for the Sony PSP. It was released on Blu-ray in North America on April 12, 2011. The film was also released on VHS on March 15, 2005, notably the last Disney/Pixar film to be widely issued in VHS format (not counting the next film, Cars, whose VHS release was extremely rare).
Reception
Box office
Despite concerns that the film would receive underwhelming results, the films domestic gross was $70,467,623 in its opening weekend from 7,600 screens at 3,933 theaters, averaging $17,917 per theater or $9,272 per screen, the highest opening weekend gross for a Pixar film (the record was later broken in 2010 by Toy Story 3, with $110,307,189), the highest November opening weekend for a Disney film (the record was broken in 2013 by Thor: The Dark World with $85.7 million), the highest-opening weekend for a non-sequel animated feature (the record was broken in 2007 by The Simpsons Movie, with $74,036,787), and the highest opening weekend for a non-franchise-based film for just over five years when Avatar opened with $77,025,481. The film was also number 1 in its second weekend, grossing another $50,251,359, dropping just 29 percent, and easily out-grossing new animated opener The Polar Express. The film ultimately grossed $261,441,092, as the sixth highest-grossing Pixar film behind Toy Story 3 ($415.0 million), Finding Nemo ($380.8 million), Up ($293.0 million), Monsters, Inc. ($289.9 million), and Monsters University ($268.5 million) and the fifth highest-grossing film of 2004. Worldwide, the film grossed $631,442,092, is the fifth highest-grossing Pixar film behind Toy Story 3 ($1.063 billion), Finding Nemo ($936.7 million), Monsters University ($743.6 million) and Up ($731.3 million), and ranked fourth for 2004. It is also the second highest-grossing 2004 animated film behind Shrek 2 ($919.8 million).
Critical response
The film received a 97% approval rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, which, , makes it the fourteenth highest-rated animated film of all time. The site's consensus reads: "Bringing loads of wit and tons of fun to the animated superhero genre, The Incredibles easily lives up to its name." Metacritic, another review aggregator, indicates the film was met with "universal acclaim", garnering a score of 90 out of 100.
Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3½ stars out of 4, writing that the film "alternates breakneck action with satire of suburban sitcom life" and is "another example of Pixar's mastery of popular animation." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3½ stars and called the film "one of the year's best" and said that it "doesn't ring cartoonish, it rings true." Also giving the film 3½ stars, People magazine found that The Incredibles "boasts a strong, entertaining story and a truckload of savvy comic touches."
Conversely, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was bored by the film's recurring pastiches of earlier action films, concluding, "the Pixar whizzes do what they do excellently; you just wish they were doing something else." Similarly, Jessica Winter of The Village Voice criticized the film for playing as a standard summer action film, despite being released in early November. Her review, titled as "Full Metal Racket," noted that "The Incredibles announces the studio's arrival in the vast yet overcrowded Hollywood lot of eardrum-bashing, metal-crunching action sludge."
Travers also named The Incredibles number 6 on his list of the decade's best films, writing "Of all the Pixar miracles studded through the decade, The Incredibles still delights me the most. It's not every toon that deals with midlife crisis, marital dysfunction, child neglect, impotence fears, fashion faux pas and existential angst." The National Review Online named The Incredibles No. 2 on its list of the 25 best conservative movies of the last 25 years saying that it "celebrates marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement." Entertainment Weekly named The Incredibles No. 25 on its list of the 25 greatest action films ever. Entertainment Weekly also named The Incredibles No. 7 on its list of the 20 best animated movies ever. IGN ranked the film as the third favorite animated film of all time in a list published in 2010.
Accolades
The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, beating two DreamWorks films, Shrek 2 and Shark Tale, as well as Best Sound Editing at the 77th Academy Awards. It also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay (for writer/director Brad Bird) and Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Gary Rizzo and Doc Kane). It was Pixar's first feature film to win multiple Oscars, followed in 2010 by Up. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal called The Incredibles the year's best picture. Premiere magazine released a cross-section of all the top critics in America and The Incredibles placed at number three, whereas review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes cross-referenced reviews that suggested it was its year's highest-rated film.
The film also received the 2004 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, and it was nominated for the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. It also won the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. The American Film Institute nominated The Incredibles for its Top 10 Animated Films list.
Merchandising
Several companies released promotional products related to the film. Dark Horse Comics released a limited series of comic books based on the film. Kellogg's released an Incredibles-themed cereal, as well as promotional Pop-Tarts and fruit snacks, all proclaiming an "Incrediberry Blast" of flavor. Pringles included potato chips featuring the superheroes and quotes from the film. Furthermore, in the weeks before the film's opening, there were also promotional tie-ins with SBC Communications (using Dash to promote the "blazing-fast speed" of its SBC Yahoo! DSL service) Tide, Downy, Bounce and McDonald's. Toy maker Hasbro produced a series of action figures and toys based on the film, although the line was not as successful as the film itself.
In Europe, Kinder chocolate eggs contained small plastic toy characters from the film. In Belgium, car manufacturer Opel sold special The Incredibles editions of their cars. In the United Kingdom, Telewest promoted blueyonder internet services with branding from the film, including television adverts starring characters from the film. In all merchandising outside of the film itself, Elastigirl is referred to as Mrs. Incredible. This is due to a licensing agreement between Disney·Pixar and DC Comics, who has a character named Elasti-Girl (a member of the Doom Patrol). The DC Comics character is able to grow and shrink at will from microscopic size to thousands of feet tall.
In July 2008, it was announced that a series of comic books based on the film would be published by BOOM! Studios in collaboration with Disney Publishing by the end of the year. The first miniseries by BOOM! was The Incredibles: Family Matters by Mark Waid and Marcio Takara, which was published from March to June 2009, and collected into a trade paperback published in July of that year. An ongoing series written by both Mark Waid and Landry Walker, with art by Marcio Takara and Ramanda Kamarga, began later that same year, running for sixteen issues before being cancelled in October 2010. Marvel Comics began a reprint of the series in August 2011 – set to possibly finish the storyline – which was abruptly cancelled, despite the production of scripts and art for a finale.
Video game
A video game based on the film was released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PC, and Macintosh, as well as on mobile phones. Though based on the film, several key scenes are altered from the original script. A second game, The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, was released for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS, as well as on Windows and OS X. Taking place immediately after the film, the sequel focuses on Mr. Incredible and Frozone as they battle with the megalomaniacal mole, The Underminer. A third game, The Incredibles: When Danger Calls, was released for Windows and OS X. It is a collection of 10 games and activities for the playable characters to perform. Another game, Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure, was released on March 20, 2012, for Xbox 360. It features characters and missions from five Pixar's films: The Incredibles, Up, Cars, Ratatouille and Toy Story. The Incredibles characters also star in Disney Infinity, which was released in August 2013. The play-set for The Incredibles is featured in the starter pack.
Sequel
In 2004, Disney owned the rights to a follow-up, and announced plans to make sequels for The Incredibles and Finding Nemo without Pixar's involvement. Those plans were subsequently scrapped. When Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, the expectation of Disney was that Pixar would create more sequels and bankable franchises. Director Brad Bird stated in 2007 that he was open to the idea of a sequel, if he could come up with an idea superior to the original film: "I have pieces that I think are good, but I don't have them all together."
During an interview in May 2013, Bird reiterated his interest in making a sequel: "I have been thinking about it. People think that I have not been, but I have. Because I love those characters and love that world." He continues, "I am stroking my chin and scratching my head. I have many, many elements that I think would work really well in another Incredibles film, and if I can get 'em to click all together, I would probably wanna do that." At the Disney shareholders meeting in March 2014, Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger confirmed that Pixar is working on a sequel to The Incredibles, with Bird returning as writer. Later that month, Samuel L. Jackson told Digital Spy that he would likely reprise his role as Frozone in the sequel.
In April 2015, Bird revealed to NPR that he has begun writing the screenplay for the sequel. In May 2015, Bird confirmed that the Incredibles sequel would be his next film following Tomorrowland''. He also stated that the film will not reflect trends in the superhero genre since the first film's release, explaining, "I don't think that kind of idea stays interesting for very long. For me, the interesting thing was never the superhero part of it. It was more the family dynamic, and how do superhero things play into that."
In August 2015, the sequel's logo was revealed at D23 Expo; in October 2015, Pixar announced the film will be released on June 21, 2019. In the same month, Bird confirmed that Michael Giacchino will return to compose the score.
References
Further reading
External links
The Incredibles production notes
Category:2000s American animated films
Category:2004 computer-animated films
Category:American animated films
Category:American films
Category:Best Animated Feature Academy Award winners
Category:Best Animated Feature Annie Award winners
Category:Best Animated Feature Broadcast Film Critics Association Award winners
Category:Child superheroes
Category:Disney franchises
Category:Fictional families
Category:Film scores by Michael Giacchino
Category:Film superheroes
Category:Films directed by Brad Bird
Category:Films set on islands
Category:Films that won the Best Sound Editing Academy Award
Category:Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form winning works
Category:Invisibility in fiction
Category:Pixar animated films
Category:Superheroes
Category:Superhero comedy films
Category:Superhero teams
Category:The Incredibles
Category:Walt Disney Pictures films |
2016-01 | T.I._discography-697766738 | T.I._discography | T.I. discography
American rapper T.I. has released nine studio albums, one remix album, three extended plays (EPs), 10 mixtapes, 110 singles (including 61 as a featured artist) and 11 promotional singles. He has also released over 60 music videos, which is included in his videography. Throughout his career, T.I.'s music has been released on a several record labels, including Artista and Atlantic, as well as his own label imprint, Grand Hustle Records. T.I. has also served as an executive producer for several projects other than his own, including Big Kuntry King's debut album My Turn to Eat (2008), B.G.'s tenth album Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood (2009), B.o.B's debut album The Adventures of Bobby Ray (2010) and Iggy Azalea's debut EP Glory (2012), as well as her debut album The New Classic (2014). In 2005, T.I. had executive produced the soundtrack to the film Hustle & Flow and released the collection through his record label. T.I. is also a noted record producer, having produced several song recordings, a few under the pseudonym T.I.P.. He has also severed as a ghostwriter and assisting songwriter, for several artists, such as Bow Wow, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Dr. Dre, Bun B and Keyshia Cole.
T.I. was discovered and signed to Ghet-O-Vision Entertainment, when he was a teenager by record executive Kawan "KP" Prather. Upon signing a recording contract with Arista Records subsidiary LaFace Records in 2001, he shortened his name from TIP to T.I., out of respect for his Arista label-mate Q-Tip.
In 2001, T.I. released his debut album, I'm Serious. The album peaked at number 98 on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold about 270,000 copies. Due to poor sales, T.I. asked for a joint venture deal with Arista or be released from his contract; he was subsequently granted his release and dropped from the label. In 2003, T.I. launched Grand Hustle Entertainment (now Grand Hustle Records) with his longtime business partner Jason Geter and signed a new deal with Atlantic Records. He then collaborated with fellow Atlanta rapper Bone Crusher for the song "Never Scared" which also featured fellow Atlanta rapper Killer Mike. The song became a hit for the summer of 2003, peaking at number 26 in the US, marking T.I.'s first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.
T.I. released Trap Muzik, his first album under Grand Hustle/Atlantic, in 2003. It contained the lead single "24's", which had peaked at number 78 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, his first solo entry there. Trap Muzik later debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making it much more successful than his previous effort. The following singles, "Rubberband Man" and "Let's Get Away", also impacted the Hot 100 chart, while "Be Easy" only charted Billboards R&B chart. His third album, Urban Legend, was released in 2004 and included the hit single "Bring 'Em Out", which peaked at number nine in the US and was certified platinum. The album peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200 and was also certified platinum in the US. Urban Legend also spawned the singles "U Don't Know Me" and "ASAP". In 2006, his fourth album King, debuted at number one and was certified gold in its first week of release. The lead single, "What You Know" peaked at number three in the US, and was certified double-platinum. King, which also serves as the official soundtrack for T.I.'s first feature film ATL, was certified platinum in the US, gold in Canada, and silver in the UK. King also included "Why You Wanna", "Live in the Sky" and "Top Back". Later that year, he earned his first number-one US single with "My Love", his collaboration with American pop singer Justin Timberlake.
T.I. released his fifth album T.I. vs. T.I.P., in 2007, which went on to become his second consecutive number-one album. The lead single "Big Shit Poppin' (Do It)", peaked at number nine in the US. The album was certified platinum in the US and gold in Canada. The other singles from the album included "You Know What It Is" and "Hurt". In 2008, before T.I.'s prison sentence, he released Paper Trail, his third number-one album in the United States, which was certified gold in its first week of release. The album included two US number-one singles with four top-five singles overall: "Whatever You Like", Swagga Like Us" (featuring Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Jay-Z), "Live Your Life" (featuring Rihanna), and "Dead and Gone" (featuring Justin Timberlake). The album, was certified double-platinum in the US, platinum in Canada, and gold in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In 2009, Paper Trail was re-released entitled Paper Trail: Case Closed, as an EP in the UK and included two new singles and three songs off the original album. In 2010, while serving eleven months in prison for probation violation, he released his seventh studio album No Mercy, on December 7, 2010. No Mercy included lead single "Get Back Up, which featured American singer Chris Brown, and which peaked at number seventy in the US; the second single was "That's All She Wrote", which featured rapper Eminem, and which peaked at number eighteen in the US. The album debuted at number four in America and was certified Platinum by the RIAA.
In 2012, T.I. released Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head, on December 18. The album peaked at number two in the US and was certified gold by the RIAA. The album was supported by several singles, namely "Love This Life", "Like That", "Go Get It", "Ball" (featuring Lil Wayne), "Trap Back Jumpin", "Sorry" (featuring André 3000) and "Hello" (featuring CeeLo Green). Following the album's release, T.I. announced he drew a close to his 10-year contract with Atlantic Records and that he was searching for a new label to sign himself and Grand Hustle. In November 2013, T.I. revealed he signed a record deal with Columbia Records, to release his ninth album, then-titled Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown. He would later announced he postponed Trouble Man II, after recording with longtime collaborator Pharrell Williams (who was influential in his move to Columbia) and would now release a new project titled Paperwork. The album produced two successful singles, About the Money and No Mediocre.
Albums
Studio albums
EPs
Remix albums
Mixtapes
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Promotional singles
Other charted songs
Guest appearances
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ List of non-single guest appearances, with other performing artists, showing year released and album name
! scope="col" style="width:16em;" | Title
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Other artist(s)
! scope="col" | Album
|-
! scope="row" | "Fiasco"
| rowspan="1" | 2001
| Toya
| Toya
|-
! scope="row" | "Changed Man"
| rowspan="2" | 2002
| 2Pac, Jazze Pha, Johnta Austin
| Better Dayz
|-
! scope="row" | "Keeps Spinnin"
| Birdman, Mannie Fresh, Stone, TQ, Wolf, Gillie da Kid, Mikkey, Petey Pablo
| Birdman
|-
! scope="row" | "Get Your Weight Up"
| rowspan="4" | 2003
| Lil Jon, 8Ball
| Part II
|-
! scope="row" | "It's Going Down 2Nite"
| 112
| Hot & Wet
|-
! scope="row" | "Now What"
| Juelz Santana
| From Me to U
|-
! scope="row" | "Pretty Pink"
| David Banner, Jazze Pha, Mr. Marcus
| MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water
|-
! scope="row" | "End of the Road"
| rowspan="14" | 2004
| Jim Jones, Bun B
| On My Way to Church
|-
! scope="row" | "Fucking Around"
| Trick Daddy, Young Jeezy, Kase-1
| Thug Matrimony: Married to the Streets
|-
! scope="row" | "Goodies" (Remix)
| Ciara, Jazze Pha
| Goodies
|-
! scope="row" | "Grand Finale"
| Lil Jon, Bun B, Jadakiss, Nas, Ice Cube
| Crunk Juice
|-
! scope="row" | "Let Me Love You" (Remix)
| Mario, Jadakiss
| Turning Point
|-
! scope="row" | "Like a 24"
| Twista, Liffy Stokes
| Kamikaze
|-
! scope="row" | "Roll Call"
| Juelz Santana
| Back Like Cooked Crack, Pt. 1
|-
! scope="row" | "Look at the Grillz"
| 8Ball & MJG, Twista
| Living Legends
|-
! scope="row" | "Pimp Squad"
| The Alchemist, P$C
| 1st Infantry
|-
! scope="row" | "Pretty Toes"
| Nelly, Jazze Pha
| Suit
|-
! scope="row" | "Stomp"
|Young Buck, Ludacris
| Straight Outta Cashville
|-
! scope="row" | "Where You Wanna Be"
|Brandy
| Afrodisiac
|-
! scope="row" | "Nolia Clap" (Remix)
| UTP, Z-Ro, Bun B, Slim Thug
| Nolia Clap
|-
! scope="row" | "Still Down"
| Ashanti
| Concrete Rose
|-
! scope="row" | "Bang"
| rowspan="7" | 2005
| Young Jeezy, Lil Scrappy
| Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101
|-
! scope="row" | "Breakin' Old Habits"
| The Notorious B.I.G., Slim Thug
| Duets: The Final Chapter
|-
! scope="row" | "Get Yours"
| Lil' Kim, Sha-Dash
| The Naked Truth
|-
! scope="row" | "I'm a G"
| Bun B
| Trill
|-
! scope="row" | "If I Hit"
| 112
| Pleasure & Pain
|-
! scope="row" | "Indiscretions in the Back of the Limo"
| DJ Quik
| Trauma
|-
! scope="row" | "So Many Diamonds"
| Paul Wall
| The Peoples Champ
|-
! scope="row" | "Dip, Slide, Rideout"
| rowspan="9" | 2006
| DJ Khaled, Big Kuntry King, Young Dro
| Listennn... the Album
|-
! scope="row"| "What It Is"
| Young Dro
| rowspan="3" | Day One
|-
! scope="row"| "Trap or Kill Ya Self"
| Young Dro, Pharrell
|-
! scope="row"| "Shell"
| Young Dro
|-
! scope="row" | "I Got Money"
| Young Jeezy
| The Inspiration
|-
! scope="row" | "My Girl"
| Young Dro
| Best Thang Smokin'
|-
! scope="row" | "You Got the Power"
| Governor
| Son of Pain
|-
! scope="row"| "One Blood" (Remix)
| The Game, Jim Jones, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Jadakiss, Fat Joe, Lil Wayne, N.O.R.E., Styles P, Fabolous, Juelz Santana, Rick Ross, Twista, Kurupt, Daz Dillinger, WC, E-40, Bun B, Chamillionaire, Slim Thug, Young Dro, Clipse, Ja Rule, Junior Reid
| Doctor's Advocate
|-
! scope="row" | "We Fly High" (Remix)
| Jim Jones, Diddy, Birdman,Young Dro, Jermaine Dupri
| A Dipset X-Mas
|-
! scope="row" | "Show U Wut to Do Wit It"
| rowspan="10" | 2007
| rowspan="1" | Ya Boy
| rowspan="1" | Chapter 1: The Rise
|-
! scope="row" | "4 Kings"
| Young Buck, Pimp C, Jazze Pha
| Buck the World
|-
! scope="row"|"Cannon" (Remix)
||DJ Drama, Lil Wayne, Willie the Kid, Freeway
|rowspan="3"|Gangsta Grillz: The Album
|-
! scope="row"|"No More"
| DJ Drama, Lloyd, Willie the Kid
|-
! scope="row"|"Feds Takin' Pictures"
| DJ Drama, Young Jeezy, Willie the Kid, Jim Jones, Rick Ross, Young Buck
|-
! scope="row" | "King and Queen"
| rowspan="2" | Ciara
| rowspan="2"
|-
! scope="row" | "Goodbye, My Dear"
|-
! scope="row" | "Hit the Block"
| UGK
| Underground Kingz
|-
! scope="row" | "Let It Go" (Remix)
| Keyshia Cole, Missy Elliott, Young Dro
| Just like You
|-
! scope="row" | "Slow Down"
| Wyclef Jean
| Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant
|-
! scope="row" | "What Ya Gonna Do"
| rowspan="13" | 2008
| Maino
| Tuck Ya Chain In
|-
! scope="row" | "Superstar" (Remix)
| Lupe Fiasco, Young Jeezy
| Lupe Fiasco's the Cool
|-
! scope="row" | "Been Doin' This"
| Bow Wow
| New Jack City II
|-
! scope="row" | "Brand New"
| Lyfe Jennings
| Lyfe Change
|-
! scope="row" | "I'm Dat Nigga"
| B.o.B
| Who the F#*k Is B.o.B?
|-
! scope="row" | "Hold Up"
| Nelly, LL Cool J
| Brass Knuckles
|-
! scope="row" | "It Ain't Me"
| T-Pain, Akon
| Thr33 Ringz
|-
! scope="row" | "Need U Bad" (Remix)
| Jazmine Sullivan, Missy Elliott
| Fearless
|-
! scope="row" | "Love in This Club" (Remix)
| Usher, Young Jeezy
| Here I Stand
|-
! scope="row" | "Hi Hater" (Remix)
| Maino, Swizz Beatz, Plies, Jadakiss, Fabolous
| Maino Is the Future
|-
! scope="row" | "Sip It"
| Ernie Gaines
| rowspan="3"
|-
! scope="row" | "We Stay Fly"
| Dolla
|-
! scope="row" | "If I"
| Justin Timberlake
|-
! scope="row" | "A-Town"
| rowspan="7" | 2009
| DJ Drama, Young Dro, Sean P, Lonnie Mac
| Gangsta Grillz: The Album (Vol. 2)
|-
! scope="row" | "Don't Believe 'Em"
| Busta Rhymes, Akon
| Back on My B.S.
|-
! scope="row" | "For Real"
| Mullage
| Elevators: The Pre-Album
|-
! scope="row" | "Good Love"
| Mary J. Blige
| Stronger with Each Tear
|-
! scope="row" | "Niggas Down South" (Remix)
| Killer Mike, Bun B
| Underground Atlanta
|-
! scope="row" | "Magic" (Remix)
| Robin Thicke
|
|-
! scope="row" | "King on Set"
| Young Dro
| Music Inspired by More Than a Game
|-
! scope="row" | "Dat's What I Thought"
| rowspan="19" | 2010
| Mac Boney, Killer Mike
| Real Talk Radio Volume 12
|-
! scope="row" | "F.I.L.A. (Fall in Love Again)"
| The-Dream
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Big Money"
| Mac Boney
| Real Talk Radio Volume 13
|-
! scope="row" | "Care"
| Kid Rock, Martina McBride
| Born Free
|-
! scope="row" | "Rosé Red"
| Meek Mill, Rick Ross, Vado
| Mr. Philadelphia
|-
! scope="row" | "Pushin' It"
| Game, Robin Thicke
| Brake Lights
|-
! scope="row" | "Guilty"
| Usher
| Raymond v. Raymond
|-
! scope="row" | "Maybach Music III"
| Rick Ross, Jadakiss, Erykah Badu
| Teflon Don
|-
! scope="row" | "Party People"
| N.E.R.D.
| Nothing
|-
! scope="row" | "Put Your Money on Me"
| Ronald Isley
| Mr. I
|-
! scope="row" | "What They Do"
| 8Ball & MJG, Masspike Miles
| Ten Toes Down
|-
! scope="row" | "I Like It" (Remix)
| Enrique Iglesias
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Anyway"
| EDIDON, Kastro of Outlawz
| The Stash Spot
|-
! scope="row" | "Sanford & Son"
| Quincy Jones, B.o.B., Prince Charlez, Mohombi
| Q Soul Bossa Nostra
|-
! scope="row" | "Feet Don't Fail Me Now"
| B.o.B, Spodee
| rowspan="2" | No Genre
|-
! scope="row" | "Not Lost"
| B.o.B
|-
! scope="row" | "I Like Dat"
| Trey Songz, Swizz Beatz
| Passion, Pain & Pleasure
|-
! scope="row" | "She's So Fly"
| Nelly
| 5.0
|-
! scope="row" | "Tangerine"
| Big Boi, Khujo
| Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
|-
! scope="row" | "Get Yo Girl"
| rowspan="4" | 2011
| Rich Kid Shawty
| Splurge On Em
|-
! scope="row" | "Boom Bap"
| B.o.B, Mos Def
| E.P.I.C. (Every Play Is Crucial)
|-
! scope="row" | "Country Ass Nigga"
| Nelly, 2 Chainz
| O.E.MO
|-
! scope="row" | "Wanna Win"
| Rich Kid Shawty
| Shad Marley
|-
! scope="row" | "UP!" (Remix)
| rowspan="23" | 2012
| LoveRance, Young Jeezy
| rowspan="3"
|-
! scope="row" | "Strange Clouds" (Remix)
| B.o.B, Young Jeezy
|-
! scope="row"| "Rack City" (Remix)
| Tyga, Wale, Meek Mill, Young Jeezy, Fabolous
|-
! scope="row" | "Cream"
| Maino, Meek Mill
| The Day After Tomorrow
|-
! scope="row" | "Block Blazer"
| rowspan="2" | D.O.P.E.
| rowspan="2" | D.O.P.E.
|-
! scope="row" | "Harry Potter"
|-
! scope="row" | "M.O.B."
| Big Kuntry King
| 100%
|-
! scope="row" | "Arena"
| B.o.B, Chris Brown
| Strange Clouds
|-
! scope="row" | "Plain Jane"
| Gucci Mane, Rocko
| I'm Up
|-
! scope="row" | "Bury Me a G"
| Rick Ross
| Self Made Vol. 2
|-
! scope="row" | "What's Happening"
| Prodigy
| H.N.I.C. 3
|-
! scope="row" | "Fightin Words"
| Mike Will Made It, Juicy J, Trae tha Truth
| Est. in 1989 Pt. 2
|-
! scope="row" | "Murda Bizness"
| Iggy Azalea
| Glory
|-
! scope="row" | "Pull Up"
| Freddie Gibbs, Young Jeezy
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Bitches & Bottles (Let's Get It Started)"
| DJ Khaled, Lil Wayne, Future
| Kiss the Ring
|-
! scope="row" | "I Do This"
| Trae tha Truth, Rico Love, DJ Khaled
| rowspan="2" | Tha Blackprint
|-
! scope="row" | "Don't Like"
| Trae tha Truth
|-
! scope="row" | "On 4 Life"
| Yung Booke
| Fly Therapy
|-
! scope="row" | "Forever"
| Keyshia Cole
|Woman to Woman
|-
! scope="row" | "In the A"
| Big Boi, Ludacris
| Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
|-
! scope="row"| "Hustle Gang"
| Chip, Iggy Azalea
| rowspan="3" |London Boy
|-
! scope="row"| "On the Scene"
| Chip, Young Jeezy
|-
! scope="row"| "R.N.F."
| Chip, Jeremih
|-
! scope="row"| "All Gold Everything" (Remix)
| rowspan="33"| 2013
| Trinidad James, Young Jeezy, 2 Chainz
|Don't Be S.A.F.E.
|-
! scope="row"| "No Regrets"
| Snoop Lion
| rowspan="2"
|-
! scope="row"| "Show Out" (Remix)
| Juicy J, Pimp C
|-
! scope="row"| "I Wish It Was Music"
| Wyclef Jean, Trae tha Truth
| April Showers
|-
! scope="row" | "Roll Up"
| Problem, Snoop Dogg
| The Separation
|-
! scope="row"| "Nope"
| Young Dro
| rowspan="2" | Day Two
|-
! scope="row"| "Bars"
| Young Dro, Mac Boney, Spodee
|-
! scope="row"| "Don't Want It"
| Doe B
| Baby Jesus
|-
! scope="row"| "Have It Your Way"
| Birdman, Lil Wayne
| Rich Gang
|-
! scope="row" | "Freeze Up"
| Shad da God, Young Dro
| rowspan="3"| Gas Life
|-
! scope="row" | "Ball Out"
|| Shad da God, Young Dro, Chip
|-
! scope="row" | "I'ma Ride"
| Shad da God
|-
! scope="row"| "Pinstripes"
| Goodie Mob
| Age Against the Machine
|-
! scope="row"| "Commas" (Remix)
|L.E.P. Bogus Boys, Young Jeezy, Mase, Spenzo
|Don’t Feed Da Killaz Vol. 4
|-
! scope="row"| "#TwerkIt" (Remix)
| Busta Rhymes, Vybz Kartel, Ne-Yo, French Montana, Jeremih
| rowspan="3"
|-
! scope="row"| "Crickets" (Remix)
| Drop City Yacht Club, Jeremih
|-
! scope="row"| "Ain’t No Coming Down" (Remix)
| Juicy J
|-
! scope="row" | "Typa Way"
| rowspan="2"| Lil Wayne
| rowspan="3"| Dedication 5
|-
! scope="row" | "FuckWitMeUKnowIGotIt"
|-
! scope="row" | "Feds Watchin"
| Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz
|-
! scope="row"| "Theme Song"
| Audio Push
| Come As You Are
|-
! scope="row" | "IDGAF"
| Nelly, Pharrell
| rowspan="1" |M.O.
|-
! scope="row"| "Get Lucky" (Remix)
| Daft Punk, Pharrell, Nile Rodgers
|
|-
! scope="row"| "Jungle"
| Cam'ron, Yo Gotti
| Ghetto Heaven Vol. 1
|-
! scope="row"| "Bad Bitch"
| Young Dro, Spodee, Problem
| rowspan="2"| High Times
|-
! scope="row"| "Nope"
| Young Dro
|-
! scope="row"| "Jewels n' Drugs"
| Lady Gaga, Too Short, Twista
| Artpop
|-
! scope="row"| "I Feel Like Pac/I Feel Like Biggie"
| DJ Khaled, Diddy, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Swizz Beatz
| Suffering from Success
|-
! scope="row" | "Hold Up"
| rowspan="1"| Trae tha Truth, Diddy, Young Jeezy
| rowspan="2"| I Am King
|-
! scope="row" | "Ride wit Me"
| rowspan="1"| Trae tha Truth, Meek Mill
|-
! scope="row" | "Fly Shit"
| Yung Booke
| City on My Back
|-
! scope="row"| "Tik Tik Boom"
| Britney Spears
| Britney Jean
|-
! scope="row"| "Shit" (Megamix)
| Mike Will Made It, Future, Drake, Jeezy, Schoolboy Q, Juicy J, Diddy, Pastor Troy
| #MikeWillBeenTrill
|-
! scope="row"| "What It Do"
| rowspan="36"| 2014
| Trae tha Truth
| Good Night Don't Exist in ATL 3
|-
! scope="row" | "I Ain't Going"
|
| rowspan="1"| The Official Super Bowl XLVIII Mixtape
|-
! scope="row"| "Watch Me Do It"
| Maino, French Montana
| King of Brooklyn
|-
! scope="row" | "P.I.M.P."
| Rocko
| Lingo 4 Dummys
|-
! scope="row" | "Hell You Sayin<ref>{{cite web | author=Ramirez, Erika | url=http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/5900933/ti-hell-you-sayin-feat-iggy-azalea-young-dro-travis-scott | title=T.I., 'Hell You Sayin Feat. Iggy Azalea, Young Dro & Travi$ Scott: Exclusive Song Premiere | publisher=Prometheus Global Media | work=Billboard | date=February 6, 2014 | accessdate=February 8, 2014}}</ref>
| Iggy Azalea, Young Dro, Travi$ Scott
| rowspan="3"| SXEW Vol. 1: The Grand Hustle|-
! scope="row" | "Yayo" (Remix)
| Snootie Wild, Yo Gotti
|-
! scope="row"| "I Wanna Know"
| Raekwon, Doe B
|-
! scope="row"| "OG Bobby Johnson" (ATL Remix)
| Que, Young Jeezy
| rowspan="2"
|-
! scope="row"| "Drunk in Love" (Remix)
| Beyoncé, Jay-Z
|-
! scope="row" | "Whenever Wherever"
| Doe B, Spodee
| rowspan="4"| DOAT 3 (Definition of a Trapper)|-
! scope="row" | "Love to Hate Me"
| Doe B, Big Kuntry King, Mitchelle'l
|-
! scope="row" | "All Gas"
| Doe B, Problem, Shad da God, Trae tha Truth
|-
! scope="row" | "Still Ballin"
| Doe B, King South
|-
! scope="row" | "Girlfriend" (Hustle Gang Remix)
| Watch The Duck
| rowspan="2"| SXEW Vol. 2|-
! scope="row" | "Danny Glover"
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Thirsty"
| Young Dro
| Black Label|-
! scope="row" | "Ain't Gon Do It" (Remix)
| Yung Booke
| rowspan="3"| Good Night Don't Exist In ATL 4|-
! scope="row" | "Jungle Fever" (Remix)
| Que
|-
! scope="row" | "The Worst" (Remix)
| Jhené Aiko
|-
! scope="row" | "A.K.A."
| Jennifer Lopez
| A.K.A.|-
! scope="row" | "Eww Eww Eww" (Remix)
| Zuse, Young Thug
| Plugged|-
! scope="row" | "Got Me a Check"
| Yung Booke, Shad da God
| rowspan="1"| Good Night Don't Exist In ATL 5|-
! scope="row" | "Can't Stay"
| Ty Dolla Sign
| Sign Language|-
! scope="row" | "Boy"
| Lil Bibby
| Free Crack 2|-
! scope="row" | "Don't Tell 'Em" (Remix)
| Jeremih, YG
| rowspan="2"| CSA (Clubs, Studios, Airports)|-
! scope="row" | "Am I Wrong" (Remix)
| Nico & Vinz
|-
! scope="row" | "Addicted"
| Jeezy, YG
| Seen It All: The Autobiography|-
! scope="row"| "Trouble"
| Migos
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Quintana, Pt. 2"
| Travi$ Scott
| Days Before Rodeo|-
! scope="row" | "Really"
| The Game, Yo Gotti, 2 Chainz, Soulja Boy
| Blood Moon: Year of the Wolf|-
! scope="row" | "Electric Blue"
| Nicole Scherzinger
| Big Fat Lie|-
! scope="row" | "Life Ain't Easy"
| rowspan="2"| Spodee
| rowspan="2"| The B.I.D.|-
! scope="row"| "Priorities"
|-
! scope="row"| "Try Me" (Remix)
| Dej Loaf, Jeezy
|
|-
! scope="row"| "Me Nuh Play"
| Zuse
| rowspan="2"| Illegal Immigrant|-
! scope="row"| "What You Gon Do Bout It"
| Zuse, Trae tha Truth, Spodee
|-
! scope="row"| "One More"
| rowspan="26"| 2015
| Ne-Yo
| Non-Fiction|-
! scope="row"| "Bunkin'"
| Chris Brown, Tyga, Jay 305
| Fan of a Fan: The Album|-
! scope="row"| "Hennessy"
| Problem, Rich Homie Quan
| OT|-
! scope="row"| "Don’t Make Me Wait" (Remix)
| LeToya Luckett
| rowspan="2"
|-
! scope="row"| "Dope Boy Shit" (Remix)
| Bankroll Fresh
|-
! scope="row"| "Off-Set"
| Young Thug
| Furious 7 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)|-
! scope="row"| "On the Bible"
| Tech N9ne, Zuse
| Special Effects|-
! scope="row"| "La Policia" (Remix)
| Kap G, David Banner
| rowspan="1"
|-
! scope="row"| "Can't Tell"
| Young Thug, Boosie Badazz
| Barter 6|-
! scope="row"| "Spoil You"
| Boosie Badazz
| Touchdown 2 Cause Hell|-
! scope="row"| "Edibles"
| Snoop Dogg
| Bush|-
! scope="row"| "I Know U Ain't Gon Act Like"
| Hardo
| Trapnati|-
! scope="row"| "If You Didn't"
| Young Thug
| rowspan="2"
|-
! scope="row"| "Mind Right" (Remix)
| TK-N-Cash, B.o.B, T-Pain
|-
! scope="row"| "Issues"
| Skeme, RJ
| Ingleworld 2|-
! scope="row"| "Mad Generation"
| Victoria Monet
| Nightmares & Lullabies: Act II|-
! scope="row" | "Spillin Drank"
| Mitchelle'l, Big K.R.I.T.
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Late Night King"
| Trae tha Truth, Jeremih, Ty Dolla Sign
| rowspan="1" | Tha Truth|-
! scope="row"| "Why You Mad (Infinity Remix)"
| Mariah Carey, French Montana, Justin Bieber
|
|-
! scope="row"| "Till I Die"
| K Camp
| Only Way Is Up|-
! scope="row"| "How"
| 5ive Mics
|
|-
! scope="row" | "Gold BBS's"
| Shad da God
| rowspan="1"| 2000 and God|-
! scope="row" | "Don't Blame Luv"
| rowspan="2" | Watch The Duck
| rowspan="2" | The Trojan Horse|-
! scope="row" | "Hustler"
|-
! scope="row"| "Twerk Something"
| Pimp C
| Long Live the Pimp|-
! scope="row"| "Blasé" (Remix)
| Ty Dolla Sign, French Montana, ASAP Ferg
|
|}
Production credits
2001
T.I. - I'm Serious
08. "Do It (Stick It Baby)" (co-produced with DJ Toomp)
16. "Grand Royal"
2003
T.I. - Trap Muzik
01. "Trap Muzik" (featuring Mac Boney) (co-produced with DJ Toomp and Sanhez Holmes)
12. "T.I. vs. T.I.P."
2007
T.I. - T.I. vs. T.I.P.
01. "Act I: T.I.P." (co-produced with Caviar, OZ and Just Blaze)
08. "Act II: T.I." (co-produced with Caviar, OZ and Just Blaze)
15. "Act III: T.I. vs. T.I.P.: The Confrontation" (co-produced with Caviar, OZ and Just Blaze)
2008
Maino - Tuck Ya Chain In
10. "What Ya Gonna Do" (featuring T.I.)
2009
Bow Wow - New Jack City II
04. "Been Doin' This" (featuring T.I.) (co-produced with Marz)
2010
B.o.B - The Adventures of Bobby Ray
11. "5th Dimension" (featuring Ricco Barrino) (produced with B.o.B and Lil' C)
Nelly - 5.0
03. "She's So Fly" (featuring T.I.) (credited as The Smash Factory, with Lil' C and Mars)
T.I. - No Mercy
04. "I Can't Help It" (featuring Rocko) (credited as The Smash Factory, with Lil' C and Mars)
2012
Prodigy - H.N.I.C. 3
16. "What's Happening" (featuring T.I.)
2013
Hustle Gang - G.D.O.D. (Get Dough or Die)
13. "Yeap" (featuring T.I, B.o.B, Young Dro & Trae Tha Truth) (credited as The Smash Factory, with Lil' C and Mars)
See also
T.I. videography
List of awards and nominations received by T.I.
P$C discography
Notes
A "I'm Serious" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 10 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
B "That's All She Wrote" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 1 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
C "Poppin Bottles" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 15 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
D "Pac's Life" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 19 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
E "Whatever U Like" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 4 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100. It did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
F "That's Right" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 5 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
G "Make Up Bag" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 3 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
H "Ready Set Go" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 10 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
I "F.A.M.E." did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 19 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
J "Back 2 Life (Live It Up)" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 9 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100. It did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 8 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
K "Ride wit Me" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 11 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100. It did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 11 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
L "Front Back" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 11 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
M "Wish You Would" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 14 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100. It did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 18 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
N "Ya Hear Me" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 18 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
O "I Can't Help It" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 3 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
P "No Mercy" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 23 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
Q "Here Ye, Hear Ye" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 19 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
R "Like That" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100. It did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 5 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
S "Stomp" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 10 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
T "Touchdown" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 9 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
U "56 Bars (Intro)" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 19 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
V "My Life Your Entertainment" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 19 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
W "I'm Illy" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 12 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
X "In My Bag" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 7 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Y "Freeze Me" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 14 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Z "Welcome to the World" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 17 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
AA "Castle Walls" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 5 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
AB "Pyro" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
AC "Fireworkz" (Remix) did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 3 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
AD "Arena" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 16 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
AE "Plain Jane" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 10 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
-->
BE "Bitches & Bottles (Let's Get It Started)" did not enter the Billboard'' Hot 100, but peaked at number 9 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.
References
External links
Category:Discographies of American artists
Category:Hip hop discographies |
2016-01 | Aphrodite-695674189 | Aphrodite | Aphrodite
Aphrodite ( ; Greek: ) is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess . She is identified with the planet Venus.
As with many ancient Greek deities, there is more than one story about her origins. According to Hesiod's Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus's genitals and threw them into the sea, and she arose from the sea foam (aphros).
According to Homer's Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. According to Plato (Symposium, 180e), these two origins were of entirely separate entities: Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos.
Because of her beauty, other gods feared that their rivalry over her would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, so Zeus married her to Hephaestus, who, because of his ugliness and deformity, was not seen as a threat. Aphrodite had many lovers—both gods, such as Ares, and men, such as Anchises. She played a role in the Eros and Psyche legend, and later was both Adonis's lover and his surrogate mother. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite.
Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus) after the two cult sites, Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed to be her place of birth. Myrtle, doves, sparrows, horses, and swans were said to be sacred to her. The ancient Greeks identified her with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor.
Aphrodite had many other names, such as Acidalia, Cytherea, and Cerigo, each used by a different local cult of the goddess in Greece. The Greeks recognized all of these names as referring to the single goddess Aphrodite, despite the slight differences in what these local cults believed the goddess demanded of them. The Attic philosophers of the 4th century, however, drew a distinction between a celestial Aphrodite (Aphrodite Urania) of transcendent principles, and a separate, "common" Aphrodite who was the goddess of the people (Aphrodite Pandemos).
Etymology
Aphrodite, perhaps altered after aphrós () "foam", stems from the more archaic Cretan Aphordíta and Cypriot Aphorodíta, and was probably ultimately borrowed from Cypriot Phoenician. Herodotus and Pausanias recorded that Aphrodite's oldest non-Greek temple lay in the Syrian city of Ascalon where she was known as Ourania, an obvious reference to Astarte. This suggests that Aphrodite's cult located at Cythera-Cyprus came from the Phoenicians. The fact that one of Aphrodite's chief centers of worship remained on the southwestern Cypriot coast settled by Phoenicians, where the goddess had long been worshiped as Ashtart (ʻštrt), points to the transmission of Aphrodite's original cult from Phoenicia to Cyprus then to mainland Greece. So far, however, attempts to derive the name from Aphrodite's Semitic precursor have been inconclusive.
A number of false etymologies have been proposed through the ages. Hesiod derives Aphrodite from aphrós "foam," interpreting the name as "risen from the foam". Janda (2010), accepting this as genuine, claims the foam birth myth as an Indo-European mytheme. Janda intereprets the name as a compound aphrós "foam" and déato "[she] seems, shines", meaning "she who shines from the foam [ocean]", supposedly a byname of Eos, the dawn goddess. Likewise, Mallory and Adams (1997) propose an Indo-European compound "very" and "to shine", also referring to Eos. However, etymologies based on comparison with Eos are unlikely since Aphrodite's attributes are entirely different from those of Eos (or the Vedic deity Ushas). Finally, the medieval Etymologicum Magnum offers a highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos (), "she who lives delicately", from habrós and díaita. The alteration from b to ph is explained as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the Macedonians", despite the fact that the name cannot be of Macedonian origin.
A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have been suggested in scholarship. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu, the name of a female demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts. Hammarström (1921) looks to Etruscan, comparing (e)prϑni "lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις. This would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady". Hjalmar Frisk and Robert Beekes (2010) rejects this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru (from Greek Aphrō, clipped form of Aphrodite).
Mythology
Birth
Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, which is why she is sometimes called "Cyprian", especially in the poetic works of Sappho. However, other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera, hence another of her names, "Cytherea". Cythera was a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus, so these stories may preserve traces of the migration of Aphrodite's cult from the Middle East to mainland Greece.
In the most famous version of her myth, her birth was the consequence of a castration: Cronus severed Uranus' genitals and threw them behind him into the sea. The foam from his genitals gave rise to Aphrodite (hence her name, meaning "foam-arisen"), while the Erinyes (furies), and the Meliae emerged from the drops of his blood. Hesiod states that the genitals "were carried over the sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew." The girl, Aphrodite, floated ashore on a scallop shell. This iconic representation of Aphrodite as a mature "Venus rising from the sea" (Venus Anadyomene) was made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder.
In another version of her origin, she was considered a daughter of Zeus and Dione, the mother goddess whose oracle was at Dodona. Aphrodite herself was sometimes also referred to as "Dione". "Dione" seems to be a feminine form of "Dios", "of Zeus", the genitive form case of Zeus, and could be taken to mean simply "(she) that belongs to Zeus" in a generic sense. Aphrodite might, then, be an equivalent of Rhea, the Earth Mother, whom Homer relocated to Olympus.
Adulthood
Aphrodite is consistently portrayed, in every image and story, as having had no childhood, and instead being born as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult. She is often depicted nude. In many of the later myths, she is portrayed as vain, ill-tempered, and easily offended. Although she is married—she is one of the few gods in the Greek Pantheon who is—she is frequently unfaithful to her husband.
According to one version of Aphrodite's story, because of her immense beauty Zeus fears that the other gods will become violent with each other in their rivalry to possess her. To forestall this, he forces her to marry Hephaestus, the dour, humorless god of smithing. In another version of the story, his mother, Hera casts him off Olympus, deeming him too ugly and deformed to inhabit the home of the gods. His revenge is to trap his mother in a magic throne. In return for her release, he demands to be given Aphrodite's hand in marriage.
Hephaestus is overjoyed to be married to the goddess of beauty, and forges her beautiful jewelry, including the cestus, a girdle that makes her even more irresistible to men. Her unhappiness with her marriage causes Aphrodite to seek other male companionship, most often Ares, but also sometimes Adonis.
Aphrodite's husband Hephaestus is one of the most even-tempered of the Hellenic deities, but in the Odyssey, she is portrayed as preferring Ares, the volatile god of war, because she is attracted to his violent nature.
Aphrodite is a major figure in the Trojan War legend. She is a contestant in the "Judgement of Paris" (see below), which leads to the war. She had been the lover of the Trojan Anchises, and mother of his son Aeneas. Later, during the war, she saves Aeneas from Diomedes, who wounds her.
Adonis
The most prominent lover of Aphrodite is Adonis. He is the child of Myrrha, cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus, after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter is more beautiful than the goddess. Driven out after becoming pregnant, Myrrha is changed into a myrrh tree, but still gives birth to Adonis.
Aphrodite finds the baby, and takes him to the underworld to be fostered by Persephone. She returns for him when he is grown and strikingly handsome, but Persephone wants to keep him. Zeus decrees that Adonis will spend a third of the year with Aphrodite, a third with Persephone, and a third with whomever he wishes. Adonis chooses Aphrodite, and they are constantly together.
Adonis, who loves hunting, is slain by a wild boar. He bleeds to death, and Aphrodite can only mourn over his body. She causes anemones to grow wherever his blood fell, and decrees a festival on the anniversary of his death.
The shade of Adonis is received in the underworld by Persephone. Aphrodite wants to return him to life. Again, she and Persephone bicker. Zeus intervenes again, decreeing that Adonis will spend six months with Aphrodite and six months with Persephone.
The Judgement of Paris
The gods are all invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles), except Eris, goddess of discord. In revenge, Eris makes a golden Apple of Discord inscribed kallistēi ("to the fairest one"), which she throws among the goddesses. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claim it.
Zeus delegates the choice to a mortal, Paris. The goddesses offer him bribes. Hera offers him supreme power, and Athena offers him wisdom, fame, and glory in battle. Aphrodite offers him Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, as a wife. As the goddess of desire, she causes Paris to become inflamed with desire for Helen at first sight, and he awards the Apple to her. Helen is already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. The other two goddesses are enraged by this, and through Helen's abduction by Paris, they bring about the Trojan War.
Consorts and children
Hephaestus
Ares
Phobos
Deimos
Harmonia
Adrestia (or Adrasteia (nymph) or Adrasteia (goddess))
The Erotes
Eros
Anteros
Himeros
Pothos
Poseidon
Rhode (possibly)
Hermes
Tyche (possibly)
Hermaphroditos
Dionysus
The Charites (Graces)
Thalia
Euphrosyne
Aglaea
Priapus (N.B. Some say that Adonis, not Dionysus was the father of Priapus)
Zeus
Tyche (possibly)
Adonis
Beroe
Golgos
Phaethon (son of Eos)
Astynoos
Anchises
Aeneas
Lyrus
Butes
Eryx
unknown father
Meligounis + several more unnamed daughters
Peitho
Other myths
In one version of the legend of Hippolytus, Aphrodite is the cause of his death. He scorned the worship of Aphrodite, preferring Artemis. Aphrodite caused his stepmother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus would reject her. This led to Phaedra's suicide, and the death of Hippolytus.
Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite. During the chariot race at the funeral games of King Pelias, she drove his horses mad and they tore him apart.
Polyphonte was a young woman who chose virginal life with Artemis instead of marriage and children, as favoured by Aphrodite. Aphrodite cursed her, causing her to have children by a bear. The resulting offspring, Agrius and Oreius, were wild cannibals who incurred the hatred of Zeus. Ultimately the whole family were transformed into birds and more specifically ill portents for mankind.
Forms of Aphrodite
By the late 5th century BC, certain philosophers had begun to draw a distinction between two separate "Aphrodites" (as opposed to a single Aphrodite whose characteristics varied slightly in different local cults of the goddess): Aphrodite Ourania, the celestial Aphrodite, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and Aphrodite Pandemos, the common Aphrodite "of all the folk", born from the union of Zeus and Dione. Among the neo-Platonists and, later, their Christian interpreters, Aphrodite Ourania is associated with spiritual love, and Aphrodite Pandemos with physical love (desire). A representation of Aphrodite Ourania with her foot resting on a tortoise came to be seen as emblematic of discretion in conjugal love. (We know of this representation, said to have been a chryselephantine sculpture made by Phidias for Elis, only from a parenthetical comment by the geographer Pausanias).
In the Symposium, of Plato, Pausanias (no relation to the geographer Pausanias) describes Aphrodite. He distinguishes two manifestations of Aphrodite, represented by the two stories of her creation. The older one, Aphrodite Ourania ("heavenly" Aphrodite), is the daughter of Uranus, and inspires homosexual male (and more specifically, ephebic) love/eros. The younger, Aphrodite Pandemos ("Common" Aphrodite) is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and all love for women comes from her.
Aphrodite is also known as Areia, showing her connection to Ares, the god of war, whom she had extramarital relations with. As a result, she was, to some extent, made into a goddess of war. This is especially true in Sparta.
Cult of Aphrodite
The epithet Aphrodite Acidalia was occasionally added to her name, after the spring she used for bathing, located in Boeotia (Virgil I, 720). She was also called Kypris or Cytherea after her birth-places in Cyprus and Cythera, respectively, both centers of her cult. She was associated with Hesperia and frequently accompanied by the Oreads, nymphs of the mountains.
Her festival, Aphrodisia, was celebrated across Greece, but particularly in Athens and Corinth. At the temple of Aphrodite on the summit of Acrocorinth (before the Roman destruction of the city in 146 BC), intercourse with her priestesses was considered a method of worshiping Aphrodite. This temple was not rebuilt when the city was re-established under Roman rule in 44 BC, but the fertility rituals likely continued in the main city near the agora.
Aphrodite was associated with, and often depicted with, the sea, dolphins, doves, swans, pomegranates, sceptres, apples, myrtle, rose trees, lime trees, clams, scallop shells, and pearls.
One aspect of the cult of Aphrodite and her precedents that Thomas Bulfinch's much-reprinted The Age of Fable; or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855 etc.) elided was the practice of ritual prostitution in her shrines and temples. The euphemism in Greek is hierodoule, "sacred slave." The practice was an inherent part of the rituals owed to Aphrodite's Near Eastern forebears, Sumerian Inanna and Akkadian Ishtar, whose temple priestesses were the "women of Ishtar," ishtaritum.
The practice has been documented in Babylon, Syria, and Palestine, in Phoenician cities and the Tyrian colony Carthage, and for Hellenic Aphrodite in Cyprus, the center of her cult, Cythera, Corinth, and in Sicily (Marcovich 1996:49); the practice however is not attested in Athens. Aphrodite was everywhere the patroness of the hetaera and courtesan. In Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, hierodoulai served in the temple of Artemis.
Modern worship of Aphrodite
As one of the Twelve Olympians of the Greek pantheon and thus a major deity, worship of Aphrodite, (or Aphrodíti), as a living goddess is one of the more prominent devotionals in Hellenismos (Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism), the revival of ancient Greek religious practices in the present day.
Hellenic polytheists of today celebrate their religious devotion to Aphrodite on two annual and monthly festival days. Aphrodisia is her main festival day, which is celebrated on the 4th day of Hekatombaion in the Attic calendar, falling in the months of July and August in the Gregorian calendar, depending on the year. Adonia, a joint festival of Aphrodite and her partner Adonis, is celebrated on the first full moon following the Northern spring equinox, often roughly as the same week the Christian festival of Easter is celebrated. The fourth day of each month is considered a sacred day of both Aphrodite and her son Eros.
Devotional offerings to Aphrodite can include incense, fruit (particularly apples and pomegranates), flowers (particularly fragrant roses), sweet dessert wine (particularly Commandaria wine from Cyprus), and cakes made with honey.
Comparative mythology
Ancient Near Eastern parallels
The religions of the ancient Near East have a number of love goddesses that may be similar to certain aspects of Aphrodite.
Her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia.
Hans Georg Wunderlich further connects Aphrodite with the Minoan snake goddess.
The Egyptian snake goddess Wadjet was associated with the city known to the Greeks as Aphroditopolis (the city of Aphrodite).
Pausanias states the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians, the Paphians of Cyprus, and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon. The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera.
An origin of (or significant influence on) the Greek love goddess from Near Eastern traditions was seen with some skepticism in classical 19th century scholarship. Authors such as A. Enmann (Kypros und der Ursprung des Aphroditekultes 1881) attempted to portray the cult of Aphrodite as a native Greek development.
Scholarly opinion on this question has shifted significantly since the 1980s, notably due to Walter Burkert (1984), and the significant influence of the Near East on early Greek religion in general (and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular) is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the 8th century BC, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
In native Greek tradition, the planet Venus had two names, Hesperos as the evening star and Eosphoros as the morning star. The Greeks adopted the identification of the morning and the evening stars, as well as its identification as Ishtar/Aphrodite, during the 4th century BC, along with other items of Babylonian astrology, such as the zodiac (Eudoxus of Cnidus).
Comparison with the Indo-European dawn goddess
It has long been accepted in comparative mythology that Aphrodite (regardless of possible oriental influences) preserves some aspects of the Indo-European dawn goddess *Hausos (properly Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Sanskrit Ushas).
Janda (2010) etymologizes her name as "she who rises from the foam [of the ocean]" and points to Hesiod's Theogony account of Aphrodite's birth as an archaic reflex of Indo-European myth. Aphrodite rising out of the waters after Cronus defeats Uranus as a mytheme would then be directly cognate to the Rigvedic myth of Indra defeating Vrtra, liberating Ushas.
Gallery
See also
Hellenismos
References and sources
References
Sources
C. Kerényi (1951). The Gods of the Greeks.
Walter Burkert (1985). Greek Religion (Harvard University Press).
External links
Theoi Project, Aphrodite information from classical literature, Greek and Roman art
The Glory which Was Greece from a Female Perspective
Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite, with a brief explanation`
Category:Aphrodite
Category:Love and lust goddesses
Category:Fertility goddesses
Category:Eros in ancient Greece
Category:Sexuality and religion
Category:Deities in the Iliad
Category:Deities, spirits, and mythic beings
Category:Polytheism
Category:Greek goddesses
Category:Ancient Greek religion
Category:Indo-European deities
Category:Requests for audio pronunciation (Greek) |
2016-01 | Im_a_Celebrity...Get_Me_Out_of_Here_British_TV_series-697462195 | Im_a_Celebrity...Get_Me_Out_of_Here_British_TV_series | I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series)
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (often shortened to I'm a Celebrity or I'm a Celeb) is a British reality television show, first aired in 2002, in which celebrities live in jungle conditions with few creature comforts. The show has been hosted by Ant & Dec since its inception and is part of a franchise of the same name. It is filmed in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia and broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom.
In the Republic of Ireland, TV3 began simulcasts at the beginning of series 3 in 2004. The series moved to their sister channel 3e for series 12, 13 and 14. The series moved to UTV Ireland in 2015 for series 15.
The show was sponsored in the UK by supermarket chain Iceland and in Ireland by M and M Direct since 2013, previously MultiTrip.com. The show has been contracted to air until at least 2017, taking it to at least 17 series. From 2015 the series was sponsored by Aunt Bessie's in the UK and Kia in the Republic of Ireland.
Format
In return for their appearance on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, the celebrities are asked to nominate a charity to which the producers, ITV Studios, make donations. The celebrities themselves are also paid a fee to compensate them for possible loss of earnings while they are in the jungle. The producers of the show keep the precise details of the celebrities' contracts private, prompting much speculation from the media. The money is raised by allowing viewers to vote by phone, text message or the "red button" (a colloquialism popular in the UK for TV interactive services) for the celebrity they would like to complete a "Bushtucker Trial" — a physical task usually involving snakes, spiders or other creepy-crawlies found in the jungle — and, later in each series, to vote for the celebrity they would like to see win the show. The last remaining celebrity after all others have been evicted is declared the winner of the show, and is branded "King/Queen of the Jungle".
Bushtucker trial
Bushtucker trials are used in the show to allow the contestants to gain food and treats for camp. Bushtucker Trials take two formats: eating trials, or physical/mental tasks.
In the eating trials, contestants are required to eat a variety of different "jungle" foods. Each dish successfully eaten will gain the contestants one star, which equals one meal for camp (although the number of meals per star can vary). These trials generate the most viewer responses according to the ITV website. The foods that are required to be eaten can include: crickets (in a variety of forms, such as cooked into biscuits, blended into drinks or eaten alive or dead), green ants, mealworms, witchetty grub, roasted spider or tarantulas, kangaroo testicles, kangaroo penis, kangaroo vaginal parts, crocodile penis, cockroach (prepared in various ways such as being cooked into biscuits, blended into drinks, eaten alive or dead). Other past foods include beach worms, bull's tongues, the anus of various animals, vomit fruits, cooked pigs' brains, various animal testicles, raw fish eyes, sheep eyes, blended rats or mice tails.
The second type of challenge is more of a physical or mental task that requires the contestants to perform activities to gain stars. These can include searching through dung, going through tunnels, negotiating obstacles on high wires, or performing other tasks.
Dingo Dollar Challenge/Dingo Dimes
One way of camp can earn treats is by doing extra tasks in Bushtucker trials or in general. As seen in Series 15 (2015), the camp lost their dingo dimes after they refused to help Lady Collin Cambell.
Dingo dimes can be used in the vending machine in croc creek.
Dingo dimes are only in the 2015 season. (As of 6/12/2015).
--
Another way camp can earn treats is to do what is known as the "Dingo Dollar Challenge". This involves two or more celebrities going into the jungle to perform a task that releases an item to open a container with an amount of dingo dollars. Once that has been completed and the dollars have been retrieved, it is taken to a small woodshack shop, with shopkeeper 'Kiosk Keith'. They can exchange the dollars for a necessity such as a hammock or a treat such as chocolate chip cookies. The shop owner calls camp and the celebrities then have a question usually relating to a celebrity or a piece of trivia. The "Celebrity Chest" was abandoned for the first time in the 2012 series, in favour of the Dingo Dollar Challenge, which involves the celebrities collecting 'dingo dollars' and subsequently answering a question correctly in order to win a treat for the camp, if they win they will receive their prize however if the celebrities get it wrong, the shop owner takes the dingo dollars and shuts up shop, leaving nothing for the camp.
Formerly, 'The Celebrity Chest' had a question with a choice of answers, similar to the Dingo Dollar Challenge, the two celebrities who took part in the challenge would bring the chest back to camp and collaborate over the question with the other camp members. If correct, they would win a treat, if incorrect, they would be told what the treat was.
In Dingo Dollars if the camp members answer correctly they get a choice of two treats.
Filming location
The first series of the show was filmed on a smaller site at King Ranch, near Tully, Queensland, the open air studio built on a fast moving creek. Since the second series, the programme has been filmed in Springbrook National Park, near Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia.
Inside the entrance to the filming location is an open area allocated to buildings which house on-site medical facilities, containers for the storage of props, and so on. It is in this area that the families and friends of the celebrities bide their time each morning during evictions – awaiting the fate of their loved ones. From this area, a restricted access road climbs to the site of the studios. The road then heads down into a valley via four-wheel drive access to the set of the show.
Some of these areas are viewable from Google Earth, though it is difficult to view the suspension bridges and open-air studio that Ant & Dec broadcast from. While the roof of the main building is bright red, when filming is out of season, this whole area is covered with hessian to obscure the aerial view. The creeks and camp areas are situated directly below the main suspension bridges. As they are so close to the celebrities, the crew have to be careful during filming to keep voices and music down. Many of the Bushtucker Trials are not performed here; in fact, some are performed well away from the area.
Once out of the jungle, the celebrities stay at the five-star hotel Palazzo Versace Australia. The health and wellbeing of the celebrities and crew are looked after by medic Bob McCarron and his team from EMS. McCarron is also responsible for all of the creatures and food in the challenges.
Popularity and criticism
The finals of the second and third UK series were seen by 12.73 and 14.99 million people respectively — in both cases well over half of all people watching television in the country at the time.
The site in which the celebrities stay appears to be open to the elements, but is largely covered by sheets above the view of the cameras. In one episode, a celebrity had to swim in a swamp apparently infested with crocodiles. Marksmen were shown ready to shoot the animals if they attacked. In actuality, the area where this was filmed does not have crocodiles because it is too far south.
In Series 9 it was revealed that Katie Price was getting paid almost four times as much as the other contestants, which sparked some criticism. It was also reported that, as a result, cash-strapped ITV were unable to provide any more money for the series, and the quality of the trials went down.
Controversies
ITV apologised in 2006 after confusion over the instructions for telephone and red-button interactive voting led to allegations in the media that the wrong person had been evicted in the run-off vote in Series 6 between Toby Anstis and Dean Gaffney.
The show was forced to enhance its procedures after Ofcom found that after complaints, on 23 November 2006 episode, the show had breached Rule 1.16 of the Broadcasting Code for airing bad language before the watershed.
The 30 November 2006 episode was ruled to have breached Rule 2.2 of the Broadcasting Code after an investigation launched as part of the wider UK television public voting controversy. Due to late running, seven percent of phone and text votes for that episode of the show were not counted, although this did not affect the result.
Sarah Matravers blamed the show for the breakdown of her relationship with contestant Marc Bannerman after he flirted with Cerys Matthews in Series 7. Matthews and Bannerman later alleged the show footage had been edited by ITV to look like more than it was.
Former Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren, who was due to appear on Series 7 but pulled out at the last minute, alleged that the show and the choice of winner was fixed, and the trials posed no real danger. He alleged that show doctor told him that "'Things are so safe, I would send my own kids in to do the show'. There is nothing bad in there. They're hoodwinking the public".
ITV apologised in 2009 for not having properly advised the contestants in Series 9 of the relevant Australian legislation regarding animal cruelty. Gino D'Acampo and Stuart Manning were charged by New South Wales Police after RSPCA Australia complained over their killing and eating of a rat during the show.
In 2012, the decision by Nadine Dorries to enter the show was the source of criticism which led to her suspension from the Conservative Party due to allegations she did not seek permission from the party whip Andrew Mitchell which led to an inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Series details
Winners are crowned King or Queen of their respective year. To date, there have been 10 Kings and 5 Queens of the Jungle.
Key:
King of the Jungle
Queen of the Jungle
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left; font-size:90%; line-height:20px; width:100%;"
|-
! rowspan="2"|Series
! rowspan="2"|Presenters
! rowspan="2"|Start date
! rowspan="2"|End date
! rowspan="2"|Days in camp
! rowspan="2"|Campmates
! colspan="3"|Honour places
|-
! style="background:gold;"|Winner
! style="background:silver;"|Second place
! style="background:#c96;"| Third place
|-
! scope="row" | 1
| rowspan=15 style="text-align:center;"| Ant & Dec
| 25 August 2002
| 8 September 2002
| rowspan=2| 15
| 8
| Tony Blackburn
| Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
| Christine Hamilton
|-
! scope="row" | 2
| 28 April 2003
| 12 May 2003
| rowspan=2| 10
| Phil Tufnell
| John Fashanu
| Linda Barker
|-
! scope="row" | 3
| 26 January 2004
| 9 February 2004
| 16
| Kerry Katona
| Jennie Bond
| Peter Andre
|-
! scope="row" | 4
| 21 November 2004
| 6 December 2004
| rowspan=2| 18
| 11
| Joe Pasquale
| Paul Burrell
| Fran Cosgrave
|-
! scope="row" | 5
| 20 November 2005
| 5 December 2005
| rowspan=2| 12
| Carol Thatcher
| Sheree Murphy
| Sid Owen
|-
! scope="row" | 6
| 13 November 2006
| 1 December 2006
| 19
| Matt Willis
| Myleene Klass
| Jason Donovan
|-
! scope="row" | 7
| 12 November 2007
| 30 November 2007
| 20
| 11
| Christopher Biggins
| Janice Dickinson
| Jason "J" Brown
|-
! scope="row" | 8
| 16 November 2008
| 5 December 2008
| rowspan=5| 21
| 12
| Joe Swash
| Martina Navratilova
| George Takei
|-
! scope="row" | 9| 15 November 2009
| 4 December 2009
| rowspan=3| 13
| Gino D'Acampo
| Kim Woodburn
| Jimmy White
|-
! scope="row" | 10| 14 November 2010
| 4 December 2010
| Stacey Solomon
| Shaun Ryder
| Jenny Eclair
|-
! 11| 13 November 2011
| 3 December 2011
| Dougie Poynter
| Mark Wright
| Fatima Whitbread
|-
! scope="row" | 12| 11 November 2012
| 1 December 2012
| rowspan=3| 12
| Charlie Brooks
| Ashley Roberts
| David Haye
|-
! scope="row" | 13| 17 November 2013
| 8 December 2013
| 22
| Kian Egan
| David Emanuel
| Lucy Pargeter
|-
! scope="row" | 14| 16 November 2014
| 7 December 2014
| 23
| Carl "Foggy" Fogarty
| Jake Quickenden
| Melanie Sykes
|-
! scope="row" | 15| 15 November 2015
| 6 December 2015
| 22
| 13
| Vicky Pattison
| George Shelley
| Ferne McCann
|}
Main series results
The first three series of I'm a Celebrity occurred at various different times during the years they were broadcast. From series 4 onwards, the show is broadcast from around mid November until late November/early December.
Key
Winner – King or Queen of the Jungle
Runner-up
Third place
Walked or withdrew
Late arrival
Series 1 (2002)
8 contestants, 25 August – 8 September 2002:
Series 2 (2003)
10 contestants, 28 April – 12 May 2003:
Series 3 (2004)
10 contestants, 26 January – 9 February 2004:
Series 4 (2004)
11 contestants, 21 November – 6 December 2004:
Series 5 (2005)
12 contestants, 20 November – 5 December 2005:
Series 6 (2006)
12 contestants, 13 November – 1 December 2006:
Team Base Camp
Team Snake Rock
Series 7 (2007)
11 contestants, 12–30 November 2007:
Team Croc Creek
Team Snake Rock
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 8 (2008)
Series 8: Sunday 16 November – 5 December 2008:
Home Camp
Away Camp
Entered after contestants were brought together.
Series 9 (2009)
Series 9: 15 November – 4 December 2009
Base Camp
Camp Exile
Left before camp was split
Series 10 (2010)I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! returned on 14 November 2010 at 9pm on ITV and ITV1 HD for its tenth series, as confirmed by presenters Ant and Dec at the end of the "Coming Out" show at the conclusion of series 9. This is the first series in HD. Series 10 is the only series to have 2 live trials.
Series 10: 14 November – 4 December 2010
Camp Sheila
Camp Bruce
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 11 (2011)
The eleventh series began on 13 November 2011. The official line-up was confirmed on 9 November 2011.
Series 11: 13 November – 3 December 2011
Team Snake Rock
Team Croc Creek
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 12 (2012)
The twelfth series began on 11 November and ended on 1 December 2012. The official line-up was revealed on 7 November 2012.
Series 12: 11 November – 1 December 2012
Team Snake Rock
Team Croc Creek
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 13 (2013)
The thirteenth series began airing on ITV on 17 November 2013. The first advert for the series aired on 21 October 2013. The line-up was confirmed on 13 November 2013.
Series 13: 17 November 2013 – 8 December 2013
Team Snake Rock
Team Croc Creek
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 14 (2014)
The show returned for its fourteenth series on 16 November 2014. On 15 October 2014, a teaser for the upcoming series was released on the official website. On 11 November, the full list of celebrities was confirmed by ITV. On 20 November, a further two campmates were confirmed to have joined the show.
Series 14: 16 November 2014 – 7 December 2014
Team Croc Creek/Rescuer
Team Celebrity Slammer
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 15 (2015)
The show returned on 15 November 2015 under a new three-year contract, as confirmed by Ant & Dec at the end of the Coming Out show on the 10 December 2014.
Series 15: 15 November 2015 - 6 December 2015
Red Team (Leader: Tony Hadley)
Yellow Team (Leader: Susannah Constantine)
Entered after contestants were brought together
Series 16 (2016)
The show will return in 2016, and will be the second in a three year contract, as confirmed by Ant & Dec at the end of the ...Coming Out show on 9 December 2015.
Series records and statistics
Biggest winning percentage: 83.42% – Gino D'Acampo (Series 9)
Closest winning percentage: 50.56% – Charlie Brooks (Series 12)
Longest stay in camp: 24 Days – George Shelley (Series 15)
Shortest stay in camp: 1 Day – Elaine Lordan (Series 5)
Most appearances: 2 Series – Katie Price (Series 3 and Series 9)
Most bushtucker trials: 10 trials – Janice Dickinson (Series 7), Katie Price (Series 3 and Series 9)
Most consecutive bushtucker trials: 7 trials – Helen Flanagan (Series 12)
Most refused bushtucker trials: 2 trials – Lady Colin Campbell (Series 15)
Series ratings
Note for "Average rating": Since 2010 incl. HD viewers and since 2011 incl. "ITV +1" consumers.
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! NOW!I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! NOW! is a companion show, broadcast on ITV2 in the UK and on 3e in the Republic of Ireland up to 2014. Since 2015 it has been shown in Ireland on UTV Ireland. It features behind-the-scenes footage of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and shows the emotional responses of the contestants after they have been voted off.
Series 1 to 4 was filmed completely live in the UK, series 5–8 were filmed mainly live in Australia with a live co-presenter in the UK. Since series 9, the show has been filmed completely live in Australia with occasional celebrity interviews based in London, shown through webcam.
History
In the first series, the show was presented by Irish TV presenter, Louise Loughman. In series 2–3, the show was presented by Mark Durden-Smith and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. In series 4, Palmer-Tomkinson was absent and Durden-Smith was the only host. For the fifth series, Palmer-Tomkinson returned to present the show. Durden-Smith did not, as he decided to spend time with his children instead. He was replaced by Matt Brown. Palmer-Tomkinson did not return for series 6.
In series 6, Brendon Burns initially presented the show, but left after three episodes. This led to Durden-Smith returning for the rest of the series, where he presented from the UK. He was joined by new presenters Kelly Osbourne and Jeff Brazier (briefly Steve Wilson before Brazier took over), who presented from the jungle in Australia.
Also this series, a 5pm teatime programme, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Exclusive, ran each weekday on ITV. It was co-hosted by series 5 runner-up Sheree Murphy and Phillip Schofield in 2006. It did not return for a second series.
For series 7–8, Matt Willis and his wife Emma took over from the previous hosts, Kelly Osbourne and Jeff Brazier, in Australia. Due to the couple having a child in early 2009, they did not return to present series 9. Durden-Smith also presented the show, from the UK, for the final time.
Series 9 to 10 saw new presenter, Caroline Flack, take over with roving reporter Joe Swash, email/people reporter Russell Kane, and a panel of celebrity pundits, which changed approximately every three to five days. For series 11, Flack left in order to present another ITV2 show, The Xtra Factor, and was controversially replaced by Laura Whitmore. Swash and Kane both stayed on for the eleventh series.
On 16 June 2012, it was announced that Kane would not return to Get Me Out of Here! NOW!. He was replaced by stand-up comic Rob Beckett. All three presenters returned to present the thirteenth and fourteenth series of the show.
Due to tour commitments, Beckett did not return for Series 15. He was replaced by comedian David Morgan.
Presenters
Various TV presenters and comedians have hosted the show since it began in 2002, with Joe Swash having presented the most series, at seven.
Specials
Series 3Get Me Out of Here! NOW! Tuffer's Reveals All, 25 January 2004 8pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 3 part series, 10–12 February 2004 10:30pm ITV2
Series 4I'm a Celebrity...Top Ten Tiffs, Tears & Tantrums, 60-minute special, 16 November 2004 ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Top Ten Trials, 60-minute special, 17 November 2004 ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Top Ten Funny Moments, 60-minute special, 18 November 2004 ITV2Get Me Out of Here! I'm Tuffers, 60-minute special, 19 November 2004 ITV2Get Me Out of Here! I'm an Aussie, week long series, 6–10 December 2004 10:30pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 90-minute special, 8 December 2004 9pm ITV
Series 5Get Me Out of Here Now! Burrell Goes Back, November 2005 ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 90-minute special, 7 December 2005 9pm ITV
Series 6Get Me Out of Here Now! Thatch Goes Back, 12 November 2006 6:05pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming out, 90-minute special, 3 December 2006 9pm ITV
Series 7I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 90-minute special, 4 December 2007 9pm ITV
Series 8Get Me Out of Here Now! Biggins Goes Back, 14 November 2008 9pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 90-minute special, 7 December 2008 9pm ITVI'm a Celebrity...Coming Home, 60-minute special, 21 December 2008, 7pm ITV2
Series 9I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 7 December 2009 9pm ITVI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Unforgettable Trials, 8 December 2009 9pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Jungle Gems, 9 December 2009 9pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Jungle Kings and Queens, 10 December 2009 9pm ITV2
Series 10I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 6 December 2010 9pm ITVI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Bushtucker Best Bits, 7 December 2010 6:30pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Jungle Juicy Bits, 8 December 2010 7pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Jungle Royals, 9 December 2010 7pm ITV2
Series 11I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 5 December 2011 9pm ITVI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Bushtucker Best Bits, 6 December 2011 9pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Jungle Gold, 7 December 2011 9pm ITV2
Series 12I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Top Trials, 2 December 2012 5:45pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 5 December 2012 8pm ITVI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Golden Moments, 7 December 2012 7pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! Hall of Fame, 7 December 2012 8pm ITV2
Series 13I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here Now! Trials and Tribulations, 9 December 2013 8pm ITV2I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 11 December 2013 8pm ITV
Series 14I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out, 60-minute special, 10 December 2014 8pm ITV
Series 15 I'm a Celebrity...Coming Out'', 60-minute special, 9th December 2015 8pm ITV
References
External links
Category:2000s British television series
Category:2010s British television series
Category:2002 British television programme debuts
Category:British reality television series
Category:I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
Category:ITV reality television programmes
Category:English-language television programming
Category:Television series by ITV Studios
Category:Television shows set in Australia
Category:Television shows set in New South Wales
Category:Television shows set in Queensland |
2016-01 | Eastern_Orthodox_Church-697585625 | Eastern_Orthodox_Church | Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, also referred to as the Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Orthodoxy, is the second largest Christian Church in the world, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, teaching that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles, and practicing what it understands to be the original faith passed down from the Apostles.
United in communion with the Latin Church before the East–West Schism in 1054, and with the Oriental churches for the first quarter of its history, Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Byzantine Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople.
Orthodoxy has no Papacy or bishopric of similar authority. The commonly-used but unofficial designation "Eastern" derives from its geographical relation to the "Western" churches, now known as the Roman Catholic Church, and from Constantinople being the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Geographically, the majority of Orthodox Christians in the 21st century reside in Greece, Eastern Europe and Russia, with less numerous communities in the former Byzantine regions of the Middle East and around the Eastern Mediterranean. There are also many small but growing communities in other parts of the world, formed in part through immigration and in part through conversion and missionary activity.
Orthodoxy
Almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the "One, Holy, Catholic (from the Greek καθολική, or "according to the whole, universal") and Apostolic Church". The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church.
A number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim: the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. In the Orthodox view, the Assyrians and Orientals left the Orthodox Church in the years following the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431) and the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), respectively, in their refusal to accept those councils' Christological definitions. Similarly, the churches in Rome and Constantinople separated in an event known as the East–West Schism, traditionally dated to the year 1054, although it was more a gradual process than a sudden break. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, for the first time in the 1530s (and, after a brief reunion in 1555, again finally in 1558). Thus, though it was united to Orthodoxy when established through the work of Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the early 7th century, its separation from Orthodoxy came about indirectly through the See of Rome.
To all these churches, the claim to catholicity (universality, oneness with the ancient church) is important for multiple doctrinal reasons that have more bearing internally in each church than in their relation to the others, now separated in faith. The meaning of holding to a faith that is true is the primary reason why anyone's statement of which church split off from which other has any significance at all; the issues go as deep as the schisms. The depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word "Orthodox" itself, a union of Greek orthos ("straight" "correct" "true" "right") and doxa ("glory" as in Doxa Patri, "Glory to the Father").
The dual meanings of doxa, with "glory" or "glorification" (of God by the Church and of the church by God), especially in worship, yield the pair "correct belief" and "true worship". Together, these express the core of a fundamental teaching about the inseparability of belief and worship and their role in drawing the Church together with Christ. The Bulgarian and all the Slavic churches use the title Pravoslavie (), meaning "glorifying correct", to denote what is in English Orthodoxy, while the Georgians use the title Martlmadidebeli. Several other churches in Europe, Asia, and Africa also came to use Orthodox in their titles, but are still distinct from the Orthodox Church as described in this article.
The term "Eastern Church" (the geographic east in the East–West Schism) has been used to distinguish it from western Christendom (the geographic West, which at first came to designate the Roman Catholic communion, later also the various Protestant and Anglican branches). "Eastern" is used to indicate that the highest concentrations of the Orthodox Church presence remain in the eastern part of the Christian world, although it is growing worldwide. Orthodox Christians throughout the world use various ethnic or national jurisdictional titles, or more inclusively, the title "Eastern Orthodox", "Orthodox Catholic", or simply "Orthodox".
What unites Orthodox Christians is the catholic faith, whose vessel is Holy Tradition, inspired through the operation of the Holy Spirit. That faith is expressed most fundamentally in Scripture and in worship, and the latter most essentially through the mystery of Baptism and in the Divine Liturgy. The faith lives and breathes by God's energies in communion with the Church. Inter-communion is the litmus test by which all can see that two churches share the same faith; lack of inter-communion (excommunication, literally "out of communion") is the sign of different faiths, even though some central theological points may be shared. The sharing of beliefs can be highly significant, but it is not the full measure of the faith.
The lines of even this test can blur, however, when differences that arise are not due to doctrine, but to recognition of jurisdiction. As the Orthodox Church has spread into the west and over the world, the church as a whole has yet to sort out all the inter-jurisdictional issues that have arisen in the expansion, leaving some areas of doubt about what is proper church governance. And as in the ancient church persecutions, the aftermath of modern persecutions of Christians in communist nations has left behind both some governance and some faith issues that have yet to be completely resolved.
All members of the Orthodox Church profess the same faith, regardless of race or nationality, jurisdiction or local custom, or century of birth. Holy Tradition encompasses the understandings and means by which that unity of faith is transmitted across boundaries of time, geography, and culture. It is a continuity that exists only inasmuch as it lives within Christians themselves. It is not static, nor an observation of rules, but rather a sharing of observations that spring both from within and also in keeping with others, even others who lived lives long past. The Holy Spirit maintains the unity and consistency of the Holy Tradition to preserve the integrity of the faith within the Church, as given in the Scriptural promises.
The shared beliefs of Orthodoxy, and its theology, exist within the Holy Tradition and cannot be separated from it, for their meaning is not expressed in mere words alone. Doctrine cannot be understood unless it is prayed. To be a theologian, one must know how to pray, and one who prays in spirit and in truth becomes a theologian by doing so. Doctrine must also be lived in order to be prayed, for without action, the prayer is idle and empty, a mere vanity, and therefore the theology of demons. According to these teachings of the ancient church, no superficial belief can ever be orthodox. Similarly, reconciliation and unity are not superficial, but are prayed and lived out.
Catholicity of the Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church considers itself to be both orthodox and catholic. Due to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the west, where the English language itself developed, the words "catholic" and "catholicity" are sometimes used to refer to that church itself. However, the more prominent dictionary sense given for general use is still the one shared by other languages, implying breadth and universality, reflecting comprehensive scope. In a Christian context, the Church, as identified with the original Church founded by Christ and His apostles, is said to be catholic (or universal) in regard to its union with Christ in faith. Just as Christ is indivisible, so are union with Him and faith in Him, whereby the Church is "universal", unseparated, and comprehensive, including all who share that faith. Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware has called that "simple Christianity". That is the sense of early and patristic usage wherein the Church usually refers to itself as the "Catholic Church", whose faith is the "Orthodox faith". It is also the sense within the phrase "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church", found in the Nicene Creed, and referred to in Orthodox worship, such as the litany of the catechumens of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
With the mutual excommunications of the East–West Schism in 1054, the churches in Rome and Constantinople each viewed the other as having departed from the Church, leaving a smaller but still-catholic Church in place. Each retained the "Catholic" part of its title, "Roman Catholic Church" on the one hand, and "Orthodox Catholic Church" on the other, each of which was defined in terms of inter-communion with either Rome or Constantinople. While Orthodoxy recognizes what it shares in common with the heterodox churches of our time, including Roman Catholicism, it sees catholicity in terms of complete union, in communion and faith, with the Church throughout all time, and the sharing remains incomplete when not shared fully.
In keeping with the Church's teaching on universality and with the Nicene Creed, Orthodox authorities such as Saint Raphael of Brooklyn have insisted that the full name of the church has always included the term "Catholic", as in "Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church". The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church. It is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic. This name and longer variants containing "Catholic" are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers.
The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use. From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, and ethnic Greeks were widely dispersed geographically throughout. For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" (in contrast to "Roman" or "Latin"), even before the great schism. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Roman Catholic" did for communion with Rome. This identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. The Byzantine Empire brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where Greek was also not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to Rome, which then also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, and a very large number of Orthodox are also not of Greek national origin, and do not use Greek as the language of worship. "Eastern", then, indicates the predominance of geography in the Church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates not only the faith, but communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. (There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither Rome nor Constantinople, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox".) While the Church continues officially to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Organization and leadership
The religious authority for Eastern Orthodoxy is not a Patriarch or the Pope as in Catholicism, nor the Bible as in Protestantism, but the scriptures as interpreted by the seven ecumenical councils of the Church. The Orthodox Church is a fellowship of "autocephalous" (Greek for self-headed) Churches, with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople being the only autocephalous head who holds the title primus inter pares, meaning "first among equals" in Latin. The Patriarch of Constantinople has the honor of primacy, but his title is only first among equals and has no real authority over Churches other than the Constantinopolitan. The Orthodox Church considers Jesus Christ to be the head of the Church and the Church to be his body. It is believed that authority and the grace of God is directly passed down to Orthodox bishops and clergy through the laying on of hands—a practice started by the apostles, and that this unbroken historical and physical link is an essential element of the true Church (Acts 8:17, 1 Tim 4:14, Heb 6:2). However, the Church asserts that Apostolic Succession also requires Apostolic Faith, and bishops without Apostolic Faith, who are in heresy, forfeit their claim to Apostolic Succession.
The Eastern Orthodox communion is organized into several regional Churches, either autocephalous or lower ranking autonomous (the Greek for self-lawed) Church bodies unified in theology and worship: including the fifteen autocephalous Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Georgia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, Greece, Poland, Romania, Albania, Czech and Slovakia, America and a number of autonomous Churches. Each Church has a bishop and a Holy Synod to administer its jurisdiction and to lead the Church in the preservation and teaching of the apostolic and patristic traditions and church practices.
Each bishop has a territory (see) over which he governs. His main duty is to make sure the traditions and practices of the Church are preserved. Bishops are equal in authority and cannot interfere in the jurisdiction of another bishop. Administratively, these bishops and their territories are organized into various autocephalous groups or synods of bishops who gather together at least twice a year to discuss the state of affairs within their respective sees. While bishops and their autocephalous synods have the ability to administer guidance in individual cases, their actions do not usually set precedents that affect the entire Church. Bishops are almost always chosen from the monastic ranks and must remain unmarried.
Church councils
There have been a number of times when alternative theological ideas arose to challenge the Orthodox faith. At such times the Church deemed it necessary to convene a general or "Great" council of all available bishops throughout the world. The Church considers the first seven Ecumenical Councils (held between the 4th and the 8th centuries) to be the most important; however, there have been more, specifically the Synods of Constantinople, 879–880, 1341, 1347, 1351, 1583, 1819, and 1872, the Synod of Iaşi (Jassy), 1642, and the Pan-Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem, 1672, all of which helped to define the Orthodox position.
The ecumenical councils followed a democratic form, with each bishop having one vote. Though present and allowed to speak before the council, members of the Imperial Roman/Byzantine court, abbots, priests, monks and laymen were not allowed to vote. The primary goal of these Great Synods was to verify and confirm the fundamental beliefs of the Church as truth, and to remove as heresy any false teachings that would threaten the Church. The Pope of Rome, at that time, held the position of "first among equals". And while he was not present at any of the councils he continued to hold this title until the East–West Schism of 1054 AD.
According to Orthodox teaching the position of "First Among Equals" gives no additional power or authority to the bishop that holds it, but rather that this person sits as organizational head of a council of equals (like a president). His words and opinions carry no more insight or wisdom than any other bishop. It is believed that the Holy Spirit guides the Church through the decisions of the entire council, not one individual. Additionally it is understood that even the council’s decisions must be accepted by the entire Church in order for them to be valid.
One of the decisions made by the First Council of Constantinople (the second ecumenical council, meeting in 381) and supported by later such councils was that the Patriarch of Constantinople should be given equal honor to the Pope of Rome since Constantinople was considered to be the "New Rome". According to the third Canon of the second ecumenical council: "Because it is new Rome, the bishop of Constantinople is to enjoy the privileges of honor after the bishop of Rome." This means that both enjoy the same privileges because they are both bishops of the imperial capitals, but the bishop of Rome will precede the bishop of Constantinople since Old Rome precedes New Rome.
The 28th canon of the fourth ecumenical council clarified this point by stating: "For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of Old Rome because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops (i.e. the second ecumenical council in 381) actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honored with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is."
The Pope of Rome would still have had honorary primacy before Constantinople if the East-West Schism had not occurred. Because of that schism the Orthodox no longer recognize the primacy of the pope. The Patriarch of Constantinople therefore, like the Pope before him, now enjoys the title of "first among equals." This is not, however, meant to imply that he is the leader of the Orthodox Church. Also, this is not an official title of any sort, just a way of describing the seniority of the "imperial" bishops with respect to all other bishops.
Adherents
Politics, wars, persecutions, oppressions, and related potential threats can make precise counts of Orthodox membership difficult to obtain at best in some regions. Historically, forced migrations have also altered demographics in relatively short periods of time. The most reliable estimates currently available number Orthodox adherents at around 200 million worldwide, making Eastern Orthodoxy the second largest Christian communion in the world after Catholicism. The numerous Protestant groups in the world, if taken all together, outnumber the Orthodox, but they differ theologically and do not form a single communion. The Orthodox share of the world's total Christian population was 12% in 2011.
Most members today are concentrated in Eastern Europe and Asian Russia, in addition to significant minorities in Central Asia and the Levant, although Eastern Orthodoxy has spread into a global religion towards Western Europe and the New World, with churches in most countries and major cities. The adherents constitute the largest single religious faith in the world's largest country – Russia, where roughly half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live. They are the majority religion in Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Georgia, Macedonia, Cyprus, Montenegro, they also dominate in the disputed territories Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. Significant minorities of Eastern Orthodox are present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Albania, Syria, and many other countries.
The percentage of Christians in Turkey fell from 19 percent in 1914 to 2.5 percent in 1927, due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the Armenian Genocide, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the emigration of Christians to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas). Today there are more than 160,000 people of different Christian denominations.
Through mostly labor migration from Eastern Europe and some conversion, Orthodox Christian population is the fastest growing religious grouping in some Western countries, for example in the Republic of Ireland, but Orthodoxy is not "a central marker of minority identity" for the migrants. While in the United States, the number of Orthodox parishes is growing.
Theology
Trinity
Orthodox Christians believe in the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is three, distinct, divine persons (hypostases), without overlap or modality among them, who share one divine essence (ousia Greek ουσία)— uncreated, immaterial and eternal. These three persons are typically distinguished by their relation to each other. The Father is eternal and not begotten and does not proceed from any, the Son is eternal and begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is eternal and proceeds from the Father. Orthodox doctrine regarding the Holy Trinity is summarized in the Nicene Creed (Symbol of Faith).
In discussing God's relationship to His creation, Orthodox theology distinguishes between God's eternal essence, which is totally transcendent, and His uncreated energies, which is how He reaches us. The God who is transcendent and the God who touches us are one and the same. That is, these energies are not something that proceed from God or that God produces, but rather they are God himself: distinct, yet inseparable from, God's inner being.
In understanding the Holy Trinity as "one God in three persons", "three persons" is not to be emphasized more than "one God", and vice versa. While the three persons are distinct, they are united in one divine essence, and their oneness is expressed in community and action so completely that they cannot be considered separately. For example, their salvation of mankind is an activity engaged in common: "Christ became man by the good will of the Father and by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit. Christ sends the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit forms Christ in our hearts, and thus God the Father is glorified." Their "communion of essence" is "indivisible". Trinitarian terminology- essence, hypostasis, etc. - are used "philosophically", "to answer the ideas of the heretics", and "to place the terms where they separate error and truth." The words do what they can do, but the nature of the Trinity in its fullness remains beyond our comprehension and expression, a Holy Mystery that can only be experienced.
Sin, salvation, and the incarnation
At some point in the beginnings of human existence, man was faced with a choice: to learn the difference between good and evil through observation, or through participation. The biblical story of Adam and Eve relates this choice by mankind to participate in evil, accomplished through disobedience to God's command. Both the intent and the action were separate from God's will; it is that separation that defines and marks any operation as sin. The separation from God caused the loss of (fall from) his grace, a severing of mankind from his creator and the source of his life. The end result was the diminishment of human nature and its subjection to death and corruption, an event commonly referred to as the "fall of man".
When Orthodox Christians refer to Fallen Nature they are not saying that human nature has become evil in itself. Human nature is still formed in the image of God; we are still God's creation, and God has never created anything evil. But our fallen nature remains open to evil intents and actions. It is sometimes said that we are "inclined to sin"; that is, we find some sinful things attractive. It is the nature of temptation to make sinful things seem the more attractive, and it is the fallen nature of humans that seeks or succumbs to the attraction. Orthodox Christians reject the Augustinian position that the descendants of Adam and Eve are actually guilty of the original sin of their ancestors. But just as any species begets its own kind, so fallen humans beget fallen humans, and from the beginning of our existence we lie open to sinning by our own choice.
Since the fall of man, then, it has been mankind's dilemma that no human can restore his nature to union with God's grace; it was necessary for God to effect another change in human nature. Orthodox Christians believe that Christ Jesus was both God and Man absolutely and completely, having two natures indivisibly: eternally begotten of the Father in his divinity, he was born in his humanity of a woman, Mary, by her consent, through descent of the Holy Spirit. He lived on earth, in time and history, as a man. As a man he also died, and went to the place of the dead, which is Hades. But being God, neither death nor Hades could contain him, and he rose to life again, in his humanity, by the power of the Holy Spirit, thus destroying the power of Hades, and of death itself. Through God's participation in humanity, Christ's human nature, perfected and unified with his divine nature, ascended into heaven, there to reign in communion with the Holy Trinity.
By these acts of salvation, Christ provided fallen mankind with the path to escape its fallen nature. The Orthodox Church teaches that through baptism into Christ's death, and our death unto sin in repentance, with God's help we can also rise with Christ into heaven, healed of the breach of our fallen nature and restored to God's grace. To Orthodox Christians, this process is what is meant by "salvation", which consists of the Christian life. The ultimate goal is theosis – an even closer union with God and closer likeness to God than existed in the Garden of Eden. This very process is called Deification or "God became man that man might become 'god'". However, it must be emphasized that Orthodox Christians do not believe that man literally becomes God in His essence, or a god in his own nature. More accurately, Christ's salvific work enables man in his human nature to become "partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4); that is to say, man is united to God in Christ.
Through Christ's destruction of Hades' power to hold humanity hostage, he made the path to salvation effective for all the righteous who had died from the beginning of time – saving many, including Adam and Eve, who are remembered in the Church as saints.
The Orthodox reject the idea that Christ died to give God "satisfaction", as taught by Anselm, or as a punitive substitute as taught by the Reformers. Sin (separation from God, the source of all life) is its own punishment, capable of imprisoning the soul in an existence without life, without anything good, and without hope: hell, by any measure. Life on earth is God's gift, to give us opportunity to make our choice real: separation, or union.
Resurrection of Christ
The Orthodox Church understands the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus to be real historical events, as described in the gospels of the New Testament. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was in his humanity (that is, in history) crucified, and died, descending into Hades (Sheol), the place of the dead, as all humans do. But He, alone among humans, has two natures, one human, one divine, which are indivisible and inseparable from each other through the mystery of the incarnation. Hades could not restrain the infinite God. Christ in His divine nature captured the keys of Hades and broke the bonds which had imprisoned the human souls who had been held there through their separation from God.
Neither could death contain the Son of God, the Fountain of Life, who arose from death even in his human nature. Not only this, but he opened the gates of Hades to all the righteous dead of past ages, rescuing them from their fallen human nature and restoring them to a nature of grace with God, bringing them back to life, this time in God's heavenly kingdom. And this path he opened to all who choose to follow him in time yet to come, thus saving the human race. Thus the Orthodox proclaim each year at the time of Pascha (Easter), that Christ "trampled down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowed life."
The celebration of the Resurrection of Christ at Pascha is the central event in the liturgical year of the Orthodox Church. According to Orthodox tradition, each human being may partake of this immortality, which would have been impossible without the Resurrection; it is the main promise held out by God in the New Testament. Every holy day of the Orthodox liturgical year relates to the Resurrection directly or indirectly. Every Sunday is especially dedicated to celebrating the Resurrection and the triune God, representing a mini-Pascha. In the liturgical commemorations of the Passion of Christ during Holy Week there are frequent allusions to the ultimate victory at its completion.
Christian Life
Church teaching is that Orthodox Christians, through baptism, enter a new life of salvation through repentance whose purpose is to share in the life of God through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Christian life is a spiritual pilgrimage in which each person, through the imitation of Christ and hesychasm, cultivates the practice of unceasing prayer. Each life occurs within the life of the church as a member of the body of Christ. It is then through the fire of God's love in the action of the Holy Spirit that each member becomes more holy, more wholly unified with Christ, starting in this life and continuing in the next. The church teaches that everyone, being born in God's image, is called to theosis, fulfillment of the image in likeness to God. God the creator, having divinity by nature, offers each person participation in divinity by cooperatively accepting His gift of grace.
The Orthodox Church, in understanding itself to be the Body of Christ, and similarly in understanding the Christian life to lead to the unification in Christ of all members of his body, views the church as embracing all Christ's members, those now living on earth, and also all those through the ages who have passed on to the heavenly life. The church includes the Christian saints from all times, and also judges, prophets and righteous Jews of the first covenant, Adam and Eve, even the angels and heavenly hosts. In Orthodox services, the earthly members together with the heavenly members worship God as one community in Christ, in a union that transcends time and space and joins heaven to earth. This unity of the Church is sometimes called the communion of the saints.
Mother of God and Saints
The Orthodox Church believes death and the separation of body and soul to be unnatural—a result of the Fall of Man. They also hold that the congregation of the Church comprises both the living and the dead. All persons currently in heaven are considered to be saints, whether their names are known or not. There are, however, those saints of distinction whom God has revealed as particularly good examples. When a saint is revealed and ultimately recognized by a large portion of the Church a service of official recognition (glorification) is celebrated.
This does not 'make' the person a saint, it merely recognizes the fact and announces it to the rest of the Church. A day is prescribed for the saint’s celebration, hymns composed and icons are created. Numerous saints are celebrated on each day of the year. They are venerated (shown great respect and love) but not worshiped, for worship is due to God alone. In showing the saints this love and requesting their prayers, the Orthodox manifest their belief that the saints thus assist in the process of salvation for others.
Pre-eminent among the saints is the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God). In Orthodox theology, the Mother of God is the fulfillment of the Old Testament archetypes revealed in the Ark of the Covenant (because she carried the New Covenant in the person of Christ) and the burning bush that appeared before Moses (symbolizing the Mother of God's carrying of God without being consumed ). Accordingly, the Orthodox consider Mary to be the Ark of the New Covenant and give her the respect and reverence as such. The Theotokos was chosen by God and she freely co-operated in that choice to be the Mother of Jesus Christ, the God-man.
The Orthodox believe that the Christ Child from the moment of conception was both fully God and fully Man. Mary is thus called the 'Theotokos' or 'Bogoroditsa' as an affirmation of the divinity of the One to whom she gave birth. It is also believed that her virginity was not compromised in conceiving God-incarnate, that she was not harmed and that she remained forever a virgin. Scriptural references to "brothers" of Christ are interpreted as kin, given that the word 'brother' was used in multiple ways, as was the term 'father'. Due to her unique place in salvation history, Mary is honored above all other saints and especially venerated for the great work that God accomplished through her.
The Church regards the bodies of all saints as holy, made such by participation in the Holy Mysteries, especially the communion of Christ's holy body and blood, and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the Church. Indeed, that persons and physical things can be made holy is a cornerstone of the doctrine of the Incarnation, made manifest also directly by God in Old Testament times through his dwelling in the Ark of the Covenant. Thus, physical items connected with saints are also regarded as holy, through their participation in the earthly works of those saints. God himself bears witness to this holiness of saints' relics through the many miracles connected with them that have been reported throughout history since Biblical times, often including healing from disease and injury.
Eschatology
Orthodox Christians believe that when a person dies the soul is temporarily separated from the body. Though it may linger for a short period on Earth, it is ultimately escorted either to paradise (Abraham's bosom) or the darkness of Hades, following the Temporary Judgment. Orthodox do not accept the doctrine of Purgatory, which is held by Roman Catholicism. The soul’s experience of either of these states is only a "foretaste"—being experienced only by the soul—until the Final Judgment, when the soul and body will be reunited.
The Orthodox believe that the state of the soul in Hades can be affected by the love and prayers of the righteous up until the Last Judgment. For this reason the Church offers a special prayer for the dead on the third day, ninth day, fortieth day, and the one-year anniversary after the death of an Orthodox Christian. There are also several days throughout the year that are set aside for general commemoration of the departed, sometimes including nonbelievers. These days usually fall on a Saturday, since it was on a Saturday that Christ lay in the Tomb.
While the Orthodox consider the text of the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) to be a part of Scripture, it is also regarded to be a mystery. Speculation on the contents of Revelation are minimal and it is never read as part of the regular order of services. Those theologians who have delved into its pages tend to be amillennialist in their eschatology, believing that the "thousand years" spoken of in biblical prophecy refers to the present time: from the Crucifixion of Christ until the Second Coming.
While it is not usually taught in church it is often used as a reminder of God’s promise to those who love Him, and of the benefits of avoiding sinful passions. Iconographic depictions of the Final Judgment are often portrayed on the back (western) wall of the church building to remind the departing faithful to be vigilant in their struggle against sin. Likewise it is often painted on the walls of the Trapeza (refectory) in a monastery where monks may be inspired to sobriety and detachment from worldly things while they eat.
The Orthodox believe that Hell, though often described in metaphor as punishment inflicted by God, is in reality the soul's rejection of God's infinite love which is offered freely and abundantly to everyone.
The Orthodox believe that after the Final Judgment:
All souls will be reunited with their resurrected bodies.
All souls will fully experience their spiritual state.
Having been perfected, the saints will forever progress towards a deeper and fuller love of God, which equates with eternal happiness.
Bible
Orthodox Christians hold that the Bible is a verbal icon of Christ (as proclaimed by the 7th ecumenical council).
They refer to the Bible as Holy Scripture, meaning writings containing the foundational truths of the Christian faith as revealed by Christ and the Holy Spirit to its divinely inspired human authors. Holy Scripture forms the primary and authoritative written witness of Holy Tradition and is essential as the basis for all Orthodox teaching and belief. The Bible provides the only outside texts held to be suitable for reading in Orthodox worship services. Through the many scriptural quotations embedded in the worship service texts themselves, it is often said that the Orthodox pray the Bible as well as read it.
The New Testament consists of writings of the apostles and a very few other authors writing within apostolic times. The Old Testament consists of the writings of the Church as it existed in the time of the first covenant (before Christ), that is, within Judaism. The eastern regions of ancient Christianity adopted primarily the Greek-language Jewish translation of those writings known as the Septuagint, while the western regions (under the administration of Rome) depended at first on various Latin translations.
St. Jerome completed the well-known Vulgate Latin translation only in the early 5th century, around the time the accepted lists of scripture were resolved in the west. The east took up to a century longer to resolve the lists in use there, and ended by accepting a few additional writings from the Septuagint that did not appear in the lists of the west. The differences were small and were not considered to compromise the unity of the faith shared between east and west.
They did not play a role in the eventual schism in the 11th century that separated the See of Rome and the West from the See of Constantinople and the other apostolic Orthodox Churches, and remained as defined essentially without controversy in the East or West for at least one thousand years. It was only in the 16th century that Reformation Protestants challenged the lists, proclaiming a canon that rejected those Old Testament books that did not appear in the 3rd century Hebrew Bible. In response, the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches reaffirmed their accepted scriptural lists in more formal canons of their own.
Once established as Holy Scripture, there has never been any question that the Orthodox Church holds the full list of books to be venerable and beneficial for reading and study, even though it informally holds some books in higher esteem than others, the four gospels highest of all. Of the subgroups significant enough to be named, the "Anagignoskomena" (ἀναγιγνωσκόμενα, "things that are read") comprises ten of the Old Testament books rejected in the Protestant canon, but deemed by the Orthodox worthy to be read in worship services, even though they carry a lesser esteem than the 39 books of the Hebrew canon. The lowest tier contains the remaining books not accepted by either Protestants or Roman Catholics, among them, Psalm 151. Though it is a psalm, and is in the book of psalms, it is not classified as being within the Psalter (the first 150 psalms), and hence does not participate in the various liturgical and prayer uses of the Psalter.
In a very strict sense, it is not entirely orthodox to call the Holy Scriptures the "Word of God". That is a title the Orthodox Church reserves for Christ, as supported in the scriptures themselves, most explicitly in the first chapter of the gospel of John. God's Word is not hollow, like human words. "God said, 'let there be light'; and there was light." This is the Word which spoke the universe into being, and resonates in creation without diminution throughout all history, a Word of divine power.
As much as the Orthodox Church reveres and depends on the scriptures, they cannot compare to the Word of God's manifest action. But the orthodox do believe that the Holy Scriptures testify to God's manifest actions in history, and that through its divine inspiration God's Word is manifested both in the scriptures themselves and in the cooperative human participation that composed them. It is in that sense that the orthodox refer to the scriptures as "God's Word".
The Orthodox Church does not subscribe to the Protestant doctrine of "sola scriptura". The Church has defined what Scripture is; it also interprets what its meaning is. Christ promised: "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth". The Holy Spirit, then, is the infallible guide for the Church to the interpretation of Scripture. The Church depends upon those saints who, by lives lived in imitation of Christ, achieving theosis, can serve as reliable witnesses to the Holy Spirit's guidance. Individual interpretation occurs within the Church and is informed by the Church. It is rational and reasoned, but is not arrived at only by means of deductive reasoning.
At the same time, the authority of its interpretation resides in Christ as the head of the church, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, and is expressed through those whom He has brought into union with Himself. The authority is not ecclesiastical, and interpretation is not restricted to clergy, but is open to whomever the Holy Spirit chooses to reveal it. A true interpretation is for the benefit of the whole Church, not just the individual, and it is consistent with "that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all" because God's revelation is consistent everywhere, always, and to all. Reading and understanding the Bible, interpreting within the Church, is encouraged and of great benefit, essential to the spiritual life of every Christian.
Scriptures are understood to contain historical fact, poetry, idiom, metaphor, simile, moral fable, parable, prophecy, and wisdom literature, and each bears its own consideration in its interpretation. While divinely inspired, the text stills consists of words in human languages, arranged in humanly-recognizable forms. The Orthodox Church does not oppose honest critical and historical study of the Bible. In biblical interpretation, it does not use speculations, suggestive theories, or incomplete indications, not going beyond what is fully known.
Holy tradition and the patristic consensus
"That faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all", the faith taught by Jesus to the apostles, given life by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and passed down to future generations without additions and without subtractions, is known as Holy Tradition. Holy Tradition does not change in the Orthodox Church because it encompasses those things that do not change: the nature of the one God in Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the history of God's interactions with his peoples, the Law as given to the Israelites, all Christ's teaching as given to the disciples and Jews and recorded in scripture, including the parables, the prophecies, the miracles, and His own example to humanity in His extreme humility. It encompasses also the worship of the church, which grew out of the worship of the synagogue and temple and was extended by Christ at the last supper, and the relationship between God and His people which that worship expresses, which is also evidenced between Christ and his disciples. It includes the authority that Christ bestowed on his disciples when he made them apostles, for the preserving and teaching of the faith, and for governing the organization and conduct of the church (in its administration by bishops).
Holy Tradition is firm, even unyielding, but not rigid or legalistic; instead, it lives and breathes within the Church. For example, the New Testament was entirely written by the early church (mostly the apostles). The whole Bible was accepted as scripture by means of Holy Tradition practiced within the early church. The writing and acceptance took five centuries, by which time the Holy Scriptures themselves had become in their entirety a part of Holy Tradition. But Holy Tradition did not change, because "that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all" remained consistent, without additions, and without subtractions. The historical development of the Divine Liturgy and other worship services and devotional practices of the church provide a similar example of extension and growth "without change".
The continuity and stability of Orthodox worship throughout the centuries is one means by which Holy Tradition expresses the unity of the whole church throughout time. Not only can the Orthodox of today visit a church in a place that speaks a language unknown to the visitors yet have the service remain familiar and understandable to them, but the same would hold true were any able to visit past eras. The church strives to preserve Holy Tradition "unchanging" that it may express the one unchanging faith for all time to come as well.
Besides these, Holy Tradition includes the doctrinal definitions and statements of faith of the seven ecumenical councils, including the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and some later local councils, patristic writings, canon law, and icons. Not all portions of Holy Tradition are held to be equally strong. Some, the Holy Scriptures foremost, certain aspects of worship, especially in the Divine Liturgy, the doctrines of the ecumenical councils, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, possess a verified authority that endures forever, irrevocably. But with local councils and patristic writings, the Church applies a selective judgement. Some councils and writers have occasionally fallen into error, and some contradict each other.
In other cases, opinions differ, no consensus is forthcoming, and all are free to choose. With agreement among the Fathers, though, the authority of interpretation grows, and full patristic consensus is very strong. With canon law (which tends to be highly rigorous and very strict, especially with clergy) an unalterable validity also does not apply, since canons deal with living on earth, where conditions are always changing and each case is subject to almost infinite variation from the next. Even when and where they were once used with full strictness, their application was not absolute, and was carried out for individuals under the pastoral care of their bishop, who had the authority to decide when individual discipline had been satisfied. This too is a part of the Holy Tradition.
By tradition, the Orthodox Church, when faced with issues that are larger than a single bishop can resolve, holds a local council. The bishops and such others as may attend convene (as St. Paul called the Corinthians to do) to seek the mind of the church. A council's declarations or edicts then reflect its consensus (if one can be found). An ecumencial council is only called for issues of such import or difficulty or pervasiveness that smaller councils are insufficient to address them. Ecumenical councils' declarations and canons carry binding weight by virtue of their representation across the whole church, by which the mind of the church can be readily seen. However, not all issues are so difficult as to require an ecumenical council to resolve. Some doctrines or decisions, not defined in a formal statement or proclaimed officially, nevertheless are held by the Church unshakably and unanimously without internal disturbance, and these, also reflecting the mind of the church, are just as firmly irrevocable as a formal declaration of an ecumenical council. Lack of formality does not imply lack of authority within Holy Tradition. An example of such unanimity can be found in the acceptance in the 5th century of the lists of books that comprise Holy Scripture, a true canon without official stamp.
Territorial expansion and doctrinal integrity
During the course of the early church, there were numerous followers who attached themselves to the Christ and His mission here on Earth, as well as followers who retained the distinct duty of being commissioned with preserving the quality of life and lessons revealed through the experience of Jesus living, dying, resurrecting and ascending among them. As a matter of practical distinction and logistics, people of varying gifts were accorded stations within the community structure – ranging from the host of agape meals (shared with brotherly and fatherly love), to prophecy and the reading of Scripture, to preaching and interpretations and giving aid to the sick and the poor. Sometime after Pentecost the Church grew to a point where it was no longer possible for the Apostles to minister alone. Overseers (bishops) and assistants (deacons and deaconesses) were appointed to further the mission of the Church.
The ecclesia recognized the gathering of these early church communities as being greatest in areas of the known world that were famous for their significance on the world stage – either as hotbeds of intellectual discourse, high volumes of trade, or proximity to the original sacred sites. These locations were targeted by the early apostles, who recognized the need for humanitarian efforts in these large urban centers and sought to bring as many people as possible into the ecclesia – such a life was seen as a form of deliverance from the decadent lifestyles promoted throughout the eastern and western Roman empire.
As the Church increased in size through the centuries, the logistic dynamics of operating such large entities shifted: patriarchs, metropolitans, archimandrites, abbots and abbesses, all rose up to cover certain points of administration.
As a result of heightened exposure and popularity of the philosophical schools (haereseis) of Greco-Roman society and education, Synods and Councils were forced to engage such schools that sought to co-opt the language and pretext of the Christian faith in order gain power and popularity for their own political and cultural expansion. As a result, ecumenical councils were held to attempt to rebuild solidarity by using the strength of distant orthodox witnesses to dampen the intense local effects of particular philosophical schools within a given area.
While originally intended to serve as an internal check and balance for the defense of faulty local doctrine against the doctrine developed and spread by the apostles to the various sees, at times the church found its own bishops and emperors falling prey to local conventions – at these crucial moments in the history of the church, it found itself able to rebuild on the basis of the faith as it was kept and maintained by monastic communities who subsisted without reliance on the community of the state or popular culture and were generally unaffected by the materialism and rhetoric that often dominated and threatened the integrity and stability of the urban churches.
In this sense, the aim of the councils was never to expand or fuel a popular need for a clearer or relevant picture of the original apostolic teaching. Rather, the theologians spoke to address the issues of external schools of thought who wished to distort the simplicity and neutrality of the apostolic teaching for personal or political gain. The consistency of the Orthodox faith is entirely dependent on the Holy Tradition of the accepted corpus of belief – the decisions ratified by the fathers of the seven ecumenical councils, and this is only done at the beginning of a consecutive council so that the effects of the decisions of the prior council can be audited and verified as being both conceptually sound and pragmatically feasible and beneficial for the church as a whole.
Worship
Church calendar
Many church traditions, including its schedules of services, feasts, and fasts, is structured by its calendar, which provides a strictly observed intermingled set of cycles of varying lengths. The fixed annual cycle begins 1 September, and establishes the times for all annual observances that are fixed by date, such as Christmas. The annual Paschal cycle is established relative to the varying date of Pascha each year and affects the times for such observances as Pascha itself, Great Lent, Holy Week, and the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost.
Lesser cycles also run in tandem with the annual ones. A weekly cycle of days prescribes a specific focus for each day in addition to others that may be observed.
Church services
The services of the church are conducted each day according to the church calendar. Parts of each service remain fixed, while others change depending on the observances prescribed for the specific day in the various cycles, ever providing a flow of constancy within variation. Services are conducted in the church and involve both the clergy and faithful. Services cannot properly be conducted by a single person, but must have at least one other person present (i.e. a Priest cannot celebrate alone, but must have at least a Chanter present and participating).
Usually, all of the services are conducted on a daily basis only in monasteries and cathedrals, while parish churches might only do the services on the weekend and major feast days. On certain Great Feasts (and, according to some traditions, every Sunday) a special All-Night Vigil (Agrypnia) will be celebrated from late at night on the eve of the feast until early the next morning. Because of its festal nature it is usually followed by a breakfast feast shared together by the congregation.
Services, especially the Divine Liturgy, can only be celebrated once a day on a single altar (some churches have multiple altars in order to accommodate large congregations). Each priest may only celebrate the Divine Liturgy once a day. From its Jewish roots, the liturgical day begins at sundown. The traditional daily cycle of services is as follows:
Vespers – (Greek Hesperinos) Sundown, the beginning of the liturgical day.
Compline (Greek Apodeipnon, lit. "After-supper") – After the evening meal prior to bedtime.
Midnight Office – Usually served only in monasteries.
Matins (Greek Orthros) – First service of the morning. Usually starts before sunrise.
Divine Liturgy – The Eucharist service. (see below)
Hours – First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth – Sung either at their appropriate times, or in aggregate at other customary times of convenience. If the latter, The First Hour is sung immediately following Orthros, the Third and Sixth prior to the Divine Liturgy, and the Ninth prior to Vespers.
The Divine Liturgy is the celebration of the Eucharist. Although it is usually celebrated between the Sixth and Ninth Hours, it is not considered to be part of the daily cycle of services, as it occurs outside the normal time of the world. The Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on weekdays during the preparatory season of Great Lent and in some places during the lesser fasting seasons either. Reserve communion is prepared on Sundays and is distributed during the week at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.
Other items brought to the altar during the Divine Liturgy include a gold or silver chalice with red wine, a small metallic urn of warm water, a metallic communion spoon, a little metallic spear, a sponge, a metal disk with cut pieces of bread upon it, and a star, which is a star-shaped piece of metal over which the priest places a cloth covering when transporting the holy gifts to and from the altar. Also found on the altar table is the antimins. The antimins is a silk cloth, signed by the appropriate diocesan bishop, upon which the sanctification of the holy gifts takes place during each Divine Liturgy. The antimins contain the relics of a saint. When a church is consecrated by a bishop, there is a formal service or prayers and sanctification in the name of the Saint that the church is named after. The bishop will also often present a small relic of a saint to place in or on the altar as part of the consecration of a new church.
An orthodox priest (or bishop) may celebrate only one Divine Liturgy per day. The Divine Liturgy may only be celebrated once a day on any particular antimins and altar. This means that most parishes or congregations, unless they have more than one officially signed antimins and multiple priests, can celebrate only one Eucharist per day, in order to express the catholicity of the church by avoiding "private masses".
The book containing liturgically read portions of the four gospels is permanently "enthroned" on the altar table. The Orthodox bishops, priests, deacons and readers sing/chant specific verses from this Gospel Book on each different day of the year.
This daily cycle services are conceived of as both the sanctification of time (chronos, the specific times during which they are celebrated), and entry into eternity (kairos). They consist to a large degree of litanies asking for God's mercy on the living and the dead, readings from the Psalter with introductory prayers, troparia, and other prayers and hymns surrounding them. The Psalms are so arranged that when all the services are celebrated the entire Psalter is read through in their course once a week, and twice a week during Great Lent when the services are celebrated in an extended form.
Music and chanting
Orthodox services are sung nearly in their entirety. Services consist in part of a dialogue between the clergy and the people (often represented by the choir or the Psaltis Cantor). In each case the prayers are sung or chanted following a prescribed musical form. Almost nothing is read in a normal speaking voice, with the exception of the homily if one is given.
Because the human voice is seen as the most perfect instrument of praise, musical instruments (organs, guitars, etc.) are not generally used to accompany the choir.
The church has developed eight modes or tones (see Octoechos) within which a chant may be set, depending on the time of year, feast day, or other considerations of the Typikon. There are numerous versions and styles that are traditional and acceptable and these vary a great deal between cultures. It is common, especially in the United States, for a choir to learn many different styles and to mix them, singing one response in Greek, then English, then Russian, etc.
In the Russian tradition there have been some famous composers of "unaccompanied" church music, such as Tchaikovsky (Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, op. 41, 1878, and All-Night Vigil, op. 52, 1882) and Rachmaninoff (Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, op. 31, 1910, and All-Night Vigil, op. 37, 1915); and many church tones can likewise be heard influencing their music.
Incense
As part of the legacy handed down from its Judaic roots, incense is used during all services in the Orthodox Church as an offering of worship to God as it was done in the Jewish First and Second Temples in Jerusalem (Exodus chapter 30). Incense is also prophesied in the book of as a "pure offering" in the glorification of God by the Gentiles in "every place" where the name of God is regarded as "great". Traditionally, the base of the incense used is the resin of Boswellia sacra, also known as frankincense, but the resin of fir trees has been used as well. It is usually mixed with various floral essential oils giving it a sweet smell.
Incense represents the sweetness of the prayers of the saints rising up to God (, , ). The incense is burned in an ornate golden censer that hangs at the end of three chains representing the Trinity. Two chains represent the human and Godly nature of the Son, one chain for the Father and one chain for the Holy Spirit. The lower cup represents the earth and the upper cup the heaven. In the Greek, Slavic, and Syrian traditions there are 12 bells hung along these chains representing the 12 apostles. There are also 72 links representing 72 evangelists.
The charcoal represents the sinners. Fire signifies the Holy Spirit and frankincense the good deeds. The incense also represents the grace of the Holy Trinity. The censer is used (swung back and forth) by the priest/deacon to venerate all four sides of the altar, the holy gifts, the clergy, the icons, the congregation, and the church structure itself. Incense is also used in the home where the individual will go around the house and "cross" all of the icons saying in Greek: Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς. or in English: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
Fasting
The number of fast days varies from year to year, but in general the Orthodox Christian can expect to spend a little over half the year fasting at some level of strictness. There are spiritual, symbolic, and even practical reasons for fasting. In the Fall from Paradise mankind became possessed by a carnal nature; that is to say, he became inclined towards the passions. Through fasting, Orthodox Christians attempt to return to the relationship of love and obedience to God enjoyed by Adam and Eve in Paradise in their own lives, by refraining from carnal practices, by bridling the tongue (), confession of sins, prayer and almsgiving.
Fasting is seen as purification and the regaining of innocence. It is a practice of learning to temper the body's primary desire for food. By learning to temper this basic desire of the body, the practitioner can more readily temper other worldly desires, and thus, become better enabled to draw closer to God in the hope of becoming more Christ-like. Through obedience to the Church and its ascetic practices the Orthodox Christian seeks to rid himself or herself of the passions (The desires of our fallen carnal nature). All Orthodox Christians are provided with a prescribed set of guidelines. They do not view fasting as a hardship, but rather as a privilege and joy. The teaching of the Church provides both the time and the amount of fasting that is expected as a minimum for every member who chooses to participate. For greater ascesis, some may choose to go without food entirely for a short period of time. A complete three-day fast at the beginning and end of a fasting period is not unusual, and some fast for even longer periods, though this is usually practiced only in monasteries.
In general, fasting means abstaining from meat and meat products, dairy (eggs and cheese) and dairy products, fish, olive oil, and wine. Wine and oil—and, less frequently, fish—are allowed on certain feast days when they happen to fall on a day of fasting; but animal products and dairy are forbidden on fast days, with the exception of "Cheese Fare" week which precedes Great Lent, during which dairy products are allowed. Wine and oil are usually also allowed on Saturdays and Sundays during periods of fast. In some Orthodox traditions, caviar is permitted on Lazarus Saturday, the Saturday before Palm Sunday, although the day is otherwise a fast day. Married couples also abstain from sexual relations on fast days, that they may devote themselves to prayer ().
While it may seem that fasting in the manner set forth by the Church is a strict rule, there are circumstances where a person's spiritual guide may allow an Economy because of some physical necessity (e.g. those who are pregnant or infirm, the very young and the elderly, or those who have no control over their diet, such as prisoners or soldiers).
Fasting periods
The time and type of fast is generally uniform for all Orthodox Christians; the times of fasting are part of the ecclesiastical calendar, and the method of fasting is set by the Holy Canons and Sacred Tradition. There are four major fasting periods during the year:
The Nativity Fast (Advent or "Winter Lent") which is the 40 days preceding the Nativity of Christ (Christmas), beginning on 15 November and running through 24 December. This fast becomes more severe beginning 12 December, and Christmas Eve is observed as a strict fast day.
Great Lent which consists of the 6 weeks (40 Days) preceding Palm Sunday, and Great Week (Holy Week) which precedes Pascha (Easter).
The Apostles' Fast which varies in length from 8 days to 6 weeks. It begins on the Monday following All Saints Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost) and extends to the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June. Since the date of Pentecost depends on that of Pascha, and Pascha is determined on the lunar calendar, this fast can disappear completely under New Calendar observance (This is one of the objections raised by opponents to the New Calendar).
The Dormition Fast, a two-week-long Fast preceding the Dormition of the Theotokos (repose of The Virgin Mary), lasting from 1 August through 15 August.
In addition to these fasting seasons, Orthodox Christians fast on every Wednesday (in commemoration of Christ's betrayal by Judas Iscariot), and Friday (in commemoration of Christ's Crucifixion) throughout the year. Monastics often fast on Mondays (in imitation of the Angels, who are commemorated on that day in the weekly cycle, since monastics are striving to lead an angelic life on earth, and angels neither eat nor drink).
Orthodox Christians who are preparing to receive the Eucharist do not eat or drink at all from vespers (sunset) until after taking Holy Communion. A similar total fast is expected to be kept on the Eve of Nativity, the Eve of Theophany (Epiphany), Great Friday and Holy Saturday for those who can do so. There are other individual days observed as fasts (though not as days of total fasting) no matter what day of the week they fall on, such as the Beheading of St. John the Baptist on 29 August and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14 September.
Strict fasting is canonically forbidden on Saturdays and Sundays due to the festal character of the Sabbath and the Resurrection, respectively. On those days wine and oil are permitted even if abstention from them would be otherwise called for. Holy Saturday is the only Saturday of the year where a strict fast is kept every year, though it is also kept on the Eve of Theophany in years when that day falls on Saturday.
There are also four periods in the liturgical year during which no fasting is permitted, even on Wednesday and Friday. These fast-free periods are:
The week following Pascha (Easter), also known as Bright Week.
The week following Pentecost.
The period from the Nativity of Christ up to (but not including) the Eve of Theophany (Epiphany). The day of Theophany itself is always fast-free, even if it falls on a Wednesday or Friday.
The week following the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee (one of the preparatory Sundays before Great Lent). This is fast-free to remind the faithful not to boast like the Pharisee that he fasts for two days out of the week .
When certain feast days fall on fast days, the fasting laws are lessened to a certain extent, to allow some consolation in the trapeza (refectory) for the longer services, and to provide an element of sober celebration to accompany the spiritual joy of the feast.
It is considered a greater sin to advertise one's fasting than not to participate in the fast. Fasting is a purely personal communication between the Orthodox Christian and God. If one has health concerns, or responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled because of fasting, then it is perfectly permissible not to fast. An individual's observance of the fasting laws is not to be judged by the community (), but is a private matter between him and his Spiritual Father or Confessor.
Almsgiving
"Almsgiving", more comprehensively described as "acts of mercy", refers to any giving of oneself in charity to someone who has a need, such as material resources, work, assistance, counsel, support, or kindness. Along with prayer and fasting, it is considered a pillar of the personal spiritual practices of the Orthodox Christian tradition. Almsgiving is particularly important during periods of fasting, when the Orthodox believer is expected to share with those in need the monetary savings from his or her decreased consumption. As with fasting, mentioning to others one's own virtuous deeds tends to reflect a sinful pride, and may also be considered extremely rude.
Traditions
Monasticism
The Eastern Orthodox Church places heavy emphasis and awards a high level of prestige to traditions of monasticism and asceticism with roots in Early Christianity in the Near East and Byzantine Anatolia. The most important centres of Christian Orthodox monasticism are Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) and Mount Athos in Northern Greece.
All Orthodox Christians are expected to participate in at least some ascetic works, in response to the commandment of Christ to "come, take up the cross, and follow me." (Mark 10:21 and elsewhere) They are therefore all called to imitate, in one way or another, Christ himself who denied himself to the extent of literally taking up the cross on the way to his voluntary self-sacrifice. However, laypeople are not expected to live in extreme asceticism since this is close to impossible while undertaking the normal responsibilities of worldly life.
Those who wish to do this therefore separate themselves from the world and live as monastics: monks and nuns. As ascetics par excellence, using the allegorical weapons of prayer and fasting in spiritual warfare against their passions, monastics hold a very special and important place in the Church. This kind of life is often seen as incompatible with any kind of worldly activity including that which is normally regarded as virtuous. Social work, school teaching, and other such work is therefore usually left to laypeople. Ascetics of the Orthodox Church are recognized by their long hair, and in case of male monks, long beards.
There are three main types of monastics. Those who live in monasteries under a common rule are coenobitic. Each monastery may formulate its own rule, and although there are no religious orders in Orthodoxy some respected monastic centers such as Mount Athos are highly influential. Eremitic monks, or hermits, are those who live solitary lives. It is the yearning of many who enter the monastic life to eventually become solitary hermits. This most austere life is only granted to the most advanced monastics and only when their superiors feel they are ready for it.
Hermits are usually associated with a larger monastery but live in seclusion some distance from the main compound. Their local monastery will see to their physical needs, supplying them with simple foods while disturbing them as little as possible. In between are those in semi-eremitic communities, or sketes, where one or two monks share each of a group of nearby dwellings under their own rules and only gather together in the central chapel, or katholikon, for liturgical observances.
The spiritual insight gained from their ascetic struggles make monastics preferred for missionary activity. Bishops are almost always chosen from among monks, and those who are not generally receive the monastic tonsure before their consecrations.
Many (but not all) Orthodox seminaries are attached to monasteries, combining academic preparation for ordination with participation in the community's life of prayer. Monks who have been ordained to the priesthood are called hieromonk (priest-monk); monks who have been ordained to the diaconate are called hierodeacon (deacon-monk). Not all monks live in monasteries, some hieromonks serve as priests in parish churches thus practicing "monasticism in the world".
Cultural practices differ slightly, but in general Father is the correct form of address for monks who have been tonsured, while Novices are addressed as Brother. Similarly, Mother is the correct form of address for nuns who have been tonsured, while Novices are addressed as Sister. Nuns live identical ascetic lives to their male counterparts and are therefore also called monachoi (monastics) or the feminine plural form in Greek, monachai, and their common living space is called a monastery, "monastíri" in Greek.
Symbolism
Everything in the Orthodox Church has a purpose and a meaning revealing God's revelation to man. At the front, or eastern end of the church, is a raised dais with an icon-covered screen or wall (iconostasis or templon) separating the nave from the sanctuary. In the center of this wall is the entrance to the altar known as the "Royal Doors" through which only the clergy may pass.
There is a right and left side door on the front of the iconostasis, one depicting the archangel, Michael and the other Gabriel. The priest and altar boys enter and exit through these doors during appropriate parts of the Divine Liturgy. Immediately to the right of the main gate you will always find an icon of Jesus Christ, on the left, an icon of the Theotokos (Mother of God). Other icons depicted on the iconostasis are John the Baptist and the Saint after which the church is named.
In front of the iconostasis is the bishop's chair, a place of honor where a visiting bishop or metropolitan will often sit when visiting the church. An Orthodox priest, when standing at the altar during the Divine Liturgy, faces toward the altar (typically facing east) and properly leads his congregation while together they perform the mystical sacrifice and pray to God.
The sanctuary contains the Holy Altar, representing the place where Orthodox Christians believe that Christ was born of the virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, laid in the tomb, descended into hell, rose from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will return again at his second coming. A free-standing cross, bearing the body of Christ, may stand behind the altar. On the altar are a cloth covering, a large book containing the gospel readings performed during services, an ark containing presanctified divine gifts (bread and wine) distributed by the deacon or priest to those who cannot come to the church to receive them, and several white beeswax candles.
The Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on New York City's Upper East Side is the largest Orthodox Christian church in the Western Hemisphere.
Icons
The term 'icon' comes from the Greek word eikona, which simply means image. The Orthodox believe that the first icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary were painted by Luke the Evangelist. Icons are filled with symbolism designed to convey information about the person or event depicted. For this reason, icons tend to be formulaic, following a prescribed methodology for how a particular person should be depicted, including hair style, body position, clothing, and background details.
Icon painting, in general, is not an opportunity for artistic expression, though each iconographer brings a vision to the piece. It is far more common for an icon to be copied from an older model, though with the recognition of a new saint in the church, a new icon must be created and approved. The personal and creative traditions of Catholic religious art were largely lacking in Orthodox iconography before the 17th century, when Russian iconography began to be strongly influenced by religious paintings and engravings from both Protestant and Roman Catholic Europe. Greek iconography also began to take on a strong western influence for a period and the difference between some Orthodox icons and western religious art began to vanish. More recently there has been a trend of returning to the more traditional and symbolic representations.
The style of the icons seems to have been borrowed heavily from the paganism of the Greek culture. Henry Chadwick writes, "In this instinct there was a measure of truth. The representations of Christ as the Almighty Lord on his judgment throne owed something to pictures of Zeus. Portraits of the Mother of God were not wholly independent of a pagan past of venerated mother-goddesses. In the popular mind the saints had come to fill a role that had been played by heroes and deities."
Free-standing statues (three-dimensional depictions) are almost non-existent within the Orthodox Church. This is partly due to the rejection of the previous pagan Greek age (Greek gods) of idol worship and partly because icons are meant to show the spiritual nature of man, not the sensual earthly body. Bas reliefs, however, became common during the Byzantine period and led to a tradition of covering a painted icon in a silver or gold 'riza' in order to preserve the icon. Such bas relief coverings usually leave the faces and hands of the saints exposed for veneration.
Icons are not considered by the Orthodox to be idols or objects of worship. The parameters of their usage were clearly spelled out by the 7th ecumenical council. Justification for their usage utilises the following logic: before God took human form in Christ, no material depiction was possible and therefore blasphemous even to contemplate. Once God became incarnate, depiction was possible.
As Christ is believed to be God, it is justified to hold in one's mind the image of God-incarnate. Likewise, when one venerates an icon, it is not the wood or paint that are venerated but rather the individual shown, just as it is not the paper one loves when one might kiss the photograph of a loved one. As Saint Basil famously proclaimed, honour or veneration of the icon always passes to its archetype. Following this reasoning, the veneration of the glorified human saint made in God's image, is always a veneration of the divine image, and hence God as foundational archetype.
Icons can be found adorning the walls of churches and often cover the inside structure completely. Most Orthodox homes have an area set aside for family prayer, usually an eastern facing wall, where are hung many icons. Icons have been part of Orthodox Christianity since the beginning of the church.
Icons are often illuminated by a candle or oil lamp. (Beeswax for candles and olive oil for lamps are preferred because they are natural and burn cleanly.) Besides the practical purpose of making icons visible in an otherwise dark church, both candles and oil lamps symbolise the Light of the World, who is Christ.
Tales of miraculous icons are not uncommon, though it has always been considered that the message of such an event was for the immediate faithful involved and therefore does not usually attract crowds. Some miraculous icons whose reputations span long periods of time nevertheless become objects of pilgrimage along with the places where they are kept. As several Orthodox theologians and saints have explored in the past, the icon's miraculous nature is found not in the material, but in the glory of the saint who is depicted. The icon is a window, in the words of Paul Florensky, that actually participates in the glory of what it represents.
Iconostasis
An iconostasis, also called the templon, is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church. The modern iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon in the 11th century. The evolution of the iconostasis probably owes a great deal to 14th-century Hesychast mysticism and the wood-carving genius of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The first ceiling-high, five-leveled Russian iconostasis was designed by Andrey Rublyov in the cathedral of the Dormition in Vladimir in 1408. The separation between sanctuary and nave accomplished by the iconostasis is not mandatory, though it is common practice. Depending on circumstance, the role of the iconostasis can be played by masonry, carved panels, screens, curtains, railings, a cord or rope, plain icons on stands, steps, or nothing at all.
Cross
Depictions of the cross within the Orthodox Church are numerous and often highly ornamented, but its use does not extend to all Orthodox traditions. Some carry special significance. The Tri-Bar Cross, popular in Russia and Ukraine, but common throughout the Orthodox world, seen to the right, has three bars. Its origins are in the early Byzantine Church of the 4th century AD.
The small top crossbar represents the sign that Pontius Pilate nailed above Christ's head. It often is inscribed with an acronym, "INRI", Latin, meaning "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" or "INBI", Ancient Greek, "Jesus; of Nazareth, King of the Jews"; however, it is often replaced or amplified by the phrase "The King of Glory" in order to answer Pilate's statement with Christ's affirmation, "My Kingdom is not of this world".
There is also a bottom slanting bar. This appears for a number of reasons. Claims of evidence indicate that there was a small wooden platform for the crucified to stand on in order to support his weight; in Jesus' case his feet were nailed side by side to this platform with one nail each in order to prolong the torture of the cross.
Implied evidence for this comes mainly from two sources within holy tradition, namely, the Bible (in order to cause the victim to die faster, their legs were broken so they could not support their weight and would suffocate) and iconography (all early depictions of the crucifixion show this arrangement, not the later with feet on top with single nail). It has also been pointed out by some experts that the nailed hands of a body crucified in the manner often shown in modern secular art would not support the weight of the body and would tear through. A platform for the feet would relieve this problem.
The bottom bar is slanted for two reasons, to represent the very real agony which Christ experienced on the cross (a refutation of Docetism) and to signify that the thief on Christ's right chose the right path while the thief on the left did not. Other crosses associated with the Orthodox Church are the more traditional single-bar crosses, budded designs, the Jerusalem cross (cross pattée), Celtic crosses, and others. A common symbolism of the slanted foot stool is The foot-rest points up, toward Heaven, on Christ’s right hand-side, and downward, to Hades, on Christ’s left. "Between two thieves Thy Cross did prove to be a balance of
righteousness: wherefore one of them was dragged down to Hades by the
weight of his blasphemy [the balance points downward], whereas the other was lightened of his transgressions unto the comprehension of theology [the balance points upward]. O Christ God, glory to Thee." Another Orthodox cross which is worn in gold is an outer budded cross with an inner Three Bar Cross. The inscription Jesus Christ in Greek: IC (Iesous) on the left side bar and XC (Xhristos) on the right side bar, with a sun on the top of the cross. There is also typically an inscription on the back in Church Slavonic which says "Save and Protect." i.e. "спаси и сохрани" i.e. "Spasi i Soxrani". This cross is known as the Saint Olga Cross.
Art and architecture
Church buildings
The church building has many symbolic meanings; perhaps the oldest and most prominent is the concept that the Church is the Ark (as in Noah's) in which the world is saved from the flood of temptations; therefore, most Orthodox Churches are rectangular in design. Another popular configuration, especially for churches with large choirs is cruciform or cross-shaped or what is called the "Greek-cross."
Architectural patterns vary in shape and complexity, with chapels sometimes added around the main church, or triple altars; but in general, the symbolic layout of the church remains the same. Each church is created with specified qualifications based on what the apostles said in the Bible. These qualifications include how big the temple should be.
The Church building is divided into three main parts: the narthex (vestibule), the nave and the sanctuary (also called the altar or holy place). The narthex is where catechumens and non-Orthodox visitors were traditionally asked to stand during services. It is separated from the nave by "The Royal Gate". On each side of this gate are candle stands (menalia) representing the pillars of fire that went before the Hebrew people escaping from Egypt.
The nave is where most of the congregation stand during services. Traditionally, men stand on the right and women on the left. This is for a number of reasons: (1) Considering the family unit of past centuries the husband was dominant; thus, standing the same distance from the altar, equality is emphasised. (2) The idea of separating the sexes was inherited from the Jewish tradition of doing so within synagogues (3) Separation of sexes also followed the practice of choirs in which different levels of voice are placed in groups to facilitate harmony.
In general, men and women dress respectfully, typically wearing their "Sunday best" to enter the church. Often, women cover their heads as prescribed by Paul (1 Cor. 11:13). Children are considered full members of the Church and stand attentively and quietly during services. There is often a choir area at the side or in a loft in back. In addition to the Choir, a Chanter is always present at the front of the church to chant responses and hymns that are part of the Divine Liturgy offered by the Priest. There is usually a dome in the ceiling with an icon of Christ depicted as Ruler of the Universe (Pantocrator).
Local customs
The Orthodox Church also has many associated traditions (sometimes referred to simply as customs), compatible with its life and function, but not necessarily tied so closely to the faith itself. These are not generally regarded as a part of Holy Tradition, though no strict dividing line is drawn. As long as compatibility is maintained, general practice often tends to the permissive rather than the restrictive, with the local priest or bishop resolving questions.
Many of these customs are local or cultural, and some are not even especially religious, but form a part of the church's relationship with the people in the time and place where it exists. Where outside customs affect church practices such as worship, a closer watch is kept for guarding the integrity of worship, but suitable local differences are welcomed and celebrated joyfully. The local church customs, especially liturgical ones, are referred to as differences in typica (Style).
Locality is also expressed in regional terms of churchly jurisdiction, which is often also drawn along national lines. Many Orthodox churches adopt a national title (e.g. Albanian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Montenegrin Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, etc.) and this title can identify which language is used in services, which bishops preside, and which of the typica is followed by specific congregations. In the Middle East, Orthodox Christians are usually referred to as Rum ("Roman") Orthodox, because of their historical connection with the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Differences in praxis ("practice") tend to be slight, involving things such as the order in which a particular set of hymns are sung or what time a particular service is celebrated. But observances of the saints' days of local saints are more often celebrated in special services within a locality, as are certain national holidays, like Greek Independence Day. In North America, observances of Thanksgiving Day are increasing.
Members of the Church are fully united in faith and the Sacred Mysteries with all Orthodox congregations, regardless of nationality or location. In general, Orthodox Christians could travel the globe and feel familiar with the services even if they did not know the language being used.
In the Levant, Christian Orthodox services and identity often combine both the Byzantine Greek and indigenous (Arabic and Aramaic) traditions. Other Orthodox communities can identify with two Eastern Orthodox churches simultaneously, for example Caucasus Greeks and Pontic Greeks in Russia often identify with both the Greek Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox Church, as a result of centuries of assimilation and intermarriage with ethnic Russians and other Christian Orthodox communities in mainly southern Russia.
Holy mysteries (sacraments)
According to Orthodox theology, the purpose of the Christian life is to attain theosis, the mystical union of mankind with God. This union is understood as both collective and individual. St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote concerning the Incarnation that, "He (Jesus) was made man that we might be made god (θεοποιηθῶμεν)." See , , . The entire life of the church is oriented towards making this possible and facilitating it.
In the Orthodox Church the terms "mystery" or "the mysteries" refer to the process of theosis. While it is understood that God theoretically can do anything instantly and invisibly, it is also understood that he generally chooses to use material substance as a medium in order to reach people. The limitations are those of mankind, not God. Matter is not considered to be evil by the Orthodox. Water, oil, bread, wine, etc., all are means by which God reaches out to allow people to draw closer to him. How this process works is a "mystery" and cannot be defined in human terms. These mysteries are surrounded by prayer and symbolism so that their true meaning will not be forgotten.
Those things which in the West are often termed sacraments or sacramentals are known among the Orthodox as the "sacred mysteries". While the Roman Catholic Church numbers seven sacraments, and many Protestant groups list two (Baptism and the Eucharist) or even none, the Orthodox do not limit the number. However, for the sake of convenience, catechisms will often speak of the seven Great Mysteries. Among these are Holy Communion (the most direct connection), Baptism, Chrismation, Confession, Unction, Matrimony, and Ordination. But the term also properly applies to other sacred actions such as monastic tonsure or the blessing of holy water, and involves fasting, almsgiving, or an act as simple as lighting a candle, burning incense, praying or asking God's blessing on food.
Baptism
Baptism is the mystery which transforms the old and sinful person into a new and pure one; the old life, the sins, any mistakes made are gone and a clean slate is given. Through Baptism a person is united to the Body of Christ by becoming a member of the Orthodox Church. During the service, water is blessed. The catechumen is fully immersed in the water three times in the name of the Holy Trinity. This is considered to be a death of the "old man" by participation in the crucifixion and burial of Christ, and a rebirth into new life in Christ by participation in his resurrection. Properly a new name is given, which becomes the person's name.
Children of Orthodox families are normally baptized shortly after birth. Converts to Orthodoxy are usually formally baptized into the Orthodox Church, though exceptions are sometimes made. Those who have left Orthodoxy and adopted a new religion, if they return to their Orthodox roots, are usually received back into the church through the mystery of Chrismation.
Properly, the mystery of Baptism is administered by bishops and priests; however, in emergencies any Orthodox Christian can baptize. In such cases, should the person survive the emergency, it is likely that the person will be properly baptized by a priest at some later date. This is not considered to be a second baptism, nor is it imagined that the person is not already Orthodox, but rather it is a fulfillment of the proper form.
The service of Baptism used in Orthodox churches has remained largely unchanged for over 1500 years. This fact is witnessed to by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), who, in his Discourse on the Sacrament of Baptism, describes the service in much the same way as is currently in use.
Chrismation
Chrismation (sometimes called confirmation) is the mystery by which a baptized person is granted the gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing with Holy Chrism. It is normally given immediately after baptism as part of the same service, but is also used to receive lapsed members of the Orthodox Church. As baptism is a person's participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, so Chrismation is a person's participation in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
A baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christian is a full member of the Church and may receive the Eucharist regardless of age.
The creation of chrism may be accomplished by any bishop at any time, but usually is done only once a year, often when a synod of bishops convenes for its annual meeting. (Some autocephalous churches get their chrism from others.) Anointing with it substitutes for the laying-on of hands described in the New Testament, even when an instrument such as a brush is used.
Holy Communion
The Eucharist is at the center of Orthodox Christianity. In practice, it is the partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the midst of the Divine Liturgy with the rest of the church. The bread and wine are believed to become the genuine Body and Blood of the Christ Jesus through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church has never described exactly how this occurs, or gone into the detail that the Roman Catholic Church has in the West.
Communion is given only to baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians who have prepared by fasting, prayer and confession. The priest will administer the gifts with a spoon, called a "cochlear", directly into the recipient's mouth from the chalice. From baptism young infants and children are carried to the chalice to receive holy communion.
Because of the Orthodox understanding of mankind's fallen nature in general those who wish to commune prepare themselves in a way that reflects mankind in paradise. First, they prepare by having their confession heard and the prayer of repentance read over them by a priest. They will increase their prayer rule, adding the prescribed prayers in preparation for communing. Finally, they will fast completely from food and drink from the evening of the previous day (usually sunset on Saturday if communing on Sunday).
Repentance
Orthodox Christians who have committed sins but repent of them, and who wish to reconcile themselves to God and renew the purity of their original baptisms, confess their sins to God before a spiritual guide who offers advice and direction to assist the individual in overcoming their sin. Parish priests commonly function as spiritual guides, but such guides can be any person, male or female, who has been given a blessing to hear confessions. Spiritual guides are chosen very carefully as it is a mandate that once chosen, they must be obeyed. Having confessed, the penitent then has his or her parish priest read the prayer of repentance over them.
Sin is not viewed by the Orthodox as a stain on the soul that needs to be wiped out, or a legal transgression that must be set right by a punitive sentence, but rather as a mistake made by the individual with the opportunity for spiritual growth and development. An act of Penance (epitemia), if the spiritual guide requires it, is never formulaic, but rather is directed toward the individual and their particular problem, as a means of establishing a deeper understanding of the mistake made, and how to effect its cure. Because full participatory membership is granted to infants, it is not unusual for even small children to confess; though the scope of their culpability is far less than an older child, still their opportunity for spiritual growth remains the same.
Marriage
From the Orthodox perspective, marriage is one of the holy mysteries or sacraments. As well as in many other Christian traditions, for example in Roman Catholicism, it serves to unite a woman and a man in eternal union and love before God, with the purpose of following Christ and His Gospel and raising up a faithful, holy family through their holy union. It is referred to extensively in both the Old and New Testaments. Christ declared the essential indissolubility of marriage in the Gospel. Both virginity and marriage have the same reference to the future Kingdom.
Jesus said that "when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Mk 12:25). For the Orthodox Christian this passage should not be understood to imply that Christian marriage will not remain a reality in the Kingdom, but points to the fact that relations will not be "fleshy", but "spiritual". Love between wife and husband, as an icon of relationship between Christ and Church, is eternal.
The Church does recognize that there are rare occasions when it is better that couples do separate, but there is no official recognition of civil divorces. For the Orthodox, to say that marriage is indissoluble means that it should not be broken, the violation of such a union, perceived as holy, being an offense resulting from either adultery or the prolonged absence of one of the partners. Thus, permitting remarriage is an act of compassion of the Church towards sinful man.
In the U.S., according to 2001 statistics, 14% of Orthodox marriages ended in an ecclesiastical divorce. This figure, since it took no account of how many of the couples who entered such marriages took out a civil divorce, is not comparable with the figure of 43% given at that time for the proportion of all marriages that ended in a civil divorce. But it has been argued as indicating a probable total of only 15% of marriages celebrated in an Orthodox church led to any form of divorce.
Ecclesiastically divorced Orthodox (not civilly-divorced only) are usually allowed to remarry in the Orthodox Church, though there is usually imposed on them a fairly severe penance by their bishop and the services for a second marriage in this case are more penitential than joyful. Widows are permitted to remarry without repercussion and their second marriage is considered just as valid as the first. One exception to this rule is the clergy and their wives. Should a married priest die, it is normal that his wife will retire to a monastery once their children are out of the house. Widowed priests are not allowed to remarry (no priest may be married after his ordination) and also frequently end up in monasteries.
Marriage service
The service of Marriage in the Orthodox Church has two distinct parts: the Betrothal and the Crowning. The Betrothal includes:
The exchange of the rings. Based on biblical references, it has always been the tradition of the Church to place the wedding ring on the right hands of the couple. This is seen very clearly in one of the prayers in the Betrothal Service. A portion of the prayer refers to the biblical references: "For You, O Lord, have declared that a pledge is to be given and held inviolate in all things. By a ring Joseph was given might in Egypt; by a ring Daniel was exalted in Babylon; by a ring our heavenly Father showed compassion upon His prodigal son, for He said, ‘Put a ring upon his right hand, kill the fatted calf, and let us eat and rejoice.’ Your own right hand, O Lord, armed Moses in the Red Sea. By word of Your truth were the Heavens established and the earth set upon her sure foundations; and the right hands of Your servants shall be blessed by Your mighty word, and by Your uplifted arm." As we see, it was scripturally the practice to wear rings on the right hand, the hand of authority and power completing the pledge of commitment. The power and authority comes from the right hand of God.
The procession, the declaration of intent, and
The lighting of candles.
The Crowning includes the readings from the epistle and gospel, the Blessing of the Common Cup, and the Dance of Isaiah (the bride and groom are led around the table 3 times), and then the Removal of the Crowns. There is no exchange of vows. There is a set expectation of the obligations incumbent on a married couple, and whatever promises they may have privately to each other are their responsibility to keep. The ceremony ends with the reading of Benedictions to and the Greeting of the Couple.
At the Sacrament of Marriage the crowns are placed on the bride and groom’s heads as the following prayer is recited three times, "The servant of God, (groom’s name), is crowned to the handmaid of God, (bride’s name), in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" three times. It is then repeated three times as the bride is crowned to the groom. We witness the groom and bride being crowned (visibly proclaimed) as the king and queen, respectively, of a new family, entrusted by God with the authority to rule their family in faith and love and harmony with Christ.
They both share in this responsibility and privilege as a newly married couple. This is not simply being declared by the priest or even the Church, but by God Himself, as the following hymn is chanted three times: "O Lord, our God, crown them with glory and honor." The crowns are then switched back and forth between the groom and bride’s head, signifying that they completely share their lives together.
The crowns also serve as a reminder of the crowns that await them in heaven, if they live their lives in faithfulness to God and to each other. Fr. John Meyendorff in his book, Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, writes: "According to St. John Chrysostom, the crowns symbolized victory over the ‘passions’." In the service of a second marriage the crowns are not to be used, but if it is a second marriage for only one of the two who are marrying and a first marriage for the other, the usual rite is followed.
Many couples keep the wedding crowns in a case and display them near their icon corner or in the couple’s bedroom. They serve as a reminder that God has united them to each other and to himself and that he has bestowed his grace upon them to live in unity, faith and love.
The church understands marriage to be the union of one man and one woman, and certain Orthodox leaders have spoken out strongly in opposition to the civil institution of same-sex marriage.
Holy Orders
Since its founding, the Church spread to different places and its leaders in each region came to be known as episkopoi (overseers, plural of episkopos, overseer—Gr. ), which became "bishop" in English. The other ordained roles are presbyter (Gr. , elder), which became "prester" and then "priest" in English, and diakonos (Gr. , servant), which became "deacon" in English (see also subdeacon). There are numerous administrative positions among the clergy that carry additional titles.
In the Greek tradition, bishops who occupy an ancient see are called metropolitans, while the lead bishop in Greece is the archbishop. (In the Russian tradition, however, the usage of the terms "metropolitan" and "archbishop" is reversed.) Priests can be archpriests, archimandrites or protopresbyters. Deacons can also be archdeacons or protodeacons. The position of deacon is often occupied for life. The deacon also acts as an assistant to a bishop.
With the exception of bishops, who remain celibate, the Orthodox Church has always allowed priests and deacons to be married, provided the marriage takes place before ordination. In general it is considered preferable for parish priests to be married as they often act as counsel to married couples and thus can draw on their own experience. Unmarried priests usually are monks and live in monasteries, though there are occasions when, because of a lack of married priests, a monk-priest is temporarily assigned to a parish.
Widowed priests and deacons may not remarry and it is common for such members of the clergy to retire to a monastery (see clerical celibacy). This is also true of widowed wives of clergy, who do not remarry and become nuns when their children are grown. There is serious discussion about reviving the order of deaconess, which fell into disuse in the first millennium; the deaconesses had both liturgical and pastoral functions within the church. However, it has fallen out of practice (the last deaconess was ordained in the 19th century).
Unction
Anointing with oil, often called "unction", is one of the mysteries administered by the Orthodox Church and it is not reserved only for the dying or terminally ill, but for all in need of spiritual or bodily healing. In Greece, during the Ottoman occupation, it became the custom to administer this mystery annually on Great Wednesday to all believers; in recent decades, this custom has spread to many other locations. It is often distributed on major feast days, or any time the clergy feel it necessary for the spiritual welfare of its congregation.
According to Orthodox teaching unction is based on the Epistle of James:
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.—
History
Early Church
Following Jesus Christ's Great Commission to the apostles, Christianity spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire. Paul and the Apostles traveled extensively throughout the Empire, including Asia Minor, establishing Churches in major communities, with the first Churches appearing in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, then in Antioch, Ethiopia, Egypt, Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Thessalonica, Illyricum, and Byzantium, which centuries later would become prominent as the New Rome. Christianity in the Roman Empire met with considerable resistance, as its adherents would refuse to comply with the Roman state (even at the threat of death) in offering sacrifice to the pagan gods. Despite persecutions, the Church spread. The persecution dissipated upon the conversion of Emperor Constantine I in 324 AD.
By the 4th century Christianity had spread to numerous regions. A number of influential schools of thought had arisen, particularly the Alexandrian and Antiochian philosophical approaches. Other groups, such as the Arians, had also managed to gain influence. However, their positions caused theological conflicts within the Church, thus prompting the Emperor Constantine to call for a great ecumenical synod in order to define the Church's position against the growing, often widely diverging, philosophical and theological interpretations of Christianity. He made it possible for this council to meet not only by providing a location, but by offering to pay for the transportation of all the existing bishops of the Church. Most modern Christian Churches regard this synod, commonly called the First Council of Nicaea or more generally the First Ecumenical Council, as of major importance.
Ecumenical councils
Several doctrinal disputes from the 4th century onwards led to the calling of Ecumenical councils. In the Orthodox Church, an Ecumenical council is the supreme authority that can be invoked to resolve contested issues of the faith. As such, these councils have been held to resolve the most important theological matters that came to be disputed within the Church. Many lesser disagreements were resolved through local councils in the areas where they arose, before they grew significant enough to require an Ecumenical council.
There are seven councils authoritatively recognized as Ecumenical:
The First Ecumenical Council was convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325 and presided over by the Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria, with over 300 bishops condemning the view of Arius that the Son is a created being inferior to the Father.
The Second Ecumenical Council was held at Constantinople in 381, presided over by the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, with 150 bishops, defining the nature of the Holy Spirit against those asserting His inequality with the other persons of the Trinity.
The Third Ecumenical Council is that of Ephesus in 431, presided over by the Patriarch of Alexandria, with 250 bishops, which affirmed that Mary is truly "Birthgiver" or "Mother" of God (Theotokos), contrary to the teachings of Nestorius.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council is that of Chalcedon in 451, Patriarch of Constantinople presiding, 500 bishops, affirmed that Jesus is truly God and truly man, without mixture of the two natures, contrary to Monophysite teaching.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council is the second of Constantinople in 553, interpreting the decrees of Chalcedon and further explaining the relationship of the two natures of Jesus; it also condemned the alleged teachings of Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, etc.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council is the third of Constantinople in 681; it declared that Christ has two wills of his two natures, human and divine, contrary to the teachings of the Monothelites.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council was called under the Empress Regent Irene of Athens in 787, known as the second of Nicaea. It supports the veneration of icons while forbidding their worship. It is often referred to as "The Triumph of Orthodoxy".
There are also two other councils which are considered Ecumenical by some Orthodox. All Orthodox agree that the decisions of these further councils are valid; the disagreement is only whether they carry sufficient importance to be considered truly Ecumenical:
8. The Fourth Council of Constantinople was called in 879. It restored St. Photius to his See in Constantinople and condemned any alteration of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.
9. The Fifth Council of Constantinople was actually a series of councils held between 1341 and 1351. It affirmed the hesychastic theology of St. Gregory Palamas and condemned the philosopher Barlaam of Calabria.
In addition to these councils there have been a number of other significant councils meant to further define the Orthodox position. They are the Synods of Constantinople, in 1484, 1583, 1755, 1819, and 1872, the Synod of Iaşi (Jassy) in 1642, and the Pan-Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem in 1672. Another council is set to convene in 2016 to discuss many modern phenomena including Modernism, other Christian confessions, Orthodoxy's relation with other religions and fasting disciplines.
Roman/Byzantine Empire
Eastern Christian culture reached its golden age during the high point of the Byzantine Empire and continued to flourish in Ukraine and Russia, after the fall of Constantinople. Numerous autocephalous churches were established in Europe: Russia, Greece, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine, as well as Asia.
In the 530s the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) was built in Constantinople under emperor Justinian I.
Early schisms
The Church in Egypt (Patriarchate of Alexandria) split into two groups following the Council of Chalcedon (451), over a dispute about the relation between the divine and human natures of Jesus. Eventually this led to each group anathematizing the other. Those that remained in communion with the other patriarchs (by accepting the Council of Chalcedon) are known today as the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, where the adjective "Greek" refers to their ties to the Greek-speaking culture of the Byzantine Empire. However, those who disagreed with the findings of the Council of Chalcedon were the majority in Egypt, and today they are known as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, having maintained a separate patriarchate. The Coptic Orthodox Church is currently the largest Christian church in Egypt and in the whole Middle East. There was also a similar, albeit smaller scale, split in Syria (Patriarchate of Antioch), which resulted in the separation of the Syriac Orthodox Church from the Byzantine Patriarchate of Antioch.
Those who disagreed with the Council of Chalcedon are sometimes called "Oriental Orthodox" to distinguish them from the "Eastern Orthodox", who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. Oriental Orthodox are also sometimes referred to as "non-Chalcedonians", or "anti-Chalcedonians". The Oriental Orthodox Church denies that it is monophysite and prefers the term "miaphysite", to denote the "united" nature of Jesus (two natures united into one) consistent with St. Cyril's theology: "The term union...signifies the concurrence in one reality of those things which are understood to be united" and "the Word who is ineffably united with it in a manner beyond all description" (St. Cyril of Alexandria - On the Unity of Christ). Both the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches formally believe themselves to be the continuation of the true church, although over the last several decades there has been considerable reconciliation and the prospect of reunification has been discussed.
As well, there are the "Nestorian" churches, which are Eastern Christian churches that keep the faith of only the first two ecumenical councils, i.e., the First Council of Nicaea and the First Council of Constantinople. "Nestorian" is an outsider's term for a tradition that predated the influence of Nestorius. The "Nestorian Church" is commonly referred to as "the Assyrian Church" or the Assyrian Church of the East.
Conversion of East and South Slavs
In the 9th and 10th centuries, Christianity made great inroads into pagan Europe, including Kievan Rus'. This work was made possible by the work of the Byzantine-era saints Cyril and Methodius. When king Rastislav of Moravia asked Byzantium for teachers who could minister to the Moravians in their own language, Byzantine emperor Michael III chose these two brothers. Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible and many of the prayer books. As the translations prepared by them were copied by speakers of other dialects, the hybrid literary language Old Church Slavonic was created. Originally sent to convert the Slavs of Great Moravia, Cyril and Methodius were forced to compete with Frankish missionaries from the Roman diocese. Their disciples were driven out of Great Moravia in AD 886.
Some of the disciples, namely Saint Clement of Ohrid and Saint Naum, were of great importance to the Orthodox Faith in Bulgaria. In a short time, the disciples of Cyril and Methodius managed to prepare and instruct the future Bulgarian clergy into the biblical texts and in AD 893, proclaimed the first organized Church on the Balkan Peninsula. The success of the conversion of the Bulgarians facilitated the conversion of East Slavic peoples, most notably the Rus', predecessors of Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians.
The work of the Thessaloniki brothers Cyril and Methodius and their disciples had a major impact to Serbs as well. However, they accepted Christianity collectively by families and by tribes (in the process between the 7th and the 9th century). In commemoration of their baptisms, each Serbian family or tribe began to celebrate an exclusively Serbian custom called Slava in a special way to honor the Saint on whose day they received the sacrament of Holy Baptism. It is the most solemn day of the year for all Serbs of the Orthodox faith and has played a role of vital importance in the history of the Serbian people. Slava is actually the celebration of the spiritual birthday of the Serbian people which the Church blessed and proclaimed it a Church institution.
The missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Greek, the predominant language of the Byzantine Empire or Latin as the Roman priests did. Today the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the Orthodox Churches followed by the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Great Schism (1054)
In the 11th century what was recognised as the Great Schism took place between Rome and Constantinople, which led to separation between the Church of the West, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Byzantine Churches, now the Orthodox. There were doctrinal issues like the filioque clause and the authority of the Roman Pope involved in the split, but these were greatly exacerbated by political factors of both Church and state, and by cultural and linguistic differences between Latins and Greeks. Prior to 1054, the Eastern and Western halves of the Church had frequently been in conflict, particularly during the periods of Eastern iconoclasm and the Photian schism.
The final breach is often considered to have arisen after the capture and sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204; the final break with Rome occurred circa 1450. The sacking of Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire as a seeming attempt to supplant the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancour to the present day. In 2004, Pope John Paul II extended a formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, which was importantly also strongly condemned by the Pope at the time (Innocent III, see reference at end of paragraph); the apology was formally accepted by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Many things that were stolen during this time —holy relics, riches, and many other items—were not returned and are still held in various European cities, particularly Venice.
Reunion was attempted twice, at the 1274 Second Council of Lyon and the 1439 Council of Florence. The Council of Florence did briefly reestablish communion between East and West, which lasted until after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In each case, however, the councils were rejected by the Orthodox people as a whole, and the union of Florence also became very politically difficult after Constantinople came under Ottoman rule, so in both cases came to fail. Some local Eastern Churches have, however, renewed union with Rome in time since (see Eastern Catholic Churches). Recent decades have seen a renewal of ecumenical spirit and dialogue between the Churches.
Age of captivity
In 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Empire. By this time Egypt had been under Muslim control for some seven centuries, but Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia which had recently acquired an autocephalous status; and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople.
Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church acquired substantial power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the Rûm (Ottoman administrative unit meaning "Roman"), which encompassed all the Orthodox subjects of the Empire.
Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire
Up until 1666, when Patriarch Nikon was deposed by the tsar, the Russian Orthodox Church had been independent of the State. In 1721 the first Russian Emperor, Peter I abolished completely the patriarchate and so the Church effectively became a department of the government, ruled by a Most Holy Synod composed of senior bishops and lay bureaucrats appointed by the Emperor himself. From 1721 until the Bolsheviks' October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church was essentially transformed into a governmental agency, a tool used to various degrees by the tsars in the imperial campaigns of Russification. The Church was allowed by the State to levy taxes on the peasants. Therefore, the Church, along with the imperial regime, to which it belonged, came to be presented as an enemy of the people by the Bolsheviks and the other Russian revolutionaries.
Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–91)
The revolution brought a brief period of freedom from governmental control for the Church: an independent patriarchate was reestablished briefly in 1917, until Vladimir Lenin quashed the Church a few years later, imprisoning or killing many of the clergy and of the faithful. Part of the clergy escaped the Bolshevik persecutions by fleeing abroad, where they founded an independent church in exile, reunified with the Russian one in 2007.
The Orthodox Church clergy in Russia were seen as sympathetic with the cause of the White Army in the Civil War (see White movement) after the October Revolution, and occasionally collaborated with it; Patriarch Tikhon's declared position was vehemently anti-Bolshevik in 1918. This may have further strengthened the Bolshevik animus against the church.
Before and after the October Revolution of 7 November 1917 (25 October Old Calendar) there was a movement within Russia to unite all of the people of the world under Communist rule (see Communist International). This included the Eastern Bloc countries as well as the Balkan States. Since some of these Slavic states tied their ethnic heritage to their ethnic churches, both the peoples and their church were targeted by the Soviets.
The Soviets' official interpretation of freedom of conscience was one of "guaranteeing the right to profess any religion, or profess none, to practice religious cults, or conduct atheist propaganda", though in effect atheism was sponsored by state and was taught in all educational establishments. Public criticism of atheism was unofficially forbidden and sometimes led to imprisonment.
Soviet Russia was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.
Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture, being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals.
The result of state sponsored atheism was to transform the Church into a persecuted and martyred Church. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.
After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. It is estimated that 50,000 clergy had been executed between the revolution and the end of the Khrushchev era. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active.
In the Soviet Union, in addition to the methodical closing and destruction of churches, the charitable and social work formerly done by ecclesiastical authorities was taken over by the state. As with all private property, Church owned property was confiscated into public use. The few places of worship left to the Church were legally viewed as state property which the government permitted the church to use. After the advent of state funded universal education, the Church was not permitted to carry on educational, instructional activity of any kind. Outside of sermons during the celebration of the divine liturgy it could not instruct or evangelise to the faithful or its youth. Catechism classes, religious schools, study groups, Sunday schools and religious publications were all illegal or banned. This persecution continued, even after the death of Stalin until the Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This caused many religious tracts to be circulated as illegal literature or samizdat.
Among the most damaging aspects of Soviet rule, along with these physical abuses, the Soviet Union frequently manipulated the recruitment and appointment of priests, sometimes planting agents of the KGB within the church to monitor religious persons who were viewed – simply for not being atheists – as suspicious and potential threats to Soviet communism. The recovery of religious beliefs in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, part of a significant religious revival, has been made more challenging as a result of those leaders forced involuntarily upon the church by the KGB during Soviet times.
However, there is definitely marked return to Christian Orthodoxy in Russia. According to the Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project, between 1991 and 2008, the share of Russian adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rose from 31 percent to 72 percent, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of three waves of data (1991, 1998 and 2008) from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) – a collaboration involving social scientists in about 50 countries.
Other Orthodox Churches during the Cold War
Albania was the only state to have declared itself officially fully atheist. In some other communist states such as Romania, the Orthodox Church as an organization enjoyed relative freedom and even prospered, albeit under strict secret police control. That, however, did not rule out demolishing churches and monasteries as part of broader systematization (urban planning), and state persecution of individual believers. As an example of the latter, Romania stands out as a country which ran a specialized institution where many Orthodox (along with people of other faiths) were subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions. However, this was only supported by one faction within the regime, and lasted only three years. The Communist authorities closed down the prison in 1952, and punished many of those responsible for abuses (twenty of them were sentenced to death).
Relations with other Christians
Eastern Orthodoxy represents the majority of Eastern Christianity. The Orthodox trace their bishops back to the apostles through apostolic succession, venerate saints, especially Mary the Mother of God as the Theotokos, pray for the dead, and continue the ancient Christian practice of monasticism. Orthodoxy does not openly promote statuary, although it is not expressly condemned, instead limiting itself primarily to two-dimensional iconography. Western theological concepts of original sin, atonement, predestination, purgatory and particular judgment are generally rejected by traditional Orthodox theologians.
The Orthodox understand themselves to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; the true Church established by Jesus Christ and placed into the care of the apostles. As almost all other Christian groups are in indirect schism with the Orthodox Church, mostly as a result of the Great Schism with the Roman Catholic Church at the turn of the second Christian millennium (prior to the additional schisms of the Protestant Reformation), these other groups are viewed as being Christian, but who in varying degrees lack full theological orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
As such, all groups outside of the Orthodox Church are not seen as being members of the Church proper, but rather separated brethren who have failed to retain the fullness of the Christian faith and theology, as was given to the apostles by Jesus Christ. These deviations from orthodoxy have traditionally been called heresy, but due to the term's immediately pejorative connotations, some prefer the more technical designation of the term heterodoxy.
Hilarion Alfeyev, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, stated that Orthodox and evangelical Christians share the same positions on "such issues as abortion, the family, and marriage" and desire "vigorous grassroots engagement" between the two Christian communions on such issues.
Relations with Islam
Orthodoxy has had a long relationship with Islam. After the Islamic conquests, much of the Orthodox Christian world was subject to Muslim rule. The entire Orthodox world excluding Russia was subjugated by Muslims during at least one point in history. Egypt and the Levant were conquered early in the 7th century during the Rashidun Caliphate. Anatolia was taken gradually starting in the 7th century and finally at the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. The Kingdom of Georgia was invaded in the 8th century, regaining independence again only in the 12th century. Greece was invaded gradually from the 14th-16th century, and the Balkans throughout the 15th-16th centuries. Even today most of the former Orthodox world is predominantly Muslim, with the result that in the majority of those countries both the remaining Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Christian Heritage alike are often at the mercy of extremists and/or governmental persecution, in places such as Turkey, the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus, Iraq as a whole, and certain parts of Syria and Iraq.
In Russia, Metropolitan Alfeyev stated belief in the possibility of peaceful coexistence between Islam and Christianity as the two religions have never had religious wars in Russia. However, Alfeyev stated that the Russian Orthodox Church "disagrees with atheist secularism in some areas very strongly" and "believes that it destroys something very essential about human life."
Present
The various autocephalous and autonomous synods of the Orthodox Church are distinct in terms of administration and local culture, but for the most part exist in full communion with one another.
Presently, there are two communions that reject each other and in addition – some schismatic churches not in any communion, all three groups identifying as Eastern Orthodox. The main traditional historical communion are referred to as New Calendarists, who use a Revised Julian Calendar for calculating the feasts of the ecclesiastical year, the another group are referred to as True Orthodoxy(also Old Calendarists), they are those who separated from the mainstream, have continued to use the old Julian Calendar claiming that the Calendar reform in 1920s is in contravention of the Ecumenical Councils. Similarly, another group called Old Believers, separated in 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church rite reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow. As Eastern Orthodox Christianity is both collegial and local in structure, there is no single organization called the "True Orthodox Church" nor is there official recognition among the "True Orthodox" as to who is properly included among them. While some unions have taken place even up to the present, the majority of True Orthodox are only secondarily concerned with reunion as opposed to preservation of Eastern Orthodox teaching.. The calendar question reflects the dispute between those who wish to synchronize with the modern Gregorian calendar, which its opponents consider unnecessary and damaging to continuity, and those who wish to maintain the traditional ecclesiastical calendar (which happens to be based on the Julian calendar), arguing that such a modern change goes against 1900 years of Church tradition and was in fact perpetrated without an ecumenical council, which would surely have rejected the idea.
The dispute has led to much acrimony, and sometimes even to violence. Following canonical precepts, some adherents of the Old Calendar have chosen to abstain from clerical intercommunion with those synods which have embraced the New Calendar until the conflict is resolved. The monastic communities on Mount Athos have provided the strongest opposition to the New Calendar, and to modernism in general, while still maintaining communion with their mother church.
Some latent discontent between different national churches exists also in part due to different approach towards ecumenism. While the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the Orthodox bishops in North America gathered into the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), Romanian bishops, and others are fairly open to dialog with the Roman Catholic Church, both conservative and moderate Old Calendarists, many of the monks of Mount Athos, several bishops of Russian, Serbian, and some of Greek and Bulgarian churches regard ecumenism as compromising essential doctrinal stands in order to accommodate other Christians, and object to the emphasis on dialogue leading to inter-communion; believing instead that Orthodox must speak the truth with love, in the hope of leading to the eventual conversion to Orthodoxy of heterodox Christians.
Eastern Orthodox Christians are among the wealthiest Christian denominations in the United States. They also tend to be better educated than most other religious groups in America, having a high number of graduate (68%) and post-graduate (28%) degrees per capita.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) has recently united with the Moscow Patriarchate (MP); these two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church had separated from each other in the 1920s due to the subjection of the latter to the hostile Soviet regime (see Act of Canonical Communion).
Main Communion
The Orthodox Church is a communion of 14 autocephalous (that is, administratively completely independent) regional churches, plus the Orthodox Church in America, which is recognized as autocephalous only by the Russian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Polish, the Czech-Slovak churches. Each has defined geographical boundaries of its jurisdiction and is ruled by its Council of Bishops or Synod presided by a senior bishop – its Primate (or First Hierarch). The Primate may carry the honorary title of Patriarch, Metropolitan (in the Slavic tradition) or Archbishop (in the Greek tradition).
Each regional church consists of constituent eparchies (or, dioceses) ruled by a bishop. Some churches have given an eparchy or group of eparchies varying degrees of autonomy (self-government). Such autonomous churches maintain varying levels of dependence on their mother church, usually defined in a Tomos or other document of autonomy.
Below is a list of the 14 (15) autocephalous Orthodox churches, all of which are titled equal to each other, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate is titled first among equals. Based on these definitions, the list is in their order of precedence and alphabetical order where necessary, with constituent autonomous churches and exarchates. The Liturgical title of the Primate is listed in italics. The communion:
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and First Among Equals Patriarch)
Autonomous Orthodox Church of Finland (Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland)
Self-governing Orthodox Church of Crete (Archbishop of Crete)
Self-governing Monastic Community of Mount Athos
Exarchate of Patmos (Patriarchal Exarch of Patmos)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain (Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta (Orthodox Archbishop of Italy and Malta and Exarch of Southern Europe)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Archbishop of America)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia (Archbishop of Australia)
Exarchate of the Philippines (Exarch of Philippines)
Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Archbishop of Komana)
Autonomous Orthodox Church of Korea (Archbishop of Korea)
Orthodox Church of Albania (Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania)
Orthodox Church in America (Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada)
Orthodox Church of Cyprus (Archbishop of New Justiniana and all Cyprus)
Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia (Archbishop of Prague, the Metropolitan of Czech lands and Slovakia or the Archbishop of Presov, the Metropolitan of Czech lands and Slovakia)
Orthodox Church of Greece (Archbishop of Athens and all Greece)
Orthodox Church of Poland (Metropolitan of Warsaw and all Poland)
Patriarchate of Alexandria (His Most Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria, Libya, Pentapolis, Ethiopia, all the land of Egypt, and all Africa, Father of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, Prelate of Prelates, Thirteenth of the Apostles, and Judge of the Œcumene)
Patriarchate of Antioch (Patriarch of Antioch and all the East)
Self-governing Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America)
Patriarchate of Bulgaria (Metropolitan of Sofia and Patriarch of All Bulgaria)
Patriarchate of Georgia (Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the Archbishop of Mtskheta-Tbilisi and Metropolitan bishop of Abkhazia and Pitsunda.)
Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Palestine, and of Syria, Arabia, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee, and Sacred Zion)
Autonomous Church of Mount Sinai (Archbishop of Choreb, Sinai, and Raitha)
Patriarchate of Russia (Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia)
Autonomous Orthodox Church of Japan (Archbishop of Tokyo and Metropolitan of All Japan)
Autonomous Orthodox Church of China (defunct)
Self-governing Orthodox Church of Ukraine (Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine)
Self-governing Orthodox Church of Moldova (Metropolitan of Chisinau and all Moldova)
Self-governing Orthodox Church of Latvia (Metropolitan of Riga and all Latvia)
Self-governing Estonian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (Metropolitan of Tallinn and all Estonia) [Autonomy not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate]
Self-governing Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian church abroad)
Exarchate of Belarus (Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus)
Patriarchate of Romania (Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Ungro-Valachia, and Patriarch of All Romania)
Patriarchate of Serbia (Archbishop of Peć, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci, Patriarch of the Serbs)
There are unresolved internal issues as to the autonomous or autocephalous status of the following Orthodox churches:
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (Metropolitan of Tallinn and all Estonia) — Autonomy is recognized only by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, opposed only by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Autonomous Archdiocese of Ohrid as the Macedonian Orthodox Church' (Archbishop of Ohrid and Metropolitan of Skopje) – The Church proclaimed independence, but this is objected only by the Serbian Orthodox Church as a schism. Though officially unrecognised by the other churches in the communion, the Macedonian Orthodox Church de facto communicates with many of the churches, a hymnographer from the Ecumenical Patriarchate wrote a liturgy for a canonization of matures in the Macedonian Church and a delegate from the Patriarchate was send on a funeral of a Macedonian president where they met with representatives of the Macedonian Church; the Macedonian Church engaged in exchange of relics with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, representatives of both churches met in official conferences and at the Bulgarian patriarch's funeral, they celebrated a holiday together as well, where even Bulgarian representatives expressed love for the Macedonian Church's dellegate as for brothers; the leading archbishop of the Church of Greece met with some Macedonians; together the patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church and a Macedonian priest participated in a chirotony, the Macedonian and Romanian churches exchanged relics as well.
Self-governing Metropolis of Bessarabia, autonomy is objected by the Russian Orthodox Church
Traditionalist communions
True Orthodoxy separated from the mainstream communion over issues of Ecumenism and Calendar reform since the 1920s. The movement reject the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Moscow Patriarchate, and those Churches in communion with them, accusing them of heresy and placing themselves under bishops who do the same. They have continued to using of the old Julian Calendar since Antiquity, claiming that the Calendar reform in 1920s is in contravention of the Ecumenical Councils. True Orthodox writers have argued that in missionary areas such as the United States, Orthodox membership numbers may be overstated, with the comparative number of True Orthodox as up to 15% of the Orthodox population, in Russia, it has been claimed by some clergymen that up to a million Russians may be True Orthodox of different jurisdictions, though the total number is often cited at 1.7-2 million together.
Communion of True Orthodoxy:
Churches Descending from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
Greek Old Calendarists
Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Old Calendar Romanian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Serbian True Orthodox Church
Old Believers are groups that do not accept liturgical reforms carried out in the Russian Orthodox Church by Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century.Although all Old Believers groups emerged as a result of opposition to the Nikonian reform, they do not constitute a single monolithic body. Despite the emphasis on invariable adherence to the pre-Nikonian traditions, the Old Believers feature a great diversity of groups that profess different interpretations of the church tradition and often are not in communion with each other (some groups even practise re-baptism before admitting a member of another group into their midst).
Old Believers:
Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy)
Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy)
Russian Old-Orthodox Church (Novozybkovskaya Hierarchy)
Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church (Pomortsy)
Churches not in communion with others
Churches with irregular or unresolved canonical status are entities that have carried out episcopal consecrations outside of the norms of canon law or whose bishops have been excommunicated by one of the 14 (15) autocephalous churches. These include nationalist and other schisms.
Abkhazian Orthodox Church
Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
Croatian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Alternative Synod
Holy Orthodox Church in North America
Macedonian Orthodox Church
Montenegrin Orthodox Church
Orthodox Church in Italy
Orthodox Church of Greece (Holy Synod in Resistance)
Russian True Orthodox Church
Turkish Orthodox Church
Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate)
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Canonical
See alsoGeneral:'''
History of Christianity
List of Christian denominations
List of Christian denominations by number of members
List of Orthodox Churches
Notes
References
Bibliography
Books
Tertiary reference works
Further reading
Aderny, Walter F. The Greek and Eastern Churches (1908) online
Hussey, Joan Mervyn. The orthodox church in the Byzantine empire (Oxford University Press, 2010) online
Mascall, Eric Lionel (1958). "The Example of Orthodoxy", in his The Recovery of Unity: a Theological Approach (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.), p. 52-64. N.B.: Caption title; concerns especially the place and example of Eastern Orthodoxy in the Ecumenical Movement.
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn (1869). Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church: with an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History''. Fourth ed. London: J. Murray.
References
An Online Orthodox Catechism published by the Russian Orthodox Church
OrthodoxWiki
Orthodox Dictionary at Kursk Root Hermitage of the Birth of the Most Holy Theotokos
Orthodox books – Lives of Holy People at skete.com
An Orthodox View of Salvation
IV Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference
Orthodox Icons and Paintings
Prologue from Ohrid – (Saints of the Orthodox Church Calendar)
A repository with scientific papers on various aspects of the Byzantine Orthodox Church in English and in German
Relations Between the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodoxy
Pope Benedict XIV, Allatae Sunt (On the observance of Oriental Rites), Encyclical, 1755
Orientale Lumen – Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II on the Eastern Churches, 1995
Common Declaration of Pope Benedict XVI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, 2006
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2016-01 | The_Dark_Knight-697616934 | The_Dark_Knight | The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is the second part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gylenhaal and Morgan Freeman. With the help of police lieutenant James Gordon (Oldman) and newly elected district attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), Batman (Bale) raises the stakes on his war on crime by setting out to dismantle the remaining mafia groups that plague the streets. The partnership proves effective, until the mob draw Batman into combat with a criminal lunatic known as "the Joker" (Ledger), whom he must stop from unleashing a reign of chaos that would plunge Gotham City into anarchy.
Nolan's inspiration for the film was the Joker's comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke, and the 1996 series The Long Halloween, which retold Two-Face's origin. The nickname "the Dark Knight" was first applied to Batman in Batman #1 (1940), in a story written by Bill Finger. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used IMAX 70 mm film cameras to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. The film is dedicated to Heath Ledger, who died on January 22, 2008, some months after the completed filming and six months before the film's release, from a toxic combination of prescription drugs, leading to intense attention from the press and movie-going public. Warner Bros. initially created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker.
A co-production of the United States and the United Kingdom, The Dark Knight was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Considered by film critics to be one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever, the film received highly positive reviews and set numerous records during its theatrical run. The Dark Knight appeared on more critics' top ten lists (287) than any other film of 2008 with the exception of WALL-E, and more critics (77) named The Dark Knight the best film of 2008 than any other film released that year. With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it is the 24th-highest-grossing film of all time, unadjusted for inflation. The film received eight Academy Award nominations; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor. The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in the trilogy, was released on July 20, 2012.
Plot
A Gotham City mob bank is robbed by a group of thugs wearing clown masks. The men who are on orders by the leader kill each other off until the survivor is the Joker, leaving with a bus load of money.
District attorney Harvey Dent leads a campaign against the organized crime in the city, to the applause of its citizens. Through Gordon, he requests to collaborate with Batman, and lends Gordon a petitioned search warrant for five banks with suspected mob ties. Wayne Enterprises cancels its deals with Chinese accountant Lau as CEO Lucius Fox questions Lau’s legality. Bruce Wayne intrudes on Dent’s date with Rachel Dawes and offers to support the DA through a fundraiser.
Mob leaders Maroni, Gambol and the Chechen holds a videoconference with Lau, who has taken their funds and fled to Hong Kong. The Joker invades the meeting, offering to kill Batman in exchange for half their money. Gambol places a bounty on the Joker, the Joker killing him later; ultimately the mob decides to participate.
Batman finds Lau in Hong Kong and brings him back to Gotham to testify against the mob, and Dent places 549 criminals in custody. On TV, the Joker threatens to keep killing people unless Batman reveals his identity. Much to Joker's word, he kills the judge presiding the mob trials and Commissioner Loeb. Gordon sacrifices himself to save Mayor Anthony Garcia, and Dent realizes Dawes is the next target.
Bruce decides to reveal his identity, but Dent publicly admits being Batman before Bruce does. Dent is taken into protective custody, but the Joker appears and attacks the convoy. Batman comes to Dent's rescue and Gordon, who faked his death, arrests the Joker. With the Joker behind bars, Gordon is promoted to Commissioner. Rachel and Dent are escorted away by policemen who are controlled by Joker. Batman interrogates the Joker, who taunts him before revealing that Rachel and Dent have been trapped in separate locations rigged with explosives. Batman races to save Rachel, while Gordon and his men head off to save Dent. Batman arrives at the building, realizing that the Joker sent him to Dent's location instead. As the building explodes, half of Dent's face is burned and he is hospitalized. Gordon fails to save Rachel in time. The Joker escapes the jail with Lau.
Coleman Reese, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises, publicly claims to know Batman's identity. The Joker burns the mob's money along with Lau, and kills the Chechen. The Joker threatens to blow a hospital if Reese isn't dead by the hour, and Reese becomes a public target. All hospitals are evacuated and Reese is secured by Gordon, and Joker convinces Dent to seek revenge on the people responsible for Dawes's death, including Maroni.
At night, two ferries are rigged with explosives; one ferry containing civilians and the other containing prisoners. The Joker promises to blow each of the ferries by midnight or if someone tries to escape, but will let one live if it blows up the other. The passengers refuse, and Batman and the SWAT raid the Joker's building. Batman apprehends the Joker, who gloats that he has corrupted to Dent and undid what Dent has achieved.
Gordon arrives at the building where Rachel died, where Dent threatens to kill Gordon's son in revenge. Batman arrives, and Dent shoots him. Before Dent determines the fate of Gordon's son with his coin, Batman tackles him off the building, which kills him. Batman takes responsibility for Dent's killings. He convinces Gordon to keep Dent's crimes a secret to save his image as a hero. Reluctantly, Gordon begins the manhunt on Batman.
Cast
Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman:
A billionaire socialite who dedicates himself to protecting Gotham City from its criminal underworld as a bat-masked vigilante hailed as its "Dark Knight" at night. Bale said he was confident in his choice to return in the role because of the positive response to his portrayal in Batman Begins. He continued training in the Keysi Fighting Method and performed many of his own stunts, but did not gain as much muscle as in the previous film because the new Batsuit allowed him to move with greater agility. Bale described Batman's dilemma as whether "[his crusade is] something that has an end. Can he quit and have an ordinary life? The kind of manic intensity someone has to have to maintain the passion and the anger that they felt as a child, takes an effort after a while, to keep doing that. At some point, you have to exorcise your demons." He added, "Now you have not just a young man in pain attempting to find some kind of an answer, you have somebody who actually has power, who is burdened by that power, and is having to recognize the difference between attaining that power and holding on to it." Bale felt Batman's personality had been strongly established in the first film, so it was unlikely his character would be overshadowed by the villains, stating: "I have no problem with competing with someone else. And that's going to make a better movie."
Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth:
Bruce's trusted butler and confidant, who supplies useful advice to Bruce and likeness as a father figure, leading him to be labeled "Batman's batman".
Heath Ledger as the Joker:
A mysterious and maniacal criminal mastermind portraying himself as an "agent of chaos", who rises to dominant power by terrorizing Gotham and plunging it into anarchy. Before Ledger was confirmed for the role in July 2006, Paul Bettany, Lachy Hulme, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, and Robin Williams publicly expressed interest in it. However, Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past (including initially approaching Ledger for the role of Batman in Batman Begins, but had been unable to do so), and was agreeable to Ledger's chaotic interpretation of the character. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he had realized a way to make the character work that was consistent with the film's tone: he described his Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy." Throughout the film, the Joker states his desire to upset social order through crime, and comes to define himself by his conflict with Batman. To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice, and personality, and kept a diary, in which he recorded the Joker's thoughts and feelings. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger eventually generated a voice unlike Jack Nicholson's character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which he "really tried to read and put it down." Ledger also cited A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious as "a very early starting point for Christian [Bale] and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether." "There's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing that consistent," Ledger said, and added, "There are a few more surprises to him." Ledger was allowed to shoot and mostly direct the videos the Joker sends out as warnings. Each take Ledger made was different from the last. Nolan was impressed enough with the first video shoot that he chose to not be present when Ledger shot the video with a kidnapped reporter (Anthony Michael Hall). On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose, leading to intense press attention and memorial tributes. "It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day [during editing]," Nolan recalled. "But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish." All of Ledger's scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously. Nolan has dedicated the film in part to Ledger's memory.
Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon:
A lieutenant in the Gotham City Police Department and one of the city's few honest police officers, who forms a tenuous, unofficial alliance with Batman and Dent and is given the position of Police Commissioner by the city's mayor following the recent commissioner's assassination. Oldman described his character as "incorruptible, virtuous, strong, heroic, but understated." Nolan explained that "The Long Halloween has a great, triangular relationship between Harvey Dent and Gordon and Batman, and that's something we very much drew from." Oldman added that "Gordon has a great deal of admiration for him at the end, but [Batman] is more than ever now the dark knight, the outsider. I'm intrigued now to see: If there is a third one, what he's going to do?" On the possibility of another sequel, he said that "returning to [the role] is not dependent on whether the role was bigger than the one before."
Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face:
The Gotham district attorney hailed as the city's "Bright Knight", whose battle with the criminal underworld leaves him with mental illnesses, scarring him into disfigured murderer with a split-personality bent on revenge. Nolan and David S. Goyer had originally considered using Dent in Batman Begins, but they replaced him with the new character Rachel Dawes when they realized they "couldn't do him justice." Before Eckhart was cast in February 2007, Liev Schreiber, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe had expressed interest in the role, while Mark Ruffalo auditioned. Hugh Jackman was also considered for the part. Nolan chose Eckhart, whom he had considered for the lead role in Memento, citing his "extraordinary" ability as an actor, his embodiment of "that kind of chiselled, American hero quality" projected by Robert Redford, and his subtextual "edge." Eckhart was "interested in good guys gone wrong," and had played corrupt men in films such as The Black Dahlia, Thank You for Smoking, and In the Company of Men. Whereas Two-Face is depicted as a crime boss in most characterizations, Nolan chose to portray him as a twisted vigilante to emphasize his role as Batman's counterpart. Eckhart explained, "[He] is still true to himself. He's a crime fighter, he's not killing good people. He's not a bad guy, not purely." For Dent, Eckhart "kept on thinking about the Kennedys," particularly Robert F. Kennedy, who was "idealistic, held a grudge and took on the Mob." He had his hair lightened and styled to make him appear more dashing. Nolan told Eckhart to not make Dent's Two-Face persona "jokey with slurping sounds or ticks."
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes:
The Gotham assistant district attorney and Bruce's childhood friend, who is one of the few people to know Batman's true identity, but tells Bruce that if he ever decided to stop being Batman, they would be together. Gyllenhaal took over the role from Katie Holmes, who played the part in Batman Begins. In August 2005, Holmes was reportedly planning to reprise the role, but she eventually turned it down to do Mad Money with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah. By March 2007, Gyllenhaal was in "final talks" for the part. Gyllenhaal has acknowledged her character is a damsel in distress to an extent, but says Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so "Rachel's really clear about what's important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change" from the many conflicted characters whom she has previously portrayed.
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox:
The recently promoted CEO of Wayne Enterprises who, now fully aware of his employer's double life, serves more directly as Bruce's armorer for the Batsuit in addition to his corporate duties.
Monique Gabriela Curnen as Detective Anna Ramirez:
A cop in Gordon's unit who starts working for the mob in desperation of affording her mother's hospital bills by betraying Rachel Dawes to the Joker.
Ron Dean as Detective Michael Wuertz:
A corrupt cop in Gordon's unit operating in the pockets of the mob who betrays Dent to the Joker.
Nestor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia:
The 40-year-old mayor of Gotham, whose life is saved from the Joker by Gordon, who he rewards the title of Police Commissioner to.
Chin Han as Lau:
A corrupt Chinese LSI Holdings accountant at Wayne Enterprises secretly operating as a Triad boss in charge of money-laundering deals for the mob.
Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni:
An Italian mafia boss who takes over Carmine Falcone's mob. Bob Hoskins and James Gandolfini auditioned for the role.
Ritchie Coster as the Chechen:
A Chechen mafia boss in charge of drug-trafficking deals for the mob.
Anthony Michael Hall as Mike Engel:
A Gotham Cable News reporter who is kidnapped from the destroyed hospital by the Joker and used to broadcast his plan for anarchy within Gotham.
Keith Szarabajka as Detective Gerard Stephens:
An honest cop in Gordon's unit who the Joker holds captive during his escape from the police station.
Joshua Harto as Coleman Reese:
An M&A law accountant at Wayne Enterprises who deduces Bruce's persona of Batman from Fox and plans to reveal it to Gotham on Gotham Cable News until the Joker threatens his life.
Melinda McGraw as Barbara Gordon:
Gordon's wife, who is worried of her husband's "crazy" life-risking antics as police lieutenant.
Nathan Gamble as James Gordon, Jr.:
Gordon's 10-year-old son, whose life is saved by Batman when it is threatened by Two-Face to show Gordon what it's like to lose someone when he thinks everything's gonna be alright.
Michael Jai White as Gambol:
A Nigerian mafia boss in charge of illegal gambling and extortion deals for the mob, who places a bounty on the Joker for his insulting lack of respect and is killed as a result. David Banner auditioned for the role.
Colin McFarlane as Commissioner Gillian Loeb:
The Police Commissioner of Gotham until his murder at the hands of the Joker.
The film's supporting cast include Nydia Rodriguez Terracina as Judge Janet Surrillo, and Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr. as a prison inmate on one of the bomb-rigged ferries. William Fichtner played the Gotham National Bank manager, and Cillian Murphy returns in a cameo as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow, who is apprehended early on in the film by Batman.
Musician Dwight Yoakam was approached for the roles of either the manager or a corrupt cop, but he chose to focus on his album Dwight Sings Buck. Another cameo was made by United States Senator Patrick Leahy, a fan of Batman comics who was previously an extra in the 1997 film Batman & Robin and also was a guest voice actor on Batman: The Animated Series. Leahy appears as a guest who defies the Joker when he and his henchmen attack Bruce's fundraiser, saying "We are not intimidated by thugs." Matt Skiba, lead singer of Chicago punk band Alkaline Trio, made a small appearance in the movie.
Production
Development
Before the release of Batman Begins, screenwriter David S. Goyer wrote a treatment for two sequels which introduced the Joker and Harvey Dent. His original intent was for the Joker to scar Dent during the Joker's trial in the third film, turning Dent into Two-Face. Goyer, who penned the first draft of the film, cited the DC Comics 13-issue comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween as the major influence on his storyline. According to veteran Batman artist Neal Adams, he met with David Goyer in Los Angeles, and the story would eventually look to Adams and writer Denny O'Neil's 1971 story "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" that appeared in Batman #251, in which O'Neil and Adams re-introduced the Joker. While initially uncertain of whether or not he would return to direct the sequel, Nolan did want to reinterpret the Joker on screen. On July 31, 2006, Warner Bros. officially announced initiation of production for the sequel to Batman Begins titled The Dark Knight; it is the first live-action Batman film without the word "Batman" in its title, which Bale noted as signaling that "this take on Batman of mine and Chris' is very different from any of the others."
After much research, Nolan's brother and co-writer, Jonathan, suggested the Joker's first two appearances, published in the first issue of Batman (1940), as the crucial influences. Christopher had Jonathan watch Fritz Lang's 1933 crime film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse prior to writing the Joker, with the Joker resembling Mabuse's characteristics. Christopher Nolan referred to Lang's film as "essential research for anyone attempting to write a supervillain." Jerry Robinson, one of the Joker's co-creators, was consulted on the character's portrayal. Nolan decided to avoid divulging an in-depth origin story for the Joker, and instead portray his rise to power so as to not diminish the threat he poses, explaining to MTV News, "the Joker we meet in The Dark Knight is fully formed...To me, the Joker is an absolute. There are no shades of gray to him – maybe shades of purple. He's unbelievably dark. He bursts in just as he did in the comics." Nolan reiterated to IGN, "We never wanted to do an origin story for the Joker in this film," because "the arc of the story is much more Harvey Dent's; the Joker is presented as an absolute. It's a very thrilling element in the film, and a very important element, but we wanted to deal with the rise of the Joker, not the origin of the Joker." Nolan suggested Batman: The Killing Joke influenced a section of the Joker's dialogue in the film, in which he says that anyone can become like him given the right circumstances. Nolan also cited Heat as "sort of an inspiration" for his aim "to tell a very large, city story or the story of a city": "If you want to take on Gotham, you want to give Gotham a kind of weight and breadth and depth in there. So you wind up dealing with the political figures, the media figures. That's part of the whole fabric of how a city is bound together."
According to Nolan, an important theme of the sequel is "escalation," extending the ending of Batman Begins, noting "things having to get worse before they get better." While indicating The Dark Knight would continue the themes of Batman Begins, including justice vs. revenge and Bruce Wayne's issues with his father, Nolan emphasized the sequel would also portray Wayne more as a detective, an aspect of his character not fully developed in Batman Begins. Nolan described the friendly rivalry between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent as the "backbone" of the film. He also chose to compress the overall storyline, allowing Dent to become Two-Face in The Dark Knight, thus giving the film an emotional arc the unsympathetic Joker could not offer. Nolan acknowledged the title was not only a reference to Batman, but also the fallen "white knight" Harvey Dent.
Filming
While scouting for shooting locations in October 2006, location manager Robin Higgs visited Liverpool, concentrating mainly along the city's waterfront. Other candidates included Yorkshire, Glasgow, and parts of London. In August 2006, one of the film's producers, Charles Roven, stated that its principal photography would begin in March 2007, but filming was pushed back to April. For its release in IMAX theaters, Nolan shot four major sequences in that format, including the Joker's opening bank robbery and the car chase midway through the film, which marked the first time that a feature film had been even partially shot in the format. The cameras used for non-IMAX 35 mm scenes were Panavision's Panaflex Millennium XL and Platinum.
For fifteen years Nolan had wanted to shoot in the IMAX format, and he also used it for "quiet scenes which pictorially we thought would be interesting." The use of IMAX cameras provided many new challenges for the filmmakers: the cameras were much larger and heavier than standard cameras, and produced noise which made recording dialogue difficult. In addition, the cameras had short film loads ranging from 30 seconds to two minutes and the cost of the film stock was much greater than standard 35mm film. Nevertheless, Nolan said that he wished that it were possible to shoot the entire film in IMAX: "if you could take an IMAX camera to Mount Everest or outer space, you could use it in a feature movie." In addition, Nolan chose to edit some of the IMAX sequences using the original camera negative, which by eliminating generation loss, raised the film resolution of those sequences up to 18 thousand lines.
Warner Bros. chose to film in Chicago for 13 weeks, because Nolan had a "truly remarkable experience" filming part of Batman Begins there. Instead of using the Chicago Board of Trade Building as the location for the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises, as Batman Begins did, The Dark Knight shows Wayne Enterprises as being headquartered in the Richard J. Daley Center. While filming in Chicago, the film was given the false title Rory's First Kiss to lower the visibility of production, but the local media eventually uncovered the ruse. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times commented on the absurdity of the technique, "Is there a Bat-fan in the world that doesn't know Rory's First Kiss is actually The Dark Knight, which has been filming in Chicago for weeks?" Production of The Dark Knight in Chicago generated $45 million in the city's economy and created thousands of jobs. For the film's prologue involving the Joker, the crew shot in Chicago from April 18, 2007 to April 24, 2007. They returned to shoot from June 9, 2007 to early September. Noticeably, unlike Batman Begins, less CGI was used to disguise Chicago. Many recognizable locations were used in the film, like the Sears Tower, Navy Pier, 330 North Wabash, the James R. Thompson Center, Trump International Hotel and Tower, LaSalle Street, The Berghoff, Randolph Street Station, and Hotel 71. An old Brach's factory was used as Gotham Hospital. The defunct Van Buren Street post office doubles as Gotham National Bank for the opening bank robbery. Several sequences, including one car chase, were shot on the lower level of Wacker Drive. The Marina City towers also appear in the background throughout the movie.
Pinewood Studios, near London, was the primary studio space used for the production.
While planning a stunt with the Batmobile in a special effects facility near Chertsey, England in September 2007, technician Conway Wickliffe was killed when his car crashed. The film is dedicated to both Ledger and Wickliffe. The restaurant scene was filmed at the Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus, London.
The following month in London at the defunct Battersea Power Station, a rigged 200-foot fireball was filmed, reportedly for an opening sequence, prompting calls from local residents who feared a terrorist attack on the station. A similar incident occurred during the filming in Chicago, when an abandoned Brach's candy factory (which was Gotham Hospital in the film) was demolished.
Filming took place in Hong Kong from November 6 to 11, 2007, at various locations in Central, including Hong Kong's tallest building at the time, the International Finance Centre, for the scene where Batman captures Lau. The shoot hired helicopters and C-130 aircraft. Officials expressed concern over possible noise pollution and traffic. In response, letters sent to the city's residents promised that the sound level would approximate noise decibels made by buses. Environmentalists also criticized the filmmakers' request to tenants of the waterfront skyscrapers to keep their lights on all night to enhance the cinematography, describing it as a waste of energy. Cinematographer Wally Pfister found the city officials a "nightmare," and ultimately Nolan had to create Batman's jump from a skyscraper digitally.
Design
Costume designer Lindy Hemming described the Joker's look as reflecting his personality, in that "he doesn't care about himself at all"; she avoided designing him as a vagrant, but still made him appear to be "scruffier, grungier," so that "when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." Nolan noted, "We gave a Francis Bacon spin to [his face]. This corruption, this decay in the texture of the look itself. It's grubby. You can almost imagine what he smells like." In creating the "anarchical" look of the Joker, Hemming drew inspiration from such countercultural pop culture artists as Pete Doherty, Iggy Pop, and Johnny Rotten. Ledger described his "clown" mask, made up of three pieces of stamped silicone, as a "new technology," taking less than an hour for the make-up artists to apply, much faster than more-conventional prosthetics usually requires. Ledger also said that he felt he was barely wearing any make-up.
Hemming and Ledger's Joker design has had an impact in popular and political culture in the form of the Barack Obama "Joker" poster, and has since become a meme in its own right.
Designers improved on the design of the Batsuit from Batman Begins, adding wide elastic banding to help bind the costume to Bale, and suggest more sophisticated technology. It was constructed from 200 individual pieces of rubber, fiberglass, metallic mesh, and nylon. The new cowl was modeled after a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to turn his head left and right and nod up and down. The cowl is equipped to show white lenses over the eyes when the character turns on his sonar detection, which gives Batman the white eyed look from the comics and animation. The gauntlets have retractable razors which can be fired. Though the new costume is eight pounds heavier, Bale found it more comfortable and not as hot to wear. The depiction of Gotham City is less gritty than in Batman Begins. "I've tried to unclutter the Gotham we created on the last film," said production designer Nathan Crowley. "Gotham is in chaos. We keep blowing up stuff, so we can keep our images clean."
Effects
The film introduces the Batpod, which is a recreation of the Batcycle. Production designer Nathan Crowley, who designed the Tumbler for Batman Begins, designed six models (built by special effects supervisor Chris Corbould) for use in the film's production, because of necessary crash scenes and possible accidents. Crowley built a prototype in Nolan's garage, before six months of safety tests were conducted. The Batpod is steered by shoulder instead of hand, and the rider's arms are protected by sleeve-like shields. The bike has 508-millimeter (20-inch) front and rear tires, and is made to appear as if it is armed with grappling hooks, cannons, and machine guns. The engines are located in the hubs of the wheels, which are set 3 feet (1067 mm) apart on either side of the tank. The rider lies belly down on the tank, which can move up and down to dodge any incoming gunfire that Batman may encounter. Stuntman Jean-Pierre Goy doubled for Christian Bale during the riding sequences in The Dark Knight. The Batpod was highly unstable for riding, and Goy was the only stuntman who could manage to balance the bike, even commenting that he had to "nearly un-learn how to ride a motorcycle" to manage riding the Batpod. Bale did insist on doing shots on the Batpod himself, but was prohibited by the team fearing his safety.
Nolan designed Two-Face's appearance in the film as one of the least disturbing, explaining, "When we looked at less extreme versions of it, they were too real and more horrifying. When you look at a film like Pirates of the Caribbean – something like that, there's something about a very fanciful, very detailed visual effect, that I think is more powerful and less repulsive." Framestore created 120 computer-generated shots of Two-Face's scarred visage. Nolan felt using make-up would look unrealistic, as it adds to the face, unlike real burn victims. Framestore acknowledged they rearranged the positions of bones, muscles and joints to make the character look more dramatic. For each shot, three 720-pixel HD cameras were set up at different angles on set to fully capture Aaron Eckhart's performance. Eckhart wore markers on his face and a prosthetic skullcap, which acted as a lighting reference. A few shots of the skullcap were kept in the film. Framestore also integrated shots of Bale and Eckhart into that of the exploding building where Dent is burned. It was difficult simulating fire on Eckhart because it is inherently unrealistic for only half of something to burn.
Music
Batman Begins composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard returned to score the sequel. Composition began before shooting, and during filming Nolan received an iPod with ten hours of recordings. Their nine-minute suite for the Joker, "Why So Serious?," is based around two notes. Zimmer compared its style to that of Kraftwerk, a band from his native Germany, as well as bands like The Damned. When Ledger died, Zimmer felt like scrapping and composing a new theme, but decided that he could not be sentimental and compromise the "evil [Ledger's performance] projects." Howard composed Dent's "elegant and beautiful" themes, which are brass-focused.
Marketing
In May 2007, 42 Entertainment began a viral marketing campaign utilizing the film's "Why So Serious?" tagline with the launch of a website featuring the fictional political campaign of Harvey Dent, with the caption, "I Believe in Harvey Dent." The site aimed to interest fans by having them try to earn what they wanted to see and, on behalf of Warner Bros., 42 Entertainment also established a "vandalized" version of I Believe in Harvey Dent, called "I believe in Harvey Dent too," where e-mails sent by fans slowly removed pixels, revealing the first official image of the Joker; it was ultimately replaced with many "Haha"s and a hidden message that said "see you in December."
During the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con International, 42 Entertainment launched WhySoSerious.com, sending fans on a scavenger hunt to unlock a teaser trailer and a new photo of the Joker. On October 31, 2007, the film's website morphed into another scavenger hunt with hidden messages, instructing fans to uncover clues at certain locations in major cities throughout the United States, and to take photographs of their discoveries. The clues combined to reveal a new photograph of the Joker and an audio clip of him from the film saying "And tonight, you're gonna break your one rule." Completing the scavenger hunt also led to another website called Rory's Death Kiss (referencing the false working title of Rory's First Kiss), where fans could submit photographs of themselves costumed as the Joker. Those who sent photos were mailed a copy of a fictional newspaper called The Gotham Times, whose electronic version led to the discovery of numerous other websites.
The Dark Knight's opening sequence, (showing a bank raid by the Joker) and closing montage of other scenes from the film, was screened with selected IMAX screenings of I Am Legend, which was released on December 14, 2007. A theatrical teaser was also released with non-IMAX showings of I Am Legend, and also on the official website. The sequence was released on the Blu-ray Disc edition of Batman Begins on July 8, 2008. Also on July 8, 2008, the studio released Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD animated film, set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and featuring six original stories, directed by Bruce Timm, co-creator and producer of Batman: The Animated Series, and starring veteran Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy. Each of these segments, written by Josh Olson, David S. Goyer, Brian Azzarello, Greg Rucka, Jordan Goldberg, and Alan Burnett, presents its own distinctive artistic style, paralleling numerous artists collaborating in the same DC Universe.
After the death of Heath Ledger on January 22, 2008, Warner Bros. adjusted its promotional focus on the Joker, revising some of its websites dedicated to promoting the film and posting a memorial tribute to Ledger on the film's official website and overlaying a black memorial ribbon on the photo collage in WhySoSerious.com. On February 29, 2008, I Believe in Harvey Dent was updated to enable fans to send their e-mail addresses and phone numbers. In March 2008, Harvey Dent's fictional campaign informed fans that actual campaign buses nicknamed "Dentmobiles" would tour various cities to promote Dent's candidacy for district attorney.
On May 15, 2008, Six Flags Great America and Six Flags Great Adventure theme parks opened The Dark Knight roller coaster, which cost US$7.5 million to develop and which simulates being stalked by the Joker. Mattel produced toys and games for The Dark Knight, action figures, role play costumes, board games, puzzles, and a special-edition UNO card game, which began commercial distribution in June 2008.
Warner Bros. devoted six months to an anti-piracy strategy that involved tracking the people who had a pre-release copy of the film at any one time. Shipping and delivery schedules were also staggered and spot checks were carried out both domestically and overseas to ensure illegal copying of the film was not taking place in cinemas. A pirated copy was released on the Web approximately 38 hours after the film's release. BitTorrent search engine The Pirate Bay taunted the movie industry over its ability to provide the movie free, replacing its logo with a taunting message.
Release
Warner Bros. held the world premiere for The Dark Knight in New York City on July 14, 2008, screening in an IMAX theater with the film's composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer playing a part of the film score live. Leading up to The Dark Knight's commercial release, the film had drawn "overwhelmingly positive early reviews and buzz on Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker." The Dark Knight was commercially released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, grossing almost $2.3 million in its first day.
In the United States and Canada, The Dark Knight was distributed to 4,366 theaters, breaking the previous record for the highest number of theaters held by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in 2007. The number of theaters also included 94 IMAX theaters, with the film estimated to be played on 9,200 screens in the United States and Canada. Online, ticketing services sold enormous numbers of tickets for approximately 3,000 midnight showtimes as well as unusually early showtimes for the film's opening day. All IMAX theaters showing The Dark Knight were sold out for the opening weekend.
Reception
The movie was met with critical acclaim. Based on 314 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 94% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 8.6/10. The site's consensus reads, "Dark, complex and unforgettable, The Dark Knight succeeds not just as an entertaining comic book film, but as a richly thrilling crime saga." By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 82, based on 39 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave the film was "A" on an A+ to F scale, and that audiences skewed slightly male and older.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, awarding four out of four stars, described The Dark Knight as a "haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy." He praised the performances, direction, and writing, saying the film "redefine[s] the possibilities of the comic-book movie." Ebert stated that the "key performance" is by Heath Ledger, and pondered whether he would become the first posthumous Academy Award-winning actor since Peter Finch in 1976. (Ledger ultimately won the Oscar.) Ebert named it one of his twenty favorite films of 2008. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone writes that the film is deeper than its predecessor, with a "deft" script that refuses to scrutinize the Joker with popular psychology, instead pulling the viewer in with an examination of Bruce Wayne's psyche. Travers has praise for all the cast, saying each brings his or her "'A' game" to the film. He says Bale is "electrifying," evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II, that Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent is "scarily moving", and that Oldman "is so skilled that he makes virtue exciting as Jim Gordon". Travers says Ledger moves the Joker away from Jack Nicholson's interpretation into darker territory, and expresses his support for any potential campaign to have Ledger nominated for an Academy Award, Travers says that the filmmakers move the film away from comic book cinema and closer to being a genuine work of art, citing Nolan's direction and the "gritty reality" of Wally Pfister's cinematography as helping to create a universe that has something "raw and elemental" at work within it. In particular, he cites Nolan's action choreography in the IMAX-tailored heist sequence as rivaling that of Heat (1995). Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote "Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind." Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Every great hero needs a great villain. And in 2008, Christian Bale's Batman found his in Heath Ledger's demented dervish, the Joker." BBC critic Mark Kermode, in a positive review, said that Ledger is "very, very good" but that Oldman's turn is "the best performance in the film, by a mile".
Emanuel Levy wrote Ledger "throws himself completely" into the role, and that the film represents Nolan's "most accomplished and mature" work, and the most technically impressive and resonant of all the Batman films. Levy calls the action sequences some of the most impressive seen in an American film for years, and talks of the Hong Kong-set portion of the film as being particularly visually impressive. Levy and Peter Travers conclude that the film is "haunting and visionary," while Levy goes on to say that The Dark Knight is "nothing short of brilliant." On the other hand, David Denby of The New Yorker said that the story is not coherent enough to properly flesh out the disparities. He said the film's mood is one of "constant climax," and that it feels rushed and far too long. Denby criticized scenes which he argued to be meaningless or are cut short just as they become interesting. Denby remarks that the central conflict is workable, but that "only half the team can act it," saying that Bale's "placid" Bruce Wayne and "dogged but uninteresting" Batman is constantly upstaged by Ledger's "sinister and frightening" performance, which he says is the film's one element of success. Denby concludes that Ledger is "mesmerising" in every scene. The vocalization of Christian Bale's Batman (which was partly altered during post-production) was the subject of particular criticism by some commentators, with David Edelstein from NPR describing Bale delivering his performance with "a voice that's deeper and hammier than ever". Alonso Duralde at MSNBC, however, referred to Bale's voice in The Dark Knight as an "eerie rasp", as opposed to the voice used in the Batman Begins, which according to Duralde "sounded absurdly deep, like a 10-year-old putting on an ‘adult’ voice to make prank phone calls".
The Dark Knight was ranked the 15th greatest film in history on Empire's 2008 list of the "500 Greatest Movies of All Time," based upon the weighted votes of 10,000 readers, 150 film directors, and 50 key film critics. Heath Ledger's interpretation of the Joker was also ranked number three on Empire's 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time." In June 2010, the Joker was ranked number five on Entertainment Weekly "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years". Paste magazine named it one of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000–2009), ranking it at number 11. The Dark Knight was included in American Cinematographer's "Best-Shot Film of 1998-2008" list, ranking in the top 10. More than 17,000 people around the world participated in the final vote. In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their eight favorite film of all time. On the March 22, 2011 television special Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, The Dark Knight was voted the second best action film while the Joker, as portrayed by Ledger, was voted the third greatest film character. In 2012, Total Film ranked The Dark Knight as the sixth most accomplished film of the past 15 years, writing that "Christopher Nolan's psycho-operatic crime drama was its decade's most exciting blockbuster – and its most challenging." In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. The Dark Knight was listed at 80th place on this list. In 2014, The Dark Knight was ranked the 3rd greatest film ever made on Empires list of "The 301 Greatest Movies Of All Time" as voted by the magazine's readers. The film was also included and ranked 57th on Hollywood's 100 Favorite Films, a list compiled by The Hollywood Reporter, surveying "Studio chiefs, Oscar winners and TV royalty". The Dark Knight ranked 96th on BBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world.
Commentary
Mystery writer Andrew Klavan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, compared the extreme measures that Batman takes to fight crime with those U.S. President George W. Bush used in the War on Terror. Klavan claims that, "at some level" The Dark Knight is "a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war." Klavan supports this reading of the film by comparing Batman—like Bush, Klavan argues—"sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past." Klavan's article has received criticism on the Internet and in mainstream media outlets, such as in The New Republic's "The Plank." Reviewing the film in The Sunday Times, Cosmo Landesman reached the opposite conclusion to Klavan, arguing that The Dark Knight "offers up a lot of moralistic waffle about how we must hug a terrorist – okay, I exaggerate. At its heart, however, is a long and tedious discussion about how individuals and society must never abandon the rule of law in struggling against the forces of lawlessness. In fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become monsters – that sort of thing. The film champions the anti-war coalition's claim that, in having a war on terror, you create the conditions for more terror. We are shown that innocent people died because of Batman – and he falls for it." Benjamin Kerstein, writing in Azure, says that both Klavan and Landesman "have a point," because "The Dark Knight is a perfect mirror of the society which is watching it: a society so divided on the issues of terror and how to fight it that, for the first time in decades, an American mainstream no longer exists."
Themes and analysis
According to David S. Goyer, the primary theme of The Dark Knight is escalation. Gotham City is weak and the citizens blame Batman for the city's violence and corruption as well as the Joker's threats, and it pushes his limits, making him feel that taking the laws into his own hands is further downgrading the city. Roger Ebert noted, "Throughout the film, [the Joker] devises ingenious situations that force Batman, Commissioner Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened."
Other critics have mentioned the theme of the triumph of evil over good. Harvey Dent is seen as Gotham's "White Knight" in the beginning of the film but ends up becoming seduced to evil. The Joker, on the other hand, is seen as the representation of anarchy and chaos. He has no motive, no orders, and no desires but to cause havoc and "watch the world burn." The terrible logic of human error is another theme as well. The ferry scene displays how humans can easily be enticed by iniquity, and how that could lead to potential disaster.
Awards
Most notable among the nominations were Heath Ledger's almost complete sweep of over twenty awards for acting, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The Dark Knight also received nominations from the Writers Guild of America (for Best Adapted Screenplay), the Producers Guild of America, and the Directors Guild of America, as well as a slew of other guild award nominations and wins. It was nominated for Best Film at the Critics Choice Awards and was named one of the top ten films of 2008 by the American Film Institute.
The Dark Knight was nominated for eight Academy Awards for the 81st Ceremony, breaking the previous record of seven held by Dick Tracy for the most nominations received by a film based on a comic book, comic strip, or graphic novel. The Dark Knight won two awards: Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger and Best Sound Editing. It was additionally nominated for six others, these being Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup, and Best Film Editing. Heath Ledger was the first posthumous winner of the Best Supporting Actor award, and only the second posthumous acting winner ever (Peter Finch posthumously won the Best Actor award for his performance in the 1976 film Network). In addition, Ledger's win marked the first win in any of the major Oscar categories (producing, directing, acting, or writing) for a superhero-based film. Notably, Richard King's win in the Sound Editing category blocked a complete awards sweep of the evening by the eventual Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Although it did not receive a Best Picture nomination, the show's opening song paid homage to The Dark Knight along with the five Best Picture nominees, including host Hugh Jackman riding on a mockup of the Batpod made out of garbage. In spite of the film's critical success, the film was noticeably absent from the Best Picture nominee list, prompting controversy and led many to criticize the Academy Awards for "snubbing" the film. There was speculation that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences later changed their number of Best Picture nominees to ten, instead of the traditional five, because of the film's omission. In a question-and-answer session that followed the announcement, the Academy's then president Sidney Ganis said; "I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words Dark Knight did not come up."
A British-American production, the film was nominated for the 2009 Goya Award for Best European Film. It had a nomination in Japan for the 2009 Seiun Awards under the Science Fiction category with a Japan Academy Prize Award for Best Foreign Film.
Box office
The Dark Knight earned $534.9 million in North America and $469.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $1 billion. Worldwide, it is the twenty-fourth highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing film of 2008 and the fourth film in history to gross more than $1 billion. It made $199.7 million on its worldwide opening weekend which ranks thirty-fourth on the all-time chart.
In order to increase the film's chances of crossing $1 billion in worldwide gross and of winning Oscars, Warner Bros. re-released the film in traditional and IMAX theaters in the United States and other countries on January 23, 2009. Before the re-release, the film's gross remained at $997 million, but following the re-release, the film crossed the $1-billion-mark in February 2009.
North America
The Dark Knight opened on Friday, July 18, 2008. It set a record for midnight showings, by earning $18.5 million from 3,040 theaters (a record first surpassed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). The midnight opening included $640,000 from IMAX screenings. It was then shown on 9,200 screens at a record 4,366 theaters (a record first surpassed by Iron Man 2), also setting an opening- and single-day record gross, with $67.2 million (both records first surpassed by The Twilight Saga: New Moon), and an opening weekend record, with $158.4 million (first surpassed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2). The weekend per theater average of $36,283 stands as the fifth-largest of all time. It sold an estimated 22.37 million tickets during its first weekend with 2008's average admission of $7.08, meaning the film sold more tickets than Spider-Man 3, which sold 21.96 million with the average price of $6.88 in 2007. Additionally, the film set an IMAX opening weekend record, with $6.3 million (a record first surpassed by Star Trek). It achieved the largest Sunday gross, with $43.6 million, and the largest opening week from Friday to Thursday, with $238.6 million (both records surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers). It also achieved the largest cumulative gross through its third and fourth day of release (both records first surpassed by Deathly Hallows – Part 2), and so on until its tenth day of release (records surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers). Moreover, it was the fastest film to reach $100 million (a record first surpassed by New Moon), $150 million and each additional $50 million through $450 million (records surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers), and $500 million (a record first surpassed by Avatar). Finally, it achieved the largest second-weekend gross (a record first surpassed by Avatar).
It has grossed the fourth largest Saturday gross ($51,336,732). On its first Monday, it grossed $24.5 million, which stands as the largest non-holiday Monday gross and the 4th largest Monday gross overall, and on its first Tuesday it grossed another $20.9 million, which stands as the largest non-opening Tuesday gross and the second largest Tuesday gross overall. Notably, it topped the box office during the second biggest weekend of all time in North America (aggregated total of $253,586,871) and it was the only 2008 film that remained on top of the box office charts for four consecutive weekends.
The Dark Knight is the highest-grossing 2008 film, the second-highest-grossing superhero film, the second-highest-grossing film based on comics and the fourth highest-grossing film of all time in North America. Adjusted for ticket-price inflation though, it ranks 28th. In contrast to Avatar and Titanic, both which grossed more than The Dark Knight in North America and had slow but steady earnings, The Dark Knight broke records in its opening weekend and slowed down significantly after its first few weekends.
Other territories
Overseas, The Dark Knight is the highest-grossing 2008 film and the fourth-highest-grossing superhero film. It premiered in 20 other territories on 4,520 screens, grossing $41.3 million in its first weekend. The film came in second to Hancock, which was in its third weekend, screening in 71 territories. The Dark Knight's biggest territory was Australia, where it grossed $13.7 million over the weekend, setting a record for the largest superhero film opening. It topped the weekend box office outside North America three consecutive times and four in total. Citing cultural sensitivities to some elements in the film, and a reluctance to adhere to pre-release conditions, Warner Bros. declined to release the film in mainland China. Its highest-grossing market after North America was the UK, Ireland and Malta, where it earned $89.1 million. Also, in Australia, it earned of $39.9 million, still remaining in the all-time top 10 of the country. The five highest-grossing markets outside North America also include Germany ($29.7 million), France and the Maghreb region ($27.5 million) and South Korea ($25.0 million).
Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in North America on December 9, 2008. Releases include a one-disc edition DVD; a two-disc Special Edition DVD; a two-disc edition BD; and a Special Edition BD package featuring a statuette of the Bat-pod. The BD/iTunes version presents the film in a variable aspect ratio, with the IMAX sequences framed in 1.78:1, while scenes filmed in 35 mm are framed in 2.40:1. The DVD versions feature the entire film framed in a uniform 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Disc 2 of the two-disc Special Edition DVD features the six main IMAX sequences in the original 1.44:1 aspect ratio. Additional IMAX shots throughout the film that are presented in 1.78:1 on the Blu-ray release are not, however, included in the DVD's special features. In addition to the standard DVD releases, some stores released their own exclusive editions of the film.
In the United Kingdom, the film had combined sales of 513,000 units on its first day of release, of which 107,730 (21%) were Blu-ray Discs, the highest number of first-day Blu-ray Discs sold. In the United States, The Dark Knight set a sales record for most DVDs sold in one day, selling 3 million units on its first day of release – 600,000 of which were Blu-ray Discs.
The DVD and Blu-ray Disc editions were released in Australia on December 10, 2008. Releases were in the form of a one-disc edition on DVD; a two-disc edition on DVD; a two-disc edition including a Batmask on DVD and BD; a two-disc Batpod statuette Limited BD Edition; a two-disc BD edition; and a four-disc Batman Begins/The Dark Knight pack on DVD and BD. As of December 19, 2008, the DVD release is the top selling film in the Australian DVD Charts and is expected to break the Australian sales record set by Finding Nemo.
The movie also sold Blu-ray copies worth 370 million yen (US$4.1 million) in Japan, placing it 3rd out of 10 in the top 10 overall Blu-ray category.
In March 2011, Warner Bros. offered The Dark Knight for rent on Facebook, becoming the first movie ever to be released via digital distribution on a social networking site. Users in the United States are able to use Facebook Credits to view the film.
See also
Vigilante film
List of films featuring surveillance
References
Further reading
External links
The Dark Knight: Blu-ray Disc Review at HD Report
Category:2000s action thriller films
Category:2000s crime thriller films
Category:American action thriller films
Category:American films
Category:American crime thriller films
Category:BAFTA winners (films)
Category:Batman films
Category:Best Film Empire Award winners
Category:British action thriller films
Category:British crime thriller films
Category:British films
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Category:Film scores by Hans Zimmer
Category:Film scores by James Newton Howard
Category:Films about security and surveillance
Category:Films about terrorism
Category:Films directed by Christopher Nolan
Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winning performance
Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Category:Films produced by Christopher Nolan
Category:Films set in Hong Kong
Category:Films shot in Chicago, Illinois
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Category:Films shot in the United Kingdom
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2016-01 | Hermann_Göring-696784900 | Hermann_Göring | Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader, and leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A veteran World War I fighter pilot ace, he was a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as the "Blue Max". He was the last commander of Jagdgeschwader 1, the fighter wing once led by "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen.
A member of the NSDAP from its earliest days, Göring was wounded in 1923 during the failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He became addicted to morphine after being treated with the drug for his injuries. After helping Adolf Hitler take power in 1933, he became the second-most powerful man in Germany. He founded the Gestapo in 1933, and later gave command of it to Heinrich Himmler. Göring was appointed commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe (air force) in 1935, a position he held until the final days of World War II. By 1940, he was at the peak of his power and influence; as minister in charge of the Four Year Plan, he was responsible for much of the functioning of the German economy in the build-up to World War II. Hitler promoted him to the rank of Reichsmarschall, a rank senior to all other Wehrmacht commanders, and in 1941 Hitler designated him as his successor and deputy in all his offices.
Göring's standing with Hitler was greatly reduced by 1942, when the Luftwaffe failed to fulfill its commitments and the German war effort was stumbling on all fronts. Göring largely withdrew from the military and political scene and focused on the acquisition of property and artwork, much of which was confiscated from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Informed on 22 April 1945 that Hitler intended to commit suicide, Göring sent a telegram to Hitler requesting permission to assume control of the Reich. Considering it an act of treason, Hitler removed Göring from all his positions, expelled him from the party, and ordered his arrest.
After World War II, Göring was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before the sentence was to be carried out.
Early life
Göring was born on 12 January 1893 at the Marienbad Sanatorium in Rosenheim, Bavaria. His father, Heinrich Ernst Göring (31 October 1839 – 7 December 1913), a former cavalry officer, had been the first Governor-General of the German protectorate of South-West Africa, (modern-day Namibia). Heinrich had five children from a previous marriage. Göring was the fourth of five children by Heinrich's second wife, Franziska Tiefenbrunn (1859–15 July 1923), a Bavarian peasant. Göring's elder siblings were Karl, Olga, and Paula; his younger brother was Albert. At the time that Göring was born, his father was serving as consul general in Haiti, and his mother had returned home briefly to give birth. She left the six-week-old baby with a friend in Bavaria and did not see the child again for three years, when she and Heinrich returned to Germany.
Göring's godfather was Dr. Hermann Epenstein, a wealthy Jewish physician and businessman his father had met in Africa. Epenstein provided the Göring family, who were surviving on Heinrich's pension, with a family home in a small castle called Veldenstein, near Nuremberg. Göring's mother became Epenstein's mistress around this time, and remained so for some fifteen years. Epenstein acquired the minor title of Ritter von Epenstein through service and donations to the Crown.
Interested in a career as a soldier from a very early age, Göring enjoyed playing with toy soldiers and dressing up in a Boer uniform his father had given him. He was sent to boarding school at age eleven, where the food was poor and discipline was harsh. He sold a violin to pay for his train ticket home, and then took to his bed, feigning illness, until he was told he would not have to return. He continued to enjoy war games, pretending to lay siege to the castle Veldenstein and studying Teutonic legends and sagas. He became a mountain climber, scaling peaks in Germany, at the Mont Blanc massif, and in the Austrian Alps. At sixteen he was sent to a military academy at Berlin Lichterfelde, from which he graduated with distinction (During the Nuremberg war-crimes trials In 1946, psychologist Gustave Gilbert measured him as having an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 138.) Göring joined the Prince Wilhelm Regiment (112th Infantry) of the Prussian army in 1912. The next year his mother had a falling-out with Epenstein. The family was forced to leave Veldenstein and moved to Munich; Göring's father died shortly afterwards. When World War I began in August 1914, Göring was stationed at Mulhouse with his regiment.
First World War
During the first year of World War I, Göring served with his infantry regiment in the area of Mülhausen, a garrison town only a mile from the French frontier. He was hospitalized with rheumatism, a result of the damp of trench warfare. While he was recovering, his friend Bruno Loerzer convinced him to transfer to what would become, by October 1916, the Luftstreitkräfte ("air combat force") of the German army, but his request was turned down. Later that year, Göring flew as Loerzer's observer in Feldflieger Abteilung 25 (FFA 25) – Göring had informally transferred himself. He was discovered and sentenced to three weeks' confinement to barracks, but the sentence was never carried out. By the time it was supposed to be imposed, Göring's association with Loerzer had been made official. They were assigned as a team to FFA 25 in the Crown Prince's Fifth Army. They flew reconnaissance and bombing missions, for which the Crown Prince invested both Göring and Loerzer with the Iron Cross, first class.
After completing the pilot's training course, Göring was assigned to Jagdstaffel 5. Seriously wounded in the hip in aerial combat, he took nearly a year to recover. He then was transferred to Jagdstaffel 26, commanded by Loerzer, in February 1917. He steadily scored air victories until May, when he was assigned to command Jagdstaffel 27. Serving with Jastas 5, 26, and 27, he continued to win victories. In addition to his Iron Crosses (1st and 2nd Class), he received the Zaehring Lion with swords, the Friedrich Order, the House Order of Hohenzollern with swords third class, and finally, in May 1918, the coveted Pour le Mérite. According to Hermann Dahlmann, who knew both men, Göring had Loerzer lobby for the award. He finished the war with 22 victories. A thorough post-war examination of Allied loss records showed that only two of his claimed victories were doubtful. Three were possible and 17 were certain, or highly likely.
On 7 July 1918, following the death of Wilhelm Reinhard, successor to Manfred von Richthofen, Göring was made commander of the famed "Flying Circus", Jagdgeschwader 1. His arrogance made him unpopular with the men of his squadron.
In the last days of the war, Göring was repeatedly ordered to withdraw his squadron, first to Tellancourt airdrome, then to Darmstadt. At one point, he was ordered to surrender the aircraft to the Allies; he refused. Many of his pilots intentionally crash-landed their planes to keep them from falling into enemy hands.
Like many other German veterans, Göring was a proponent of the Stab-in-the-back legend, the belief which held that the German Army had not really lost the war, but instead was betrayed by the civilian leadership: Marxists, Jews, and especially the Republicans, who had overthrown the German monarchy.
After the First World War
Göring remained in aviation after the war. He tried barnstorming and briefly worked at Fokker. After spending most of 1919 living in Denmark, he moved to Sweden and joined Svensk Lufttrafik, a Swedish airline. Göring was often hired for private flights. During the winter of 1920–1921, he was hired by Count Eric von Rosen to fly him to his castle from Stockholm. Invited to spend the night, Göring may at this time have first seen the swastika emblem, which Rosen had set in the chimney piece as a family badge.
This was also the first time that Göring saw his future wife; the count introduced his sister-in-law, Baroness Carin von Kantzow (née Freiin von Fock, 1888–1931). Estranged from her husband of ten years, she had an eight-year-old son. Göring was immediately infatuated and asked her to meet him in Stockholm. They arranged a visit at the home of her parents and spent much time together through 1921, when Göring left for Munich to take political science at the university. Carin obtained a divorce, followed Göring to Munich, and married him on 3 February 1922. Their first home together was a hunting lodge at Hochkreuth in the Bavarian Alps, near Bayrischzell, some from Munich. After Göring met Hitler and joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1922, they moved to Obermenzing, a suburb of Munich.
Early Nazi career
Göring joined the Nazi Party in 1923 after hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler. He was given command of the Sturmabteilung (SA) as the Oberster SA-Führer in 1923. He was later appointed an SA-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant General) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945. At this time, Carin—who liked Hitler—often played hostess to meetings of leading Nazis, including her husband, Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Ernst Röhm. Hitler later recalled his early association with Göring:
Hitler and the Nazi Party held mass meetings and rallies in Munich and elsewhere during the early 1920s, attempting to gain supporters in a bid for political power. Inspired by Benito Mussolini's March on Rome, the Nazis attempted to seize power on 8–9 November 1923 in a failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Göring, who was with Hitler heading up the march to the War Ministry, was shot in the leg. Fourteen Nazis and four policemen were killed; many top Nazis, including Hitler, were arrested. With Carin's help, Göring was smuggled to Innsbruck, where he received surgery and was given morphine for the pain. He remained in hospital until 24 December. This was the beginning of his morphine addiction, which lasted until his imprisonment at Nuremberg. Meanwhile, the authorities in Munich declared Göring a wanted man. The Görings—acutely short of funds and reliant on the good will of Nazi sympathizers abroad—moved from Austria to Venice. In May 1924 they visited Rome, via Florence and Siena. Göring met Mussolini, who expressed an interest in meeting Hitler, who was by then in prison.
Personal problems continued to multiply. By 1925, Carin's mother was ill. The Görings—with difficulty—raised the money in the spring of 1925 for a journey to Sweden via Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Danzig (now Gdańsk). Göring had become a violent morphine addict; Carin's family were shocked by his deterioration. Carin, who was ill with epilepsy and a weak heart, had to allow the doctors to take charge of Göring; her son was taken by his father. Göring was certified a dangerous drug addict and was placed in Långbro asylum on 1 September 1925. He was violent to the point where he had to be confined to a straitjacket, but his psychiatrist felt he was sane; the condition was caused solely by the morphine. Weaned off the drug, he left the facility briefly, but had to return for further treatment. He returned to Germany when an amnesty was declared in 1927 and resumed working in the aircraft industry. Hitler, who had written Mein Kampf while in prison, had been released in December 1924. Carin Göring, ill with epilepsy and tuberculosis, died of heart failure on 17 October 1931.
Meanwhile, the NSDAP was in a period of rebuilding and waiting. The economy had recovered, which meant fewer opportunities for the Nazis to agitate for change. The SA was reorganised, but with Franz Pfeffer von Salomon as its head rather than Göring, and the Schutzstaffel (SS) was founded in 1925, initially as a bodyguard for Hitler. Membership in the party increased from 27,000 in 1925 to 108,000 in 1928 and 178,000 in 1929. In the May 1928 elections the party only obtained twelve seats out of an available 491. Göring was elected as a representative from Bavaria. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to a disastrous downturn in the German economy, and in the next election, the NSDAP won 6,409,600 votes and 107 seats in the Reichstag. In May 1931, Hitler sent Göring on a mission to the Vatican, where he met the future Pope Pius XII.
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire occurred on the night of 27 February 1933. Göring was one of the first to arrive on the scene. Marinus van der Lubbe—a communist radical—was arrested and claimed sole responsibility for the fire. Göring immediately called for a crackdown on communists.
The Nazis took advantage of the fire to advance their own political aims. The Reichstag Fire Decree, passed the next day on Hitler's urging, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 communist party members were arrested. Göring demanded that the detainees should be shot, but Rudolf Diels, head of the Prussian political police, ignored the order. Some researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible for starting the fire.
At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring admitted responsibility for starting the fire. He said that, at a luncheon held on Hitler's birthday in 1942, Göring said, "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" In his own Nuremberg testimony, Göring denied this story.
Second marriage
During the early 1930s, Göring was often in the company of Emmy Sonnemann (1893–1973), an actress from Hamburg. They were married on 10 April 1935 in Berlin; the wedding was celebrated on a huge scale. A large reception was held the night before at the Berlin Opera House. Fighter aircraft flew overhead on the night of the reception and the day of the ceremony. Göring's daughter, Edda, was born on 2 June 1938.
Nazi potentate
When Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in January 1933, Göring was appointed as minister without portfolio, Minister of the Interior for Prussia, and Reich Commissioner of Aviation. Wilhelm Frick was named Reich Interior Minister. Frick and head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) Heinrich Himmler hoped to create a unified police force for all of Germany, but Göring on 30 November 1933 established a Prussian police force, with Rudolf Diels at its head. The force was called the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo. Göring, thinking that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. By this time, the SA numbered over two million men.
Hitler was deeply concerned that Ernst Röhm, the chief of the SA, was planning a coup. Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich plotted with Göring to use the Gestapo and SS to crush the SA. Members of the SA got wind of the proposed action and thousands of them took to the streets in violent demonstrations on the night of 29 June 1934. Enraged, Hitler ordered the arrest of the SA leadership. Röhm was shot dead in his cell when he refused to commit suicide; Göring personally went over the lists of detainees—numbering in the thousands—and determined who else should be shot. At least 85 people were killed in the period of 30 June to 2 July, which is now known as the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler admitted in the Reichstag on 13 July that the killings had been entirely illegal, but claimed a plot had been underway to overthrow the Reich. A retroactive law was passed making the action legal. Any criticism was met with arrests.
One of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which had been in place since the end of World War I, stated that Germany was not allowed to maintain an air force. After the 1926 signing of the Kellogg–Briand Pact, police aircraft were permitted. Göring was appointed Air Traffic Minister in May 1933. Germany began to accumulate aircraft in violation of the Treaty, and in 1935 the existence of the Luftwaffe was formally acknowledged, with Göring as Reich Aviation Minister.
During a cabinet meeting in September 1936, Göring and Hitler announced that the German rearmament programme must be sped up. On 18 October, Hitler named Göring as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan to undertake this task. Göring created a new organisation to administer the Plan and drew the ministries of labour and agriculture under its umbrella. He bypassed the economics ministry in his policy-making decisions, to the chagrin of Hjalmar Schacht, the minister in charge. Huge expenditures were made on rearmament, in spite of growing deficits. Schacht resigned on 8 December 1937, and Walther Funk took over the position, as well as control of the Reichsbank. In this way, both of these institutions were brought under Göring's control under the auspices of the Four Year Plan. In July 1937, the Reichswerke Hermann Göring was established under state ownership – though led by Göring – with the aim of boosting steel production beyond the level which private enterprise could economically provide.
In 1938, Göring was involved in the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, which led to the resignations of the War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, and the army commander, General Werner von Fritsch. Göring had acted as witness at Blomberg's wedding to Margarethe Gruhn, a 26-year-old typist, on 12 January 1938. Information received from the police showed that the young bride was a prostitute. Göring felt obligated to tell Hitler, but also saw this event as an opportunity to dispose of the field marshal. Blomberg was forced to resign. Göring did not want Fritsch to be appointed to that position and thus be his superior. Several days later, Heydrich revealed a file on Fritsch that contained allegations of homosexual activity and blackmail. The charges were later proven to be false, but Fritsch had lost Hitler's trust and was forced to resign. Hitler used the dismissals as an opportunity to reshuffle the leadership of the military. Göring asked for the post of War Minister, but was turned down; he was appointed to the rank of field marshal. Hitler took over as supreme commander of the armed forces and created subordinate posts to head the three main branches of service.
As minister in charge of the Four Year Plan, Göring became concerned with the lack of natural resources in Germany, and began pushing for Austria to be incorporated into the Reich. The province of Styria had rich iron ore deposits, and the country as a whole was home to many skilled labourers that would also be useful. Hitler had always been in favour of a takeover of Austria, his native country. He met on 12 February 1938 with Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, threatening invasion if peaceful unification was not forthcoming. The Nazi party was made legal in Austria to gain a power base, and a referendum on reunification was scheduled for March. When Hitler did not approve of the wording of the plebiscite, Göring telephoned Schuschnigg and Austrian head of state Wilhelm Miklas to demand Schuschnigg's resignation, threatening invasion by German troops and civil unrest by the Austrian Nazi Party members. Schuschnigg resigned on 11 March and the plebiscite was cancelled. By 5:30 the next morning, German troops that had been massing on the border marched into Austria, meeting no resistance.
Although Joachim von Ribbentrop had been named Foreign Minister in February 1938, Göring continued to involve himself in foreign affairs. That July, he contacted the British government with the idea that he should make an official visit to discuss Germany's intentions for Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain was in favour of a meeting, and there was talk of a pact being signed between Britain and Germany. In February 1938, Göring visited Warsaw to quell rumours about the upcoming invasion of Poland. He had conversations with the Hungarian government that summer as well, discussing their potential role in an invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the Nuremberg Rally that September, Göring and other speakers denounced the Czechs as an inferior race that must be conquered. Chamberlain met with Hitler in a series of meetings that led to the signing of the Munich Agreement (29 September 1938), which turned over control of the Sudetenland to Germany.
Second World War
Göring and other senior officers were concerned that Germany was not yet ready for war, but Hitler insisted on pushing ahead as soon as possible. The invasion of Poland, the opening action of World War II, began at dawn on 1 September 1939. Later in the day, speaking to the Reichstag, Hitler designated Göring as his successor as Führer of all Germany, "If anything should befall me."
Success on all fronts
Initially, decisive German victories followed quickly one after the other. With the help of the Luftwaffe, the Polish Air Force was defeated within a week. The Fallschirmjäger seized vital airfields in Norway and captured Fort Eben-Emael in Belgium. Göring's Luftwaffe played critical roles in the Battles of the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the spring, 1940.
After the Fall of France, Hitler awarded Göring the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for his successful leadership. During the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony, Hitler promoted Göring to the rank of Reichsmarschall des Grossdeutschen Reiches (Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich), a special rank which made him senior to all field marshals in the military, including the Luftwaffe. As a result of his promotion, he was then the top ranking soldier of all Germany until the end of the war. Göring had already received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1939 as Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe.
The UK had declared war on Germany immediately after the invasion of Poland. In July 1940, Hitler began preparations for an invasion of Britain. As part of the plan, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had to be neutralized. Bombing raids commenced on British air installations and on cities and centres of industry. Göring had by then already announced in a radio speech, "Wenn auch nur ein feindliches Flugzeug unser Reichsgebiet überfliegt, will ich Meier heißen!" ("If as much as a single enemy aircraft flies over German soil, my name is Meier!"), something that would return to haunt him when the RAF began bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. Though he was confident the Luftwaffe could defeat the RAF within days, Göring, like Admiral Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine (Navy), was pessimistic about the chance of success of the planned invasion (codenamed Operation Sea Lion). Göring hoped that a victory in the air would be enough to force peace without an invasion. The campaign failed, and Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940. After their defeat in the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe attempted to defeat Britain via strategic bombing. On 12 October 1940 Hitler cancelled Sea Lion due to the onset of winter. By the end of the year, it was clear that British morale was not being shaken by the Blitz, though the bombings continued through May 1941.
Decline on all fronts
In spite of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939, Nazi Germany began Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—on 22 June 1941. Initially the Luftwaffe was at an advantage, destroying thousands of Soviet aircraft in the first month of fighting. Hitler and his top staff were sure that the campaign would be over by Christmas, and no provisions were made for reserves of men or equipment. But, by July, the Germans had only 1,000 planes remaining in operation, and their troop losses were over 213,000 men. The choice was made to concentrate the attack on only one part of the vast front; efforts would be directed at capturing Moscow. After the long, but successful, Battle of Smolensk, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily diverted its Panzer groups north and south to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev. The pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilize fresh reserves; historian Russel Stolfi considers it to be one of the major factors that caused the failure of the Moscow offensive, which was resumed in October 1941 with the Battle of Moscow. Poor weather conditions, fuel shortages, a delay in building aircraft bases in Eastern Europe, and overstretched supply lines were also factors. Hitler did not give permission for even a partial retreat until mid-January 1942; by this time the losses were comparable to those of the French invasion of Russia in 1812.
Hitler decided that the summer 1942 campaign would be concentrated in the south; efforts would be made to capture the oilfields in the Caucasus. The Battle of Stalingrad, a major turning point of the war, began on 23 August 1942 with a bombing campaign by the Luftwaffe. The Sixth Army entered the city, but because of its location on the front line, it was still possible for the Soviets to encircle and trap it there without reinforcements or supplies. When the Sixth Army was surrounded by the end of November in Operation Uranus, Göring promised that the Luftwaffe would be able to deliver a minimum of 300 tons of supplies to the trapped men every day. On the basis of these assurances, Hitler demanded that there be no retreat; they were to fight to the last man. Though some airlifts were able to get through, the amount of supplies delivered never exceeded 120 tons per day. The remnants of the German Sixth Army—some 91,000 men out of an army of 285,000—surrendered in early February 1943; only 5,000 of these captives survived the Russian prisoner of war camps to see Germany again.
War over Germany
Meanwhile, the strength of the American and British bomber fleets had increased. Based in Britain, they began operations against German targets. The first thousand-bomber raid was staged on Cologne on 30 May 1942. Air raids continued on targets further from Britain after auxiliary fuel tanks were installed on American fighter aircraft. Göring refused to believe reports that American fighters had been shot down as far east as Aachen in winter 1943. His reputation began to decline.
The American P-51 Mustang, with a range of , began to accompany the bombers in large numbers to and from the target area in early 1944. From that point onwards, the Luftwaffe began to suffer casualties in aircrews it could not sufficiently replace. By targeting oil refineries and rail communications, Allied bombers crippled the German war effort by late 1944. German civilians blamed Göring for his failure to protect the homeland. Hitler began excluding him from conferences, but continued him in his positions at the head of the Luftwaffe and as plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan. As he lost Hitler's trust, Göring began to spend more time at his various residences. On D-Day (6 June 1944), the Luftwaffe only had some 300 fighters and a small number of bombers in the area of the landings; the Allies had a total strength of 11,000 aircraft.
End of the war
As the Soviets approached Berlin, Hitler's efforts to organize the defence of the city became ever more meaningless and futile. His last birthday, celebrated at the Führerbunker in Berlin on 20 April 1945, was the occasion for leave-taking for many top Nazis, Göring included. By this time, Carinhall had been evacuated, the building destroyed, and its art treasures moved to Berchtesgaden and elsewhere. Göring arrived at his estate at Obersalzberg on 22 April, the same day that Hitler, in a lengthy diatribe against his generals, first publicly admitted that the war was lost and that he intended to remain in Berlin to the end and then commit suicide. He also stated that Göring was in a better position to negotiate a peace settlement. In 1941—a week after the start of the Soviet invasion—Hitler had issued a decree naming Göring his successor in the event of his death.
OKW operations chief Alfred Jodl was present for Hitler's rant, and notified Göring's chief of staff, Karl Koller, at a meeting a few hours later. Sensing its implications, Koller immediately flew to Berchtesgaden to notify Göring, who feared being accused of treason if he tried to take power. On the other hand, if he did nothing, he feared being accused of dereliction of duty. After some hesitation, Göring reviewed his copy of the 1941 decree naming him Hitler's successor. It not only placed Göring first in the line of succession, but also stated that, if Hitler ever lost his freedom of action, Göring had complete authority to act on Hitler's behalf as his deputy. After conferring with Koller and Hans Lammers, the state secretary of the Reich Chancellery, Göring concluded that, by remaining in Berlin to face certain death, Hitler had incapacitated himself from governing. All agreed that Göring therefore had a clear duty to take power in Hitler's stead. He was also motivated by fears that his rival, Martin Bormann, would seize power upon Hitler's death and would have him killed as a traitor. With this in mind, Göring sent a carefully worded telegram asking Hitler for permission to take over as the leader of Germany, stressing that he would be acting as Hitler's deputy. He added that, if Hitler did not reply by 22:00 that night (23 April), he would assume that Hitler had indeed lost his freedom of action, and would assume leadership of the Reich.
The telegram was intercepted by Bormann, who convinced Hitler that Göring was a traitor and that the telegram was a demand to resign or be overthrown. Hitler sent a reply to Göringprepared with Bormann's helpinforming him that, unless he resigned immediately, he would be executed for high treason. Soon afterward, Hitler removed Göring from all of his offices and ordered Göring, his staff and Lammers placed under house arrest at Obersalzberg. Bormann made an announcement over the radio that Göring had resigned for health reasons.
By 26 April, the complex at Obersalzberg was under attack by the Allies, so Göring was moved to his castle at Mauterndorf. In his last will and testament, Hitler expelled Göring from the party and formally rescinded the decree making him his successor. He then appointed Karl Dönitz, the Navy's commander-in-chief, as president of the Reich and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide on 30 April 1945, a few hours after a hastily arranged wedding. Göring was freed on 5 May by a passing Luftwaffe unit, and he made his way to the American lines in hopes of surrendering to them rather than to the Russians. He was taken into custody near Radstadt on 6 May by elements of the 36th Infantry Division of the United States Army. This move likely saved Göring's life; Bormann had ordered him executed if Berlin had fallen.
Trial and death
Göring was flown to Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg, the site of a temporary prisoner-of-war camp housed in the Palace Hotel. Here he was weaned off dihydrocodeine (a mild morphine derivative)—he had been taking the equivalent of three or four grains (260 to 320 mg) of morphine a day—and was put on a strict diet; he lost . His IQ was tested while in custody and found to be 138. Top Nazi officials were transferred in September to Nuremberg, which was to be the location of a series of military tribunals beginning in November.
Göring was the second-highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg, behind Reich President (former Admiral) Karl Dönitz. The prosecution levelled an indictment of four charges, including a charge of conspiracy; waging a war of aggression; war crimes, including the plundering and removal to Germany of works of art and other property; and crimes against humanity, including the disappearance of political and other opponents under the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) decree; the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of war; and the murder and enslavement of civilians, including what was at the time estimated to be 5,700,000 Jews. Not permitted to present a lengthy statement, Göring declared himself to be "in the sense of the indictment not guilty". The trial lasted 218 days; the prosecution presented their case from November through March, and Göring's defencethe first to be presentedlasted from 8 to 22 March. The sentences were read out on 30 September 1946. Göring, forced to remain silent while seated in the dock, communicated his opinions about the proceedings using gestures, shaking his head, or laughing. He constantly took notes and whispered with the other defendants, and tried to control the erratic behaviour of Hess, who was seated beside him. During breaks in the proceedings, Göring tried to dominate the other defendants, and he was eventually placed in solitary confinement when he attempted to influence their testimony.
Captain Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking American intelligence officer and psychologist, interviewed Göring and the others in prison during the trial. Gilbert kept a journal, which he later published as Nuremberg Diary. Here he describes Göring on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess:
On several occasions over the course of the trial, the prosecution showed films of the concentration camps and other atrocities. Everyone present, including Göring, found the contents of the films shocking; he said that the films must have been faked. Witnesses, including Paul Koerner and Erhard Milch, tried to portray Göring as a peaceful moderate. Milch stated it had been impossible to oppose Hitler or disobey his orders; to do so would likely have meant death for oneself and one's family. When testifying on his own behalf, Göring emphasised his loyalty to Hitler, and claimed to know nothing about what had happened in the concentration camps, which were under Himmler's control. He gave evasive, convoluted answers to direct questions and had plausible excuses for all his actions during the war. He used the witness stand as a venue to expound at great length on his own role in the Reich, attempting to present himself as a peacemaker and diplomat before the outbreak of the war. During cross-examination, chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson read out the minutes of a meeting that had been held shortly after Kristallnacht, a major pogrom in November 1938. At the meeting, Göring had plotted to confiscate Jewish property in the wake of the pogrom. Later, David Maxwell-Fyfe proved it was impossible for Göring not to have known about the Stalag Luft III murdersthe shooting of fifty airmen who had been recaptured after escaping from Stalag Luft IIIin time to have prevented the killings. He also presented clear evidence that Göring knew about the extermination of the Hungarian Jews.
Göring was found guilty on all four counts and was sentenced to death by hanging. The judgment stated:
Göring made an appeal asking to be shot as a soldier instead of hanged as a common criminal, but the court refused. Defying the sentence imposed by his captors, he committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was to be hanged. One theory as to how Göring obtained the poison holds that U.S. Army Lieutenant Jack G. Wheelis, who was stationed at the Nuremberg Trials, retrieved the capsules from their hiding place among Göring's personal effects that had been confiscated by the Army and handed them over to the prisoner, after being bribed by Göring, who gave him his gold watch, pen, and cigarette case. In 2005, former U.S. Army Private Herbert Lee Stivers, who served in the 1st Infantry Division's 26th Infantry Regimentthe honour guard for the Nuremberg Trialsclaimed he gave Göring "medicine" hidden inside a fountain pen that a German woman had asked him to smuggle into the prison.
Göring's body, as those of the other executed men, was displayed at the execution ground for the witnesses of the executions. The bodies were cremated and the ashes were scattered in the Isar River.
Personal properties
The confiscation of Jewish property gave Göring the opportunity to amass a personal fortune. Some properties he seized himself or acquired for a nominal price. In other cases, he collected bribes for allowing others to steal Jewish property. He took kickbacks from industrialists for favourable decisions as Four Year Plan director, and money for supplying arms to the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War via Pyrkal in Greece (although Germany was supporting Franco and the Nationalists).
Göring was appointed Reich Master of the Hunt in 1933 and Master of the German Forests in 1934. He instituted reforms to the forestry laws and acted to protect endangered species. Around this time he became interested in Schorfheide Forest, where he set aside as a state park, which is still extant. There he built an elaborate hunting lodge, Carinhall, in memory of his first wife, Carin. By 1934, her body had been transported to the site and placed in a vault on the estate. The main lodge had a large art gallery where Göring displayed works that had been plundered from private collections and museums around Europe from 1939 onward. Göring worked closely with the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce), an organisation tasked with the looting of artwork and cultural material from Jewish collections, libraries, and museums throughout Europe. Headed by Alfred Rosenberg, the task force set up a collection centre and headquarters in Paris. Some 26,000 railroad cars full of art treasures, furniture, and other looted items were sent to Germany from France alone. Göring repeatedly visited the Paris headquarters to review the incoming stolen goods and to select items to be sent on a special train to Carinhall and his other homes. The estimated value of his collection—numbering some 1,500 pieces—was $200 million.
Göring was known for his extravagant tastes and garish clothing. He had various special uniforms made for the many posts he held; his Reichsmarschall uniform included a jewel-encrusted baton. Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the top Stuka pilot of the war, recalled twice meeting Göring dressed in outlandish costumes: first, a medieval hunting costume, practicing archery with his doctor; and second, dressed in a red toga fastened with a golden clasp, smoking an unusually large pipe. Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano once noted Göring wearing a fur coat that looked like what "a high grade prostitute wears to the opera". He threw lavish housewarming parties each time a round of construction was completed at Carinhall, and changed costumes several times throughout the evenings.
Göring was noted for his patronage of music, especially opera. He entertained frequently and sumptuously, and hosted elaborate birthday parties for himself. Armaments minister Albert Speer recalled that guests brought expensive gifts such as gold bars, Dutch cigars, and valuable artwork. For his birthday in 1944, Speer gave Göring an oversize marble bust of Hitler. As a member of the Prussian Council of State, Speer was required to donate a considerable portion of his salary towards the Council's birthday gift to Göring without even being asked. Field Marshal Erhard Milch told Speer that similar donations were required out of the Air Ministry's general fund. For his birthday in 1940, Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano decorated Göring with the coveted Collar of Annunziata. The award reduced him to tears.
The design of the Reichsmarschall standard, on a light blue field, featured a gold German eagle grasping a wreath surmounted by two batons overlaid with a swastika. The reverse side of the flag had the Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes ("Grand Cross of the Iron Cross") surrounded by a wreath between four Luftwaffe eagles. The flag was carried by a personal standard-bearer at all public occasions.
Though he liked to be called "der Eiserne" (the Iron Man), the once dashing and muscular fighter pilot had become corpulent. He was one of the few Nazi leaders who did not take offense at hearing jokes about himself, "no matter how rude", taking them as a sign of popularity. Germans joked about his ego, saying that he would wear an admiral's uniform to take a bath, and his obesity, joking that "he sits down on his stomach". One joke claimed that he had sent a wire to Hitler after his visit to the Vatican: "Mission accomplished. Pope unfrocked. Tiara and pontifical vestments are a perfect fit."
Complicity in the Holocaust
Goebbels and Himmler were far more antisemitic than Göring, who mainly adopted that attitude because party politics required him to do so. His own deputy, Erhard Milch, had a Jewish parent. But Göring supported the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and later initiated economic measures unfavourable to Jews. He required the registration of all Jewish property as part of the Four Year Plan, and at a meeting held after Kristallnacht was livid that the financial burden for the Jewish losses would have to be made good by German-owned insurance companies. He proposed that the Jews be fined one billion marks.
At the same meeting, options for the disposition of the Jews and their property were discussed. Jews would be segregated into ghettos or encouraged to emigrate, and their property would be seized in a programme of Aryanization. Compensation for seized property would be low, if any was given at all. Detailed minutes of this meeting and other documents were read out at the Nuremberg trial, proving his knowledge of and complicity with the persecution of the Jews. He told Gilbert that he would never have supported the anti-Jewish measures if he had known what was going to happen. "I only thought we would eliminate Jews from positions in big business and government," he claimed.
In July 1941, Göring issued a memo to Reinhard Heydrich ordering him to organise the practical details of a solution to the "Jewish Question". By the time that this letter was written, many Jews and others had already been killed in Poland, Russia, and elsewhere. At the Wannsee Conference, held six months later, Heydrich formally announced that genocide of the Jews of Europe was now official Reich policy. Göring did not attend the conference, but he was present at other meetings where the number of people killed was discussed.
Anti-Nazi support
Göring's younger brother Albert despised Nazism, and offered active resistance to the regime, including helping prisoners escape from concentration camps. He was arrested four times, but Hermann secured his release each time. Hermann's daughter Edda told The Guardian that Albert "could certainly help people in need himself financially and with his personal influence, but as soon as it was necessary to involve higher authority or officials, then he had to have the support of my father, which he did get."
Decorations and awards
German
Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for "the victories of the Luftwaffe in 1940 during the French campaign" (the only award of this decoration – 19 July 1940)
Golden Party Badge
Pour le Mérite (May 1918)
Knight of the House Order of Hohenzollern
Knight of the Military Karl-Friedrich Merit Order
Blood Order (Commemorative Medal of 9 November 1923)
Danzig Cross, 1st and 2nd class
Foreign
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)
Member First Class of the Order of Michael the Brave (Kingdom of Romania)
Knight of the Order of St Stephen (Kingdom of Hungary)
Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword (Kingdom of Sweden) (1939)
Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Kingdom of Italy) (1940)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Kingdom of Italy) (1940)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy (Kingdom of Italy) (1940)
See also
Aerial victory standards of World War I
Air warfare of World War II
Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring
Glossary of Nazi Germany
Glossary of German military terms
Göring's Green Folder
List of Nazi Party leaders and officials
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Bibliography
Online sources
Further reading
External links
Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 9 Transcript of Goering's testimony at the trial
"Lost Prison Interview with Hermann Goring: The Reichsmarschall's Revelations" published by World War II Magazine
Göring at Långbro asylum
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2016-01 | Days_of_Our_Lives-697673547 | Days_of_Our_Lives | Days of Our Lives
Days of Our Lives (also stylized as Days of our Lives; often abbreviated to DOOL or Days) is an American daytime soap opera broadcast on the NBC television network. It is one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world, airing nearly every weekday since November 8, 1965. It has since been syndicated to many countries around the world. It rebroadcast same-day episodes on SOAPnet weeknights at 8 and 10 p.m. (ET/PT) until the network's closure in 2013. Since August 24, 2015, Pop currently airs same-day episodes of the soap as part of their primetime lineup. The series was created by husband-and-wife team Ted Corday and Betty Corday. Irna Phillips was a story editor for Days of Our Lives and many of the show's earliest storylines were written by William J. Bell. In January 2014, the show was renewed through September 2016.
Due to the series' success, it was expanded from 30 minutes to 60 minutes on April 21, 1975. The series focuses on its core families, the Hortons and the Bradys. Several other families have been added to the cast, and many of them still appear on the show. Frances Reid, the matriarch of the series' Horton family remained with the show from its inception to her death on February 3, 2010. Suzanne Rogers celebrated 40 years on Days of Our Lives this year, appearing on the show more or less since her first appearance in 1973. Susan Seaforth Hayes is the only cast member to appear on Days of Our Lives in all five decades it has been on air.
Days of Our Lives aired its 10,000th episode on February 21, 2005, and its 12,000th episode aired on January 11, 2013. The soap was given the title of most daring drama in the seventies due to covering topics other soaps would not dare to do. The show's executive producer is Ken Corday, and co-executive producers are Greg Meng and Albert Alarr. Days of Our Lives is the most widely distributed soap opera in the United States.
The show has been parodied by SCTV (as "The Days of the Week") and the television sitcom Friends, with some cast members making crossover appearances on the show, including Kristian Alfonso, Roark Critchlow, Matthew Ashford, Kyle Lowder, and Alison Sweeney. The show has high-profile fans such as actress Julia Roberts, and the late Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
History
The Cordays and Bell combined the "hospital soap" idea with the tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital. Storylines in the show follow the lives of middle- and upper-class professionals in Salem, a middle-America town, with the usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical story lines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems. Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut."
Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia (in contrast to shows such as As the World Turns) and its portrayal of "real American contemporary families." By the 1970s, critics deemed Days of Our Lives to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as artificial insemination and interracial romance. The January 12, 1976 cover of Time magazine featured Days of Our Lives Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the only daytime actors ever to appear on its cover. The Hayeses themselves were a couple whose on-screen and real-life romance (they met on the series in 1970 and married in 1974) was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press.
In the 1990s, the show branched out into supernatural story lines, which critics immediately panned, as it was seen as a departure from more realistic storylines for which the show had originally become known. However, these storylines did have the desired effect, making Days of Our Lives the most-watched daytime soap among young and middle-aged women, also becoming one of NBC's five most profitable shows in any time slot. In 2006, when asked about his character, Jack Deveraux, "coming back from the dead"—for the third time—actor Matthew Ashford responded, "It is hard to play that because at a certain point it becomes too unreal...actors look at that and think, 'What is this — the Cartoon Network?"
In addition to receiving critical acclaim in print journalism, the series has won a number of awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Best Drama in 1978 and 2013 and a Writers Guild of America, East Award for Best Drama in 2000 and 2013. Days of Our lives actors have also won awards: Macdonald Carey (Dr. Tom Horton) won Best Actor in 1974 and 1975. Susan Flannery (Laura Horton) and Eileen Davidson (Kristen DiMera) won Best Actress in 1975 and 2014, respectively. Suzanne Rogers (Maggie Horton), Leann Hunley (Anna DiMera), and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won Best Supporting Actress for, respectively, 1979, 1986, and 2009 and Billy Warlock (Frankie Brady) won Best Younger Actor for 1988. In 2009, Darin Brooks (Max Brady) took home the Emmy for Best Younger Actor", and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won for Best Supporting Actress, the show's first acting victories in over 21 and 23 years, respectively
As with all other network programming, Days of Our Lives ratings have declined somewhat since the 1990s. In January 2007 it was suggested by NBC that the show "is unlikely to continue [on NBC] past 2009." In November 2008, in an eleventh-hour decision, it was announced the show had been renewed through September 2010. The 18-month renewal was down from its previous renewal, which was for five years. The show made somewhat of a comeback in 2009, with ratings increasing as the year progressed. In March 2010, the show was renewed once again through September 2011; then again on November 8, 2010, its 45th anniversary, the show was renewed for two more years through September 2013, with an option for an additional year which would keep the soap on through 2014, its 49th year on the air. The series received a two-year renewal in January 2014 that is set to last until September 2016. Beginning on November 8, 2010, which marked Days of Our Lives' 45th anniversary, the show began airing in high definition.
The show was officially "rebooted" on September 26, 2011, in an effort to gain back its lapsed audience, appeal to long-term loyal fans, begin new stories, and boost ratings. Former fan favorite characters were reintroduced as part of the reboot. These included Jack Deveraux (Matthew Ashford), Carrie Brady (Christie Clark), and Austin Reed (Patrick Muldoon). All three, including actress Sarah Brown, were fired from the show in an effort to lower production costs. The reboot was met with mixed reviews from critics. Head writers hired to handle the reboot, Marlene McPherson, and Darrell Ray Thomas Junior were subsequently fired due to declining ratings. Chris Whitesell, and former Days executive producer Gary Tomlin were rehired after being fired as part of the show's revamp. Daytime Emmy award winner Lorraine Broderick was hired as a member of the breakdown writing team in April 2012. Days of Our Lives is noted as the fourth longest running soap opera in the United States.
On November 30, 2014, NBC launched a new logo for Days of Our Lives at the 2014 Hollywood Christmas Parade, in celebration of the series' fiftieth anniversary
Storyline
When Days of Our Lives premiered in 1965, the show revolved around the tragedies and triumphs of the suburban Horton family. Over time, additional families were brought to the show to interact with the Hortons and serve as springboards for more dramatic storylines. Originally led by patriarch Dr. Tom Horton and his wife, homemaker Alice, the Hortons remain a prominent fixture in current continuity. One of the longest-running story lines involved the rape of Mickey Horton's wife Laura by Mickey's brother Bill. Laura confides in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agree that her husband Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael Horton (a product of the rape) and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. This plotline was made even more complex with the presence of Linda Patterson (originally Margaret Mason for many years, later Elaine Princi) who claimed that her daughter Melissa had been fathered by Mickey. When Mickey married the lovely Maggie Simmons (Suzanne Rogers), Linda became even more involved in the story line as the show's main villainess, marrying the wealthy Bob Anderson (Mark Tapscott) and taking over the running of Anderson Manufacturing when he became ill. The story line involving Mickey, Laura and Bill was the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen daytime ratings. Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie, proved to be very popular around the same time. The storyline culminated in the death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.
In the early 1980s, the Brady and DiMera families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as core families in Salem beside the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, action/adventure story lines and supercouples such as Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch and Kayla reinvigorated the show, previously focused primarily on the domestic troubles of the Hortons. Since the 1990s, with the introduction of writer James E. Reilly, Days of Our Lives has moved from traditional plots to some supernatural and science-fiction-themed stories, in conjunction with the rivalry of good vs. evil, in a Hatfield/McCoy feud style the Bradys versus the DiMeras. Under the tenure of Reilly, ratings rose to #2, and stayed there until he left in 1999 to start his own creation of Passions. Despite the introduction of new head writer Hogan Sheffer in 2006, ratings failed to revive, which led the show's producers to hire a few past fan favorites to stop the ratings hemorrhage.
Best-remembered stories
In addition to the love triangles of Bill/Laura/Mickey and Addie/Doug/Julie, other memorable storylines include the 1968 story of amnesiac Tom Horton, Jr., who returns from Korea believing he is someone else and then proceeds to romance his younger sister Marie; the 20-year tragic love triangle when John Black steals Marlena Brady from her husband Roman; the 1982 "Salem Strangler" (Jake Kositchek, who was nicknamed "Jake the Ripper") who stalks and murders women; the 1984 Gone with the Wind story line in which Hope Williams Brady and Bo Brady hide out on a Southern plantation and dress up as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (devised to keep viewers tuned in while rival network ABC's soaps were preempted due to the 1984 Summer Olympics); and "The Cruise of Deception" in 1990, when madman Ernesto Toscano invites all his enemies aboard a ship, the S.S. Loretta, and holds them captive.
In 1992, the show received a reboot with additions such as refurbished sets, the debut of the Brady Pub, the addition of new characters such as Vivian Alamain, Lisanne Gardner, Billie Reed, and Kate Roberts. Later that same year, Days of Our Lives introduced its highly popular teen scene with new characters such as a SORASed Sami Brady, played by Alison Sweeney, Carrie Brady, played by Tracy Middendorf, and then back to Christie Clark again, Austin Reed portrayed by Patrick Muldoon, Lucas Roberts played by Bryan Dattilo, Abe Carver's younger brother Jonah Carver, played by Thyme Lewis, Jamie Caldwell, played by Miriam Parish, and Wendy Reardon played by Tammy Townsend to appeal to younger viewers. However, by 1997, the characters of Jonah, Jamie, and Wendy had been written out or faded into the background, proving to be unsuccessful and the Carrie/Austin/Sami/Mike love triangle and the Will Horton paternity issue/custody battle storyline had now been taking most of the series' air time.
The shocking and ratings-grabbing 1993 plot when Vivian Alamain buried Dr. Carly Manning alive (the first controversial storyline from head writer Reilly); and the 1994–1995 story line in which the town's Christmas tree burns down and Marlena becomes possessed in Exorcist fashion.
Also from 1993 to 1998, the soap saw a lot of actress Eileen Davidson. Her character, Kristen DiMera suffers a miscarriage in secret, and in a panic to keep John Black away from Marlena, pretends to still be pregnant with John's child. Stefano hires a doppelganger, Susan Banks to conceive and bear a child for her (which resulted in the birth of EJ DiMera). Eileen Davidson portrayed the entire Banks family clan, four in total (including one male), as well as her main character.
2000 saw the departures of front-and-center cast members, Louise Sorel as Vivian Alamain and Jensen Ackles as Eric Brady. Ackles and the character of Eric had been one of the main focus of the series for the past three years prior, in which the void would be hard to fill. Ken Corday and NBC announced plans to re-introduced a SORAS Brady Black, immediately following the conclusion of Eric's storyline. That spring, Kyle Lowder was cast as the new Brady Black, whom would now be aged to his early 20's, first appearing on August
21, 2000, a month following Eric's exit. Lowder's Brady did prove to win over the majority of viewers, as his pairing with Chloe Lane proved highly popular. The pair married and left town in 2005 when Lowder's contract was not renewed.
2003–2004's "Melaswen", saw several characters purportedly die at the hands of a masked psychopath; they are later revealed to have been kidnapped to the secret island of Melaswen (New Salem spelled backwards). 2007's "Bradys and DiMeras: The Reveal", told the story regarding how the Brady/DiMera feud started.
Past characters returned in June 2010 to honor the passing of matriarch Alice Horton, whose character died on June 23, 2010. On June 23, 2011, Days of Our Lives introduced Sonny Kiriakis, the show's first contract gay character onto the canvas to be featured in the show's first gay story line. Freddie Smith (Sonny) said in an interview, "He’s very confident and mature, he’s traveled the world and is very open-minded. I’m very excited to portray him." Subsequent to Sonny's arrival, Will Horton investigates his own sexuality, and reveals himself to be gay. He later starts a romantic relationship with Sonny. They eventually marry.
On January 26, 2012, episode 11765 was a tribute to soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and previous wars with a PTSD therapy group for Jack Deveraux to talk over his time held captive there. This was also when the inline ''Next On'' promos were discontinued in favor of an external weekly promo.
Cast
When Days of Our Lives debuted the cast consisted of seven main characters (Tom Horton, Alice Horton, Mickey Horton, Marie Horton, Julie Olson, Tony Merritt, and Craig Merritt). When the show expanded to one hour in April 1975, the cast increased to 27 actors. By the 25th anniversary in 1990, 40 actors appeared on the show in contract or recurring roles, which is the approximate number of actors the show has used since then.
Original cast member Frances Reid, who played Alice Horton, remained on contract with Days of Our Lives until her death on February 3, 2010, though she last appeared on the show in December 2007. Original cast member John Clarke, who played Mickey Horton, left the series in 2004. Suzanne Rogers, who plays Maggie Horton has been on the show since 1973, and Susan Seaforth Hayes has played Julie Olson Williams since 1968 with a few breaks in between, and also her husband Bill Hayes, who has played Doug Williams since 1970, though neither Seaforth Hayes or Hayes is employed with the serial on contract.
In recent years, Days of Our Lives has hired back many former cast members. Twenty of the current contract cast members have been with the show, off-and-on, since at least 1999. Since 2005, cast members from the 1980s and 1990s, such as Christie Clark (Carrie Brady), Stephen Nichols (Steve Johnson), Austin Peck (Austin Reed), Mary Beth Evans (Kayla Brady), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera), and Thaao Penghlis (Tony DiMera) have been brought back to Days of Our Lives. More additions to the show include the returns of Crystal Chappell (Dr. Carly Manning), and Louise Sorel (Vivian Alamain). In June 2010, characters such as Jennifer Horton, Bill Horton, Shane Donovan, and Kimberly Brady returned for a short time and were featured heavily in a tribute to Alice Horton. Guest cast members have included Elizabeth Alley. In late 2012, the show reintroduced actress Eileen Davidson in the role of Kristen Blake DiMera after a fourteen-year absence. In mid 2013, the show debuted new characters such as JJ Deveraux and Theresa Donovan to appeal to younger viewers.
In celebration of the soap's fiftieth anniversary in 2015, several cast members returned to the soap, including Peter Reckell, Stephen Nichols and Penghlis.
Executive producing and head writing team
The co-creator and original executive producer, Ted Corday, was only at the helm for eight months before dying of cancer in 1966. His widow, Betty, was named executive producer upon his death. She continued in that role, with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin as supervising producers, before she semi-retired in 1985. When Mrs. Corday semi-retired in 1985, and later died in 1987, her son, Ken, became executive producer and took over the full-time, day-to-day running of the show, a title he still holds today. The series' current co-executive producers are Greg Meng and Lisa de Cazotte. In March 2015, it was reported that de Cazotte would no longer serve as a co-executive producer for the series. Albert Alarr was announced as de Cazotte's replacement as a co-executive producer.
The first long-term head writer, William J. Bell, started writing for Days of Our Lives in 1966 and continued until 1975, a few years after he had created his own successful soap, The Young and the Restless. He stayed with the show as a story line consultant until 1978. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many writing changes occurred. In the early 1980s, Margaret DePriest helped stabilize the show with her serial killer story line. Later head writers, such as Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, built on that stability and crafted story lines of their own, temporarily bringing up ratings. Many writing changes occurred after Laiman left the series in 1989 and would not become stable again until James E. Reilly started with the show in 1993. His tenure, which lasted for four-and-a-half years, was credited with bringing ratings up to the second place spot in the Nielsens. Other writers who succeeded him, such as Sally Sussman Morina and Tom Langan, failed to keep the ratings success, and another writer turnover continued until Reilly returned to the series in 2003.
Five-time Daytime Emmy winner Hogan Sheffer was named head writer with great fanfare in October 2006, but lasted less than 16 months with the show, with his last episode airing in January 2008. Former head writer Dena Higley's first episode aired on April 23, 2008. Her co-head writer was Christopher Whitesell until February 2011. On May 18, 2011, Dena Higley was fired. The new head writers were Marlene McPherson and Darrell Ray Thomas Jr.
In April 2012, it was confirmed that McPherson and Thomas Jr. were fired from their positions as co-head writers. Gary Tomlin and Christopher Whitesell were hired for the position. It was later confirmed that former All My Children headwriter Lorraine Broderick would join Tomlin and Whitesell as a breakdown writer on the series. In February 2015, Soap Opera Digest confirmed that both Tomlin and Whitesell had been ousted in their roles as head-writers; they further confirmed that former head writer Higley would return, alongside former The Young and the Restless head writer Josh Griffith. The change took effect on February 16, 2015.
In August 2015, reports stated that Higley would be taking a leave of absence from the show. In her place, Sony would be sending a writer from The Young and the Restless to help Griffith with the transition.
Days of Our Lives won the Daytime Emmy Award in June 2012 for Outstanding Drama Writing Team and also won the Daytime Emmy Award in June 2013 for Outstanding Drama Series.
Domestic broadcast
According to Variety, Days of Our Lives is the most widely distributed soap opera in the United States, with episodes not just broadcast via NBC, but also via cable (SOAPnet), and as of June 2007, episodes are offered via iTunes.
For the first three years on the air, Days of Our Lives was near the bottom of the Nielsen ratings, and close to cancellation. However, its ascent to the top was rapid; as the 1969 TV season ended, it became an effective tool of NBC, which attempted to dethrone daytime leader CBS. By 1973 the show, pitted against CBS' popular Guiding Light and ABC's The Newlywed Game at 2 p.m. (ET)/1 p.m. (CT), had matched the first-place ratings of As the World Turns and sister NBC soap Another World. Due to the success of the program, it expanded from a half hour to one hour on April 21, 1975. This expansion had followed the lead of Another World, which became TV's first-ever hour-long soap on January 6, three-and-a-half months earlier. Further, Days of Our Lives''' new starting time of 1:30 p.m./12:30 finally solved a scheduling problem that began in 1968 when NBC lost the game Let's Make a Deal to ABC, and in its wake, eight different shows were placed into the slot (Hidden Faces, You're Putting Me On, Life with Linkletter, Words & Music, Memory Game, Three on a Match, Jeopardy!, and How to Survive a Marriage).
However, this first golden period for NBC daytime proved to be short-lived, as Days of Our Lives ratings began to decline in 1977. Much of the decline was due to ABC's expansion of its increasingly popular soap All My Children to a full hour, the last half of which overlapped with the first half of Days of Our Lives By January 1979, the network, in a mode of desperation more than anything else, decided to jump headlong against AMC and moved the show ahead to the same 1:00 p.m./12 Noon time slot. In exchange to its affiliates for taking away the old half-hour access slot at 1:00/Noon, NBC gave them the 4 p.m./3 slot, which many (if not most) stations had been preempting for years anyway. By 1986, ABC and CBS followed suit, under the intense pressure of lucrative (and cheap) syndicated programming offered to affiliates.
By 1980, Days of Our Lives had displaced Another World as NBC's highest-rated soap. However, the entire NBC soap lineup was in ratings trouble. In fact, by 1982, all of its shows were rated above only one ABC soap (The Edge of Night) and below all four CBS soaps. The "supercouple" era of the 1980s, however, helped bring about a ratings revival, and the 1983–1984 season saw Days of Our Lives experience a surge in ratings. It held onto its strong numbers for most of the 1980s, only to decline again by 1990, eventually falling back into eighth place. In the mid-1990s, however, the show experienced a resurgence in popularity and the show reached number two in the ratings, where it remained for several years before experiencing another ratings decline beginning in 1999, the year that Days of Our Lives became NBC's longest-running daytime program (upon the cancellation of Another World). Throughout the 2000s (decade), Days of Our Lives and all the other remaining network daytime serials have witnessed a steady erosion of viewers, mainly due to vastly altered viewing habits induced by cable networks and alternative genres such as reality and talk shows on minor network affiliates.
On January 17, 2007, NBC Universal Television president Jeff Zucker remarked that Days of Our Lives would most likely not "continue past 2009." This contributed to an immediate ratings decline for Days of Our Lives. The show was averaging a 2.4 rating prior to the announcement, dropped to a 2.2 average household rating in the months after. In an April 2007 interview with Soap Opera Digest, executive producer Ken Corday commented on the ratings decline of the previous months, "If I don't pay attention to the ratings and what the viewers are saying, I'm an ostrich. I have not seen a decline in the ratings on the show this precipitous — ever. I've never seen this much of a percentage decline."Days of Our Lives had finished the 2008-2009 television season with substantial increases in viewers (3.0 million vs. 2.8 million) and has risen to the #3 spot behind The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, respectively. It was the #2 daytime program behind The Young and the Restless in the much coveted 18-49 demographic. During the first few months of the 2009-2010 season, Days of Our Lives increased its average household rating to 2.4, and averaged consistently over 3,000,000 viewers. It was only one point behind the #2 daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful, and has beat that soap on several days during the season. In 2010, Days of Our Lives continued to increase viewership, reaching as high as 3.6 million viewers on several days. A substantial increase in viewership such as Days of Our Lives has had lately also bucks the viewership trend in daytime dramas, which had declined since the 1990s for all other daytime drama series. Days of Our Lives was the only daytime drama series to increase in viewers between 2008 and 2010 and had reduced its operating budget, making it a profitable asset to NBC's broadcast line-up.
However starting in 2011, Days of Our Lives started to lose ground significantly to the point that it sometimes occupied the last position among all soaps for both total viewership and the 18-49 women demographic. The ending of All My Children on ABC combined with the return of several cast members allowed a brief resurgence of Days of Our Lives in October 2011, but ratings soon declined again. In December 2011, Days of Our Lives recorded three consecutive weeks of new lows in the 18-49 women key demo category., and again another consecutive three weeks of low ratings in the same demographic during March–April 2012
As of 2012, Days of Our Lives generally ranks #3 among the four daytime soap operas on the air when it comes to the total number of viewers (surpassing only General Hospital). However, Days of Our Lives is last among all soap operas for the numbers of viewers in the targeted demographic of women aged between 18 and 49 years old.
Local scheduling variations
Since January 1993 after the cancellation of Santa Barbara, WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh airs Days weekdays during its 3:00 p.m. time slot while some stations such as WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania air the program during the 2:00 p.m. timeslot, but most stations continue to air Days at its 1 p.m. time slot.
However, the program has received schedule and station shifts with the start of the 2013-14 television season. One NBC station, KSNV-DT in Las Vegas, stopped carrying the show on August 19, 2013 due to a long-term move to an all-news schedule outside of network news and primetime programming; the program moved to the market's CW affiliate KVCW, where it aired at its traditional 1:00 p.m. time slot until an ownership change saw the show return to KSNV in late December 2014 as part of a change in the all-news plans. With the cancellation of Passions, Days is now NBC's last remaining daytime soap opera, as well as the network's last remaining daytime program. Salt Lake City's KSL-TV moved the show to the late night 1:05 a.m. slot three weeks later on September 9 for unknown reasons, though a romantic plot line between two gay characters was theorized as a reason for the move; the station is owned by the broadcasting arm of the LDS Church.
Nielsen ratings history
End of season number of metered viewers (listed as a Nielsen share in millions) and ranking (against other soap operas) from the first broadcast to the reporting week of August 24 to August 28, 2015.
International broadcast
Americas
Throughout Canada, Days of Our Lives currently airs at 1:00 pm on Global Television Network. Episodes are aired in sync with the NBC broadcast to take advantage of simultaneous substitution regulations.
In Barbados the show is very popular, though it runs several years behind the U.S. (the series began in Barbados in 1980 from the very first episode), and is aired on the island's lone television broadcaster, CBC TV 8. Viewing time is 6 pm weekdays.
Belize's Tropical Vision Limited features Days of Our Lives as an afternoon staple. Currently it airs at 3:00 pm UTC-6 Central Time, though it previously aired as early as 1:00 pm or as late as 5:30 pm as a lead-in to the news.
Oceania
In Australia, Days of Our Lives was initially broadcast on the Nine Network from March 25, 1968 through until April 26, 2013, when the network axed the show based on a commercial decision. During its run on the Nine Network in the early 2000s, episodes ended up being nearly five years behind the United States, due to the network's coverage of cricket each summer. In an attempt to get viewers up to date with the US, Nine aired a one-hour special on September 13, 2004 titled, Days of Our Lives: A New Day, which summarized four years of storylines and caused mixed feelings among regular viewers. This special was followed by episodes airing at the same pace as the US. However, the show ended up being behind the US again, and by April 2013, episodes were airing at a delay of 16 months. On June 17, 2013, Days of Our Lives resumed to Australian viewers free and on-demand at Crackle.com, as well as across Crackle's web apps on mobile devices, connected TVs and game consoles. Crackle picked up where the Nine Network left off with 10 new episodes in its first week and seven new episodes every Monday thereafter. From January 20, 2014, Crackle began releasing five episodes each week.Days of Our Lives returned to Australian television on Foxtel's channel Arena in April 2014. It airs weekdays after The Young and the Restless at 12:50 pm AEST. In order to bring TV viewers up to date, Arena screened ten catch up episodes, each presented by Days of Our Lives cast members, from April 1 to April 14, 2014, featuring key story lines missed during the 11-month Australian television hiatus. Then on April 15, 2014, Arena began airing episodes at the same pace as the US. Arena also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday around 7:00 am AEST.
New Zealand has aired Days of Our Lives along with The Young and the Restless since 1975, debuting on Television New Zealand (TVNZ). Originally airing weekdays on TV2 was shifted to TV One in 2003, where it was put in a 2pm time slot. The soap was approximately five seasons behind the NBC season due to being preempted by holiday and sporting programming. During October 2009, TVNZ announced that they were ending their exclusive contract with Sony Pictures. Despite a national petition from fans Days of Our Lives ended on May 19, 2010. On February 27, 2013, nearly three years the series' final broadcast on TVNZ, ChoiceTV announced their decision to pick up the series; the series began broadcasting on March 11, 2013, weekdays at 1:30pm. Broadcasting began with the series' 46th season (2011–12), meaning the show would be only 18 months behind the current NBC season in the US. ChoiceTV also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday, beginning at 9 AM NZST, when due to government broadcasting restrictions are shown without advertisements. By December 20, 2013, ChoiceTV had removed the show from their schedule for summer hiatus. However, the series resumed airing on February 10, 2014 from episode 11,880. As of April 25, 2014, New Zealand viewers are up to episode 11,933, as ChoiceTV decides on if they will renew the show.
Europe
Channel 5 aired episodes of Days of our Lives in the United Kingdom from March 2000 to April 2001, eventually pulling it off the air; network executives deemed its audience of 200,000 viewers as too low a figure. Days had previously aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the Sky Soap channel between 1994 and 1999; episodes were three years behind U.S. telecasts. Days of Our Lives became available to viewers again in the United Kingdom in 2007 - to 2010; CBS Drama ended the run after relegating the show from daytime to 1.00am.
African/Eastern
In South Africa, the soap aired on SABC 1 for ten years, from 1996 until March 2006, weekdays at 17:10 to 18:00 local standard time. As of April 2005, the soap airs on SABC 3, each weekday from 17:00 to 17:50.
Opening title sequences and theme song
Almost unmodified since the show's debut in 1965, the title sequence of Days of Our Lives features an hourglass, with sand slowly trickling to the bottom against the backdrop of a partly cloudy sky, as well as the trademark voiceover, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." From the show's debut in 1965 until March 1966, announcer Ed Prentiss spoke the phrase, adding "Days of Our Lives, a new dramatic serial starring Macdonald Carey." Since April 1966, the voice has been that of Macdonald Carey, who played Dr. Thomas Horton from the show's premiere until the actor's 1994 death from lung cancer. From 1966 to 1994, he would add "This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives." After Carey's death in 1994, this second part was removed out of respect for Carey and his family.
The theme that regularly accompanies each sequence was composed by Charles Albertine, Tommy Boyce, and Bobby Hart. The theme has only been modified a few times since Days of Our Lives premiered: in 1972; in 1993, when the opening titles were changed to computerized visuals (designed by Wayne Fitzgerald and Judy Loren); in 2004, with an orchestral arrangement that was only used in eight episodes, after which time the theme was reverted to the 1993 arrangement; and in 2009, when the theme was edited for time and shortened. Beginning with the November 8, 2010 episode, there were slight changes to the coloring of the sky background in the sequence now being displayed in 16:9 widescreen. However, there was very little change in the sequence's appearance from the 1993 version.
Though Boyce and Hart were popular songwriters, the program's theme has never actually had any official lyrics written for it as of the middle of October 2015.
Parodies
SCTV had a recurring soap opera sketch called "Days of the Week" which featured Martin Short and Andrea Martin.Days of Our Lives was somewhat satirized (or perhaps merely referenced) on the hit NBC sitcom Friends when series regular Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) was cast as "Dr. Drake Ramoray" on the show, despite Joey living in New York when Days of Our Lives is shot in California. Subsequent episodes featured pseudo-Days of Our Lives storylines invented for the sitcom, and included some guest appearances by real-life cast members from the soap opera. Joey's stint on the show ended when he angered the show's writers; his character was killed after falling down an elevator shaft. Later, his character was brought back to life thanks to a brain transplant from the character Jessica Lockhart, played by Susan Sarandon. Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady) appeared on Friends as faux Days character "Jessica Ashley", Kristian Alfonso as Hope Brady, and Roark Critchlow as Mike Horton. In an episode in which Joey hosts a "soap opera party" on the roof, Matthew Ashford and Kyle Lowder make appearances as his co-stars. In the spin-off sitcom Joey, Joey is nominated for "best death scene" after his character is stabbed while performing surgery.
The show was also parodied as "Light of our Love", or "LOOL", in the Nancy Drew video game Stay Tuned for Danger.The Simpsons episode "Pygmoelion" features a fictional soap opera, "It Never Ends", based on Days of Our Lives.Days of our Mornings is a long-running radio parody, broadcast weekday mornings on 5FM in South Africa.The Fairly Oddparents episode "Add A Dad" features a parody name as "Dads of our Lives".House M.D. episode "Gut Check" features House hiring a kid who plays a fictional character of the fictionalized version of the show.Blue Collar TV featured a sketch as a parody of the show called "White Trash Days Of our Lives" with the opening epitaph slightly changed. "Like beer through a redneck, so are the white trash days of our lives."Gilmore Girls Just after Emily goes to walk after her and Richard's fight Lorelai says Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Gilmores of Our lives. This happened at season 2 in episode 10 (The Bracebridge Dinner).
Fans
The show has had many high-profile fans. In 1976, TIME magazine reported that then-Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, would call a recess around the 1 p.m. hour to watch Days of Our Lives. Actress Julia Roberts admitted at the 2002 People's Choice Awards that she was a fan of Days of Our Lives, asked to be seated near the cast, and upon winning her award stated, "I'm very nervous because the cast of Days of Our Lives is here." In 2004, during the show's Melaswen storyline, Roberts' interest was considered notable enough that Entertainment Weekly quoted her saying that "the show has gotten a little wacko." A 1998 TIME article mentioned that Monica Lewinsky was a passionate fan of Days of Our Lives, so much so that she wrote a poem about the series in her high school yearbook. The article compared her whirlwind experiences in the White House to a story on Days of Our Lives''. Best-selling novelist Brian Keene has stated in interviews that he has watched the show since 1983, and pauses from writing each day during the hour it is on.
Awards and nominations
See also
List of Days of Our Lives cast members
List of Days of Our Lives characters
Minor characters of Days of Our Lives
References
External links
Days of Our Lives - SoapCentral.com
Category:1965 American television series debuts
Category:1960s American television series
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Category:1980s American television series
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Category:American television soap operas
Category:American LGBT-related television programs
Category:Days of Our Lives
Category:Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series winners
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2016-01 | Shroud_of_Turin-697743062 | Shroud_of_Turin | Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud () is a length of linen cloth bearing the image of a man that is believed by some Christians to be the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. Radiocarbon dating has dated it to the Medieval period. The shroud is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy.
The shroud is respected by many Christians of several traditions, including Catholics and Protestants. The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud, but in 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. More recently, Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI have both described the Shroud of Turin as "an icon" and Pope John Paul II called the Shroud "a mirror of the Gospel".
The origins of the shroud and its images are the subject of intense debate among theologians, historians and researchers. Diverse arguments have been made in scientific and popular publications claiming to “prove” that the cloth is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus, based on disciplines ranging from chemistry to biology and medical forensics to optical image analysis. In 1988, a radiocarbon dating test dated the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390. Aspects of the 1988 test continue to be debated. Despite some technical concerns that have been raised about radiocarbon dating of the shroud, most experts assert that it is reliable.
The image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color, and this negative image was first observed in 1898 on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia, who was allowed to photograph it while it was being exhibited. A variety of methods have been proposed for the formation of the image, but the actual method used has not yet been conclusively identified. Despite numerous investigations and tests, the status of the Shroud of Turin remains murky, and the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remains puzzling. The shroud continues to be both intensely studied and controversial.
Description
The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 × 1.1 m (14.3 × 3.7 ft). The cloth is woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils. Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, brownish image of a front and back view of a naked man with his hands folded across his groin. The two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and point in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth.
The image of the "Man of the Shroud" has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He is muscular and tall (various experts have measured him as from 1.70 m, or roughly 5 ft 7 in, to 1.88 m, or 6 ft 2 in). Reddish brown stains are found on the cloth, showing various wounds that, according to proponents, correlate with the yellowish image, the pathophysiology of crucifixion, and the Biblical description of the death of Jesus.
Markings on the cloth have been interpreted as follows:
one wrist bears a large, round wound, apparently from piercing (the second wrist is hidden by the folding of the hands)
upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic cavity.
small punctures around the forehead and scalp
scores of linear wounds on the torso and legs.
swelling of the face
streams of blood down both arms
The details of the image on the shroud are not easily seen with the naked eye, but they can be more clearly revealed through photography. In May 1898 Italian photographer Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the shroud. He took the first photograph of the shroud on 28 May 1898. Pia was startled by the visible image of the negative plate, implying that the shroud is effectively a negative of some kind. Pia was at first accused of doctoring his photographs, but he was vindicated in 1931 when another photographer, Giuseppe Enrie, photographed the shroud and obtained results similar to Pia's. In 1978, ultraviolet photographs were taken of the shroud.
The shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532 in the chapel in Chambery, France. There are some burn holes and scorched areas down both sides of the linen, caused by contact with molten silver during the fire that burned through it in places while it was folded. Fourteen large triangular patches and eight smaller ones were sewn onto the cloth by Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage.
History
The historical records for the shroud can be separated into two time periods: before 1390 and from 1390 to the present. The period until 1390 is subject to debate among historians. Author Ian Wilson has proposed that the Shroud was the Image of Edessa, but scholars such as Averil Cameron have stated that the history of the Image of Edessa represents "very murky territory"; it cannot be traced back as a miraculous image, and it may not have even been a cloth.
Prior to 1390 there are some similar images such as the Pray Codex. However, what is claimed by some to be the image of a shroud on the Pray codex has crosses on one side, an interlocking step pyramid pattern on the other, and no image of Jesus. Critics point out that it may not be a shroud at all, but rather a rectangular tombstone, as seen on other sacred images. The text of the codex also fails to mention a miraculous image on the codex shroud.
It is often mentioned that the first certain historical record dates from 1353 or 1357. However the presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wrote a memorandum to Antipope Clement VII, stating that the shroud was a forgery and that the artist had confessed. Historical records seem to indicate that a shroud bearing an image of a crucified man existed in the small town of Lirey around the years 1353 to 1357 in the possession of a French Knight, Geoffroi de Charny, who died at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. However the correspondence of this shroud in Lirey with the shroud in Turin, and its very origin has been debated by scholars and lay authors, with statements of forgery attributed to artists born a century apart. Some contend that the Lirey shroud was the work of a confessed forger and murderer.
There are no definite historical records concerning the particular shroud currently at Turin Cathedral prior to the 14th century. A burial cloth, which some historians maintain was the Shroud, was owned by the Byzantine emperors but disappeared during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. Although there are numerous reports of Jesus' burial shroud, or an image of his head, of unknown origin, being venerated in various locations before the 14th century, there is no historical evidence that these refer to the shroud currently at Turin Cathedral.
The history of the shroud from the 15th century is well recorded. In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy. In 1578 the shroud was transferred to Turin. Since the 17th century the shroud has been displayed (e.g. in the chapel built for that purpose by Guarino Guarini) and in the 19th century it was first photographed during a public exhibition.
In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in a chapel of Chambéry, capital of the Savoy region, where it was stored. A drop of molten silver from the reliquary produced a symmetrically placed mark through the layers of the folded cloth. Poor Clare Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches. In 1578 Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy ordered the cloth to be brought from Chambéry to Turin and it has remained at Turin ever since.
Repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 by Sebastian Valfrè to improve the repairs of the Poor Clare nuns. Further repairs were made in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy. The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See.
A fire, possibly caused by arson, threatened the shroud on 11 April 1997. In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view. A faint part-image of the body was found on the back of the shroud in 2004.
The Shroud was placed back on public display (the 18th time in its history) in Turin from 10 April to 23 May 2010; and according to Church officials, more than 2 million visitors came to see it. Images of the shroud were broadcast on television on 30 March 2013.
The shroud was again placed on display in the cathedral in Turin in April 2015, and is due to be displayed until 24 June 2015. There is no charge to view it, but an appointment is required.
Conservation
The Shroud has undergone several
restorations and several steps have been taken to preserve it to avoid further damage and contamination. The shroud is kept under the laminated bulletproof glass of the airtight case. The temperature and humidity controlled-case is filled with argon (99.5%) and oxygen (0.5%) to prevent chemical changes. The Shroud itself is kept on an aluminum support sliding on runners and stored flat within the case.
Religious perspective
Religious beliefs about the burial cloths of Jesus have existed for centuries. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke state that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in a piece of linen cloth and placed it in a new tomb. The Gospel of John refers to strips of linen used by Joseph of Arimathea and states that Apostle Peter found multiple pieces of burial cloth after the tomb was found open, strips of linen cloth for the body and a separate cloth for the head. The Gospel of The Hebrews, a 2nd-century manuscript, states that Jesus gave the linen cloth to the servant of the priest.
Although pieces said to be of burial cloths of Jesus are held by at least four churches in France and three in Italy, none has gathered as much religious following as the Shroud of Turin. The religious beliefs and practices associated with the shroud predate historical and scientific discussions and have continued in the 21st century, although the Catholic Church has never passed judgment on its authenticity. An example is the Holy Face Medal bearing the image from the shroud, worn by some Catholics. Indeed, the Shroud of Turin is respected by Christians of several traditions, including Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Orthodox, Pentecostals, and Presbyterians.
John Calvin
In 1543 John Calvin, in his Treatise on Relics, wrote of the shroud, which was then at Nice (it was moved to Turin in 1578), "How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ's death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet?" In an interpretation of the Gospel of John Calvin concluded that strips of linen were used to cover the body (excluding the head) and a separate cloth to cover the head. He then stated that "either St. John is a liar," or else anyone who promotes such a shroud is "convicted of falsehood and deceit".
Devotions
Although the shroud image is currently associated with Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus, the devotions themselves predate Secondo Pia's 1898 photograph. Such devotions had been started in 1844 by the Carmelite nun Marie of St Peter (based on "pre-crucifixion" images associated with the Veil of Veronica) and promoted by Leo Dupont, also called the Apostle of the Holy Face. In 1851 Leo Dupont formed the "Archconfraternity of the Holy Face" in Tours, France, well before Secondo Pia took the photograph of the shroud.
Miraculous image
The religious concept of the miraculous acheiropoieton has a long history in Christianity, going back to at least the 6th century. Among the most prominent portable early acheiropoieta are the Image of Camuliana and the Mandylion or Image of Edessa, both painted icons of Christ held in the Byzantine Empire and now generally regarded as lost or destroyed, as is the Hodegetria image of the Virgin. Other early images in Italy, all heavily and unfortunately restored, that have been revered as acheiropoieta now have relatively little following, as attention has focused on the Shroud.
Without debating scientific issues, some believers state as a matter of faith that empirical analysis and scientific methods will perhaps never advance to a level sufficient for understanding the divine methods used for image formation on the shroud, since the body around whom the shroud was wrapped was not merely human, but divine, and believe that the image on the shroud was miraculously produced at the moment of Resurrection.
While most miraculous theories do not attempt to provide explanations, John Jackson (a member of STURP) has proposed that the image was formed by radiation methods beyond the understanding of current science, in particular via the "collapsing cloth" onto a body that was radiating energy at the moment of resurrection. However, STURP member Alan Adler has stated that Jackson's theory is not generally accepted as scientific, given that it runs counter to the known laws of physics.
In 1989 physicist Thomas Phillips speculated that the Shroud image was formed by neutron radiation due to a miraculous bodily resurrection.
Vatican position
Antipope Clement VII refrained from expressing his opinion on the shroud; however, subsequent popes from Julius II on took its authenticity for granted.
The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano covered the story of Secondo Pia's photograph of 28 May 1898 in its edition of 15 June 1898, but it did so with no comment and thereafter Church officials generally refrained from officially commenting on the photograph for almost half a century.
The first official association between the image on the Shroud and the Catholic Church was made in 1940 based on the formal request by Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli to the curia in Milan to obtain authorization to produce a medal with the image. The authorization was granted and the first medal with the image was offered to Pope Pius XII who approved the medal. The image was then used on what became known as the Holy Face Medal worn by many Catholics, initially as a means of protection during World War II. In 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, and declared its feast to be celebrated every year the day before Ash Wednesday. Following the approval by Pope Pius XII, Catholic devotions to the Holy Face of Jesus have been almost exclusively associated with the image on the shroud.
In 1983 the Shroud was given to the Holy See by the House of Savoy. However, as with all relics of this kind, the Roman Catholic Church made no pronouncements on its authenticity. As with other approved Catholic devotions, the matter has been left to the personal decision of the faithful, as long as the Church does not issue a future notification to the contrary. In the Church's view, whether the cloth is authentic or not has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of what Jesus taught or on the saving power of his death and resurrection.
Pope John Paul II stated in 1998 that: "Since it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce on these questions. She entrusts to scientists the task of continuing to investigate, so that satisfactory answers may be found to the questions connected with this Sheet". Pope John Paul II showed himself to be deeply moved by the image of the Shroud and arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000. In his address at the Turin Cathedral on Sunday 24 May 1998 (the occasion of the 100th year of Secondo Pia's 28 May 1898 photograph), he said: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin [...] The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age."
In 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI, wrote that the Shroud of Turin is "a truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing. In some inexplicable way, it appeared imprinted upon cloth and believed to show the true face of Christ, the crucified and risen Lord." In June 2008, three years after he assumed the papacy, Pope Benedict announced that the Shroud would be publicly displayed in the spring of 2010, and stated that he would like to go to Turin to see it along with other pilgrims. During his visit in Turin on Sunday 2 May 2010, Benedict described the Shroud of Turin as an "extraordinary Icon", the "Icon of Holy Saturday [...] corresponding in every way to what the Gospels tell us of Jesus", "an Icon written in blood, the blood of a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and whose right side was pierced". The pope said also that in the Turin Shroud "we see, as in a mirror, our suffering in the suffering of Christ". On 30 May 2010, Benedict XVI beatified Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli who coined the Holy Face Medal, based on Secondo Pia's photograph of the Shroud.
On 30 March 2013, as part of the Easter celebrations, there was an extraordinary exposition of the shroud in the Cathedral of Turin. Pope Francis recorded a video message for the occasion, in which he described the image on the shroud as "this Icon of a man", and stated that "the Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth." In his carefully worded statement Pope Francis urged the faithful to contemplate the shroud with awe, but "stopped firmly short of asserting its authenticity."
During his weekly general audience on 5 November 2014, Pope Francis announced he would go on a pilgrimage to Turin on 21 June 2015, to pray before, venerate the Holy Shroud and honor St.John Bosco on the bicentenary of his birth.
Scientific perspective
The term sindonology (from the Greek σινδών—sindon, the word used in the Gospel of Mark to describe the type of the burial cloth of Jesus) is used to refer to the formal study of the Shroud.
Secondo Pia's 1898 photographs of the shroud allowed the scientific community to begin to study it. A variety of scientific theories regarding the shroud have since been proposed, based on disciplines ranging from chemistry to biology and medical forensics to optical image analysis. The scientific approaches to the study of the Shroud fall into three groups: material analysis (both chemical and historical), biology and medical forensics and image analysis.
Early studies
The initial steps towards the scientific study of the shroud were taken soon after the first set of black and white photographs became available early in the 20th century. In 1902 Yves Delage, a French professor of comparative anatomy, published the first study on the subject. Delage declared the image anatomically flawless and argued that the features of rigor mortis, wounds, and blood flows were evidence that the image was formed by direct or indirect contact with a corpse. William Meacham mentions several other medical studies between 1936 and 1981 that agree with Delage. However, these were all indirect studies without access to the shroud itself.
The first direct examination of the shroud by a scientific team was undertaken in 1969–1973 in order to advise on preservation of the shroud and determine specific testing methods. This led to the appointment of an 11-member Turin Commission to advise on the preservation of the relic and on specific testing. Five of the commission members were scientists, and preliminary studies of samples of the fabric were conducted in 1973.
In 1976 physicist John P. Jackson, thermodynamicist Eric Jumper and photographer William Mottern used image analysis technologies developed in aerospace science for analyzing the images of the Shroud. In 1977 these three scientists and over thirty others formed the Shroud of Turin Research Project. In 1978 this group, often called STURP, was given direct access to the Shroud.
Material chemical analysis
Radiocarbon dating
After years of discussion, the Holy See permitted radiocarbon dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud. Independent tests in 1988 at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology concluded with 95% confidence that the shroud material dated to 1260–1390 AD. This 13th to 14th century dating is much too recent for the shroud to have been associated with Jesus of Nazareth. The dating does on the other hand match the first appearance of the shroud in church history.
This dating is also slightly more recent than that estimated by art historian W.S.A. Dale, who postulated on artistic grounds that the shroud is an 11th-century icon made for use in worship services.
Some believers in the authenticity of the shroud have attempted to discount the radiocarbon dating result by claiming that the sample may represent a medieval "invisible" repair fragment rather than the image-bearing cloth. It has been suggested, for example, that burnt residue, or other types of residues, might have skewed the radiocarbon date toward the present. While contamination remains a concern, many experts reject claims that the radiocarbon dating is unreliable.
Tests for pigments
In the 1970s a special eleven-member Turin Commission conducted several tests. Conventional and electron microscopic examination of the Shroud at that time revealed an absence of heterogeneous coloring material or pigment. In 1979, Walter McCrone, upon analyzing the samples he was given by STURP, concluded that the image is actually made up of billions of submicrometre pigment particles. The only fibrils that had been made available for testing of the stains were those that remained affixed to custom-designed adhesive tape applied to thirty-two different sections of the image.
Mark Anderson, who was working for McCrone, analyzed the Shroud samples. In his book Ray Rogers states that Anderson, who was McCrone's Raman microscopy expert, observed that the samples acted as organic material when he subjected them to the laser, but McCrone refused to accept the observation for he wanted the conclusion that the image was painted with hematite.
John Heller and Alan Adler examined the same samples and agreed with McCrone's result that the cloth contains iron oxide. However, they concluded, the exceptional purity of the chemical and comparisons with other ancient textiles showed that, while retting flax absorbs iron selectively, the iron itself was not the source of the image on the shroud. Other microscopic analysis of the fibers seems to indicate that the image is strictly limited to the carbohydrate layer, with no additional layer of pigment visible.
Material historical analysis
Historical fabrics
In 2000, fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st century were discovered in a tomb near Jerusalem, believed to have belonged to a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy. The shroud was composed of a simple two-way weave, unlike the complex herringbone twill of the Turin Shroud. Based on this discovery, the researchers stated that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.
According to textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of Hamburg, a seam in the cloth corresponds to a fabric found at the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, which dated to the 1st century. The weaving pattern, 3:1 twill, is consistent with first-century Syrian design, according to the appraisal of Gilbert Raes of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium. Flury-Lemberg stated: "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high-quality product of the textile workers of the first century."
In 1999, Mark Guscin investigated the relationship between the shroud and the Sudarium of Oviedo, believed to be the cloth that covered the head of Jesus in the Gospel of John and thereafter retrieved when Jesus' tomb was found to be empty. The Sudarium is reported to have type AB blood stains. Guscin concluded that the two cloths covered the same head at two distinct, but close moments of time. Avinoam Danin (see below) concurred with this analysis, adding that the pollen grains in the Sudarium match those of the shroud. Skeptics criticize the polarized image overlay technique of Guscin and suggest that pollen from Jerusalem could have followed any number of paths to find its way to the sudarium.
In 2002, Aldo Guerreschi and Michele Salcito argued that many of these marks on the fabric of the shroud stem from a much earlier time because the symmetries correspond more to the folding that would have been necessary to store the cloth in a clay jar (like cloth samples at Qumran) than to that necessary to store it in the reliquary that housed it in 1532.
Dirt particles
Joseph Kohlbeck from the Hercules Aerospace Company in Utah and Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute examined some dirt particles from the Shroud surface. The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone. Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of samples taken from the Shroud with samples of limestone from ancient Jerusalem tombs. The chemical signatures of the Shroud samples and the tomb limestone were found identical except for minute fragments of cellulose linen fiber that could not be separated from the Shroud samples.
Biological and medical forensics
Blood stains
There are several reddish stains on the shroud suggesting blood, but it is uncertain whether these stains were produced at the same time as the image, or afterwards. McCrone (see painting hypothesis) identified these as containing iron oxide, theorizing that its presence was likely due to simple pigment materials used in medieval times. Other researchers, including Alan Adler, identified the reddish stains as blood and interpreted the iron oxide as a natural residue of hemoglobin.
Heller and Adler further studied the dark red stains and identified hemoglobin, as well as the presence of porphyrin, bilirubin, albumin, and protein. Working independently, forensic pathologist Pier Luigi Baima Bollone concurred with Heller and Adler's findings and identified the blood as the AB blood group. Subsequently, STURP sent flecks from the shroud to the laboratory devoted to the study of ancient blood at the State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton. Dr. Andrew Merriwether at SUNY stated that it is almost certain that the flecks are blood, but that no definitive statements can be made about its nature or provenance, i.e., whether it is male or from the Near East. He also stated that no blood typing could be confirmed, as the DNA was badly fragmented. Studies indicate that the blood flows are consistent with those of a crucified man.
Joe Nickell argues that results similar to Heller and Adler's could be obtained from tempera paint. Skeptics also cite other forensic blood tests whose results dispute the authenticity of the Shroud that the blood could belong to a person handling the shroud, and that the apparent blood flows on the shroud are unrealistically neat.
Flowers and pollen
In 1997 Avinoam Danin, a botanist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reported that he had identified Chrysanthemum coronarium (now called Glebionis coronaria), Cistus creticus and Zygophyllum whose pressed image on the shroud was first noticed by Alan Whanger in 1985 on the photographs of the shroud taken in 1931. He reported that the outlines of the flowering plants would point to March or April and the environs of Jerusalem. In a separate report in 1978 Danin and Uri Baruch reported on the pollen grains on the cloth samples, stating that they were appropriate to the spring in Israel. Max Frei, a Swiss police criminologist who initially obtained pollen from the shroud during the STURP investigation stated that of the 58 different types of pollens found, 45 were from the Jerusalem area, while 6 were from the eastern Middle East, with one pollen species growing exclusively in İstanbul, and two found in Edessa, Turkey. Mark Antonacci argues that the pollen evidence and flower images are inherently interwoven and strengthen each other.
Skeptics have argued that the flower images are too faint for Danin's determination to be definite, that an independent review of the pollen strands showed that one strand out of the 26 provided contained significantly more pollen than the others, perhaps pointing to deliberate contamination. Skeptics also argue that Max Frei had previously been duped in his examination of the Hitler Diaries and that he may have also been duped in this case, or may have introduced the pollens himself. J. Beaulieau has stated that Frei was a self-taught amateur palynologist, was not properly trained, and that his sample was too small.
In 2008 Avinoam Danin reported analysis based on the ultraviolet photographs of Miller and Pellicori taken in 1978. Danin reported five new species of flower, which also bloom in March and April and stated that a comparison of the 1931 black and white photographs and the 1978 ultraviolet images indicate that the flower images are genuine and not the artifact of a specific method of photography.
A more recent study by Lorusso et al. subjected two photographs of the shroud to detailed modern digital image processing, one of them being a reproduction of the photographic negative taken by Giuseppe Enrie in 1931. They did not find any images of flowers or coins or anything else on either image, they noted that the faint images identified by the Whangers were "only visible by incrementing the photographic contrast", and they concluded that these signs may be linked to protuberances in the yarn, and possibly also to the alteration and influence of the texture of the Enrie photographic negative during its development in 1931.
An article published in Nature in 2015 examined the human and non-human DNA found when the shroud and its backing cloth were vacuumed in 1977 and 1988. They found traces of 19 different plant taxa, including plants native to Mediterranean countries, Central Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Asia (China) and the Americas. Of the human mtDNA, sequences were found belonging to haplogroups that are typical of various ethnicities and geographic regions, including Europe, North and East Africa, the Middle East and India. A few non-plant and non-human sequences were also detected, including various birds and one ascribable to a marine worm common in the Northern Pacific Ocean, next to Canada.
Anatomical forensics
A number of studies on the anatomical consistency of the image on the shroud and the nature of the wounds on it have been performed, following the initial study by Yves Delage in 1902. While Delage declared the image anatomically flawless, others have presented arguments to support both authenticity and forgery.
In 1950 physician Pierre Barbet wrote a long study called A Doctor at Calvary which was later published as a book. Barbet stated that his experience as a battlefield surgeon during World War I led him to conclude that the image on the shroud was authentic, anatomically correct and consistent with crucifixion.
In 1997 physician and forensic pathologist Robert Bucklin constructed a scenario of how a systematic autopsy on the man of the shroud would have been conducted. He noted the series of traumatic injuries which extend from the shoulder areas to the lower portion of the back, which he considered consistent with whipping; and marks on the right shoulder blade which he concluded were signs of carrying a heavy object. Bucklin concluded that the image was of a real person, subject to crucifixion.
For over a decade, medical examiner Frederick Zugibe performed a number of studies using himself and volunteers suspended from a cross, and presented his conclusions in a book in 1998. Zugibe considered the shroud image and its proportions as authentic, but disagreed with Barbet and Bucklin on various details such as blood flow. Zugibe concluded that the image on the shroud is of the body of a man, but that the body had been washed.
In 2001, Pierluigi Baima Bollone, a professor of forensic medicine in Turin, stated that the forensic examination of the wounds and bloodstains on the Shroud indicate that the image was that of the dead body of a man who was whipped, wounded around the head by a pointed instrument and nailed at the extremities before dying.
In 2010 Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical measurements, wrote that "apart from the hands afterward placed on the pubic area, the front and back images are compatible with the Shroud being used to wrap the body of a man 175±2 cm (5 ft 9 in ± 1 in) tall, which, due to cadaveric rigidity, remained in the same position it would have assumed during crucifixion".
Artist Isabel Piczek stated in 1995 that while a general research opinion sees a flatly reclining body on the Shroud, the professional figurative artist can see substantial differences from a flatly reclining position. She stated that the professional arts cannot find discrepancies and distortions in the anatomy of the "Shroud Man".
Nickell, in 1983, and Gregory S. Paul in 2010, separately state that the proportions of the image are not realistic. Paul stated that the face and proportions of the shroud image are impossible, that the figure cannot represent that of an actual person and that the posture was inconsistent. They argued that the forehead on the shroud is too small; and that the arms are too long and of different lengths and that the distance from the eyebrows to the top of the head is non-representative. They concluded that the features can be explained if the shroud is a work of a Gothic artist.
Image and text analysis
Image analysis
Both digital image processing and analog techniques have been applied to the shroud images.
In 1976 Pete Schumacher, John Jackson and Eric Jumper analysed a photograph of the shroud image using a VP8 Image Analyzer, which was developed for NASA to create brightness maps of the moon. A brightness map (isometric display) interprets differences of brightness within an image as differences of elevation – brighter patches are seen as being closer to the camera, and darker patches further away. Our minds interpret these gradients as a "pseudo-three-dimensional image". They found that, unlike any photograph they had analyzed, the shroud image has the property of decoding into a 3-dimensional image, when the darker parts of the image are interpreted to be those features of the man that were closest to the shroud and the lighter areas of the image those features that were farthest. The researchers could not replicate the effect when they attempted to transfer similar images using techniques of block print, engravings, a hot statue, and bas-relief.
However optical physicist and former STURP member John Dee German has since noted that it is not difficult to make a photograph which has 3D qualities. If the object being photographed is lighted from the front, and a non-reflective "fog" of some sort exists between the camera and the object, then less light will reach and reflect back from the portions of the object that are farther from the lens, thus creating a contrast which is dependent on distance.
Researchers Jackson, Jumper, and Stephenson report detecting the impressions of coins placed on both eyes after a digital study in 1978. They saw a two-lepton coin on the right eyelid dating from 29-30, and a one-lepton coin on the left eyebrow minted in 29. The existence of the coin images is rejected by most scientists.
In 2004, in an article in Journal of Optics A, Fanti and Maggiolo reported finding a faint second face on the backside of the cloth, after the 2002 restoration.
The front image of the Turin Shroud, 1.95 m long, is not directly compatible with the back image, 2.02 m long.
Text of death certificate
In 1979 Greek and Latin letters were reported as written near the face. These were further studied by André Marion, professor at the École supérieure d'optique and his student Anne Laure Courage, in 1997. Subsequently, after performing computerized analysis and microdensitometer studies, they reported finding additional inscriptions, among them INNECEM (a shortened form of Latin "in necem ibis"—"you will go to death"), NNAZAPE(N)NUS (Nazarene), IHSOY (Jesus) and IC (Iesus Chrestus). The uncertain letters IBE(R?) have been conjectured as "Tiberius". Linguist Mark Guscin disputed the reports of Marion and Courage. He stated that the inscriptions made little grammatical or historical sense and that they did not appear on the slides that Marion and Courage indicated.
In 2009, Barbara Frale, a paleographer in the Vatican Secret Archives, who had published two books on the Shroud of Turin reported further analysis of the text. In her books Frale had stated that the shroud had been kept by the Templars after 1204. In 2009 Frale stated that it is possible to read on the image the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth, imprinted in fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing.
Frale stated the text on the Shroud reads: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year." and in a book. Silver bromide is believed by some to have been used for making the Shroud of Turin as it is widely used in photographic films.
Lynn Picknett has written a book proposing that Leonardo da Vinci had faked the Shroud. Picknett and Larissa Tracy appeared on a Channel 5 (UK) TV program that announced that the Shroud was the oldest known surviving photograph. The program theorized that da Vinci used a real corpse, obtained an old-looking piece of linen, treated it with photo-sensitive chemicals and then exposed it in an early form of camera obscura to create the image. However John Jackson, director of the Turin Shroud Centre of Colorado dismissed these hypotheses. Jackson et al. have argued that a double photographic exposure, needed in that case, should have considered the distances and in this case there would be areas of photographic superimposition with different lights and shades. The distances on Shroud instead correspond to the body position.
Dust-transfer technique
Scientists Emily Craig and Randall Bresee have attempted to recreate the likenesses of the shroud through the dust-transfer technique, which could have been done by medieval arts. They first did a carbon-dust drawing of a Jesus-like face (using collagen dust) on a newsprint made from wood pulp (which is similar to 13th and 14th-century paper). They next placed the drawing on a table and covered it with a piece of linen. They then pressed the linen against the newsprint by firmly rubbing with the flat side of a wooden spoon. By doing this they managed to create a reddish brown image with a lifelike positive likeness of a person, a three dimensional image and no sign of brush strokes. However, according to Fanti and Moroni, this does not reproduce many special features of the Shroud at microscopic level.
Bas-relief
Another hypothesis suggests that the Shroud may have been formed using a bas-relief sculpture. Researcher Jacques di Costanzo, noting that the Shroud image seems to have a three-dimensional quality, suggested that perhaps the image was formed using an actual three-dimensional object, such as a sculpture. While wrapping a cloth around a life-sized statue would result in a distorted image, placing a cloth over a bas-relief would result in an image like the one seen on the shroud. To demonstrate the plausibility of his hypothesis, Costanzo constructed a bas-relief of a Jesus-like face and draped wet linen over the bas-relief. After the linen dried, he dabbed it with a mixture of ferric oxide and gelatine. The result was an image similar to that of the Shroud. The imprinted image turned out to be wash-resistant, impervious to temperatures of and was undamaged by exposure to a range of harsh chemicals, including bisulphite which, without the help of the gelatine, would normally have degraded ferric oxide to the compound ferrous oxide. Similar results have been obtained by Nickell.
Instead of painting, it has been suggested that the bas-relief could also be heated and used to scorch an image onto the cloth. However researcher Thibault Heimburger performed some experiments with the scorching of linen, and found that a scorch mark is only produced by direct contact with the hot object – thus producing an all-or-nothing discoloration with no graduation of color as is found in the shroud.
According to Fanti and Moroni, after comparing the histograms of 256 different grey levels, it was found that the image obtained with a bas-relief has grey values included between 60 and 256 levels, but it is much contrasted with wide areas of white saturation (levels included between 245 and 256) and lacks of intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200). The face image on the Shroud instead has grey tonalities that vary in the same values field (between 60 and 256), but the white saturation is much less marked and the histogram is practically flat in correspondence of the intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200).
Maillard reaction
The Maillard reaction is a form of non-enzymatic browning involving an amino acid and a reducing sugar. The cellulose fibers of the shroud are coated with a thin carbohydrate layer of starch fractions, various sugars, and other impurities. In a paper entitled "The Shroud of Turin: an amino-carbonyl reaction may explain the image formation," Raymond Rogers and Anna Arnoldi propose that amines from a recently deceased human body may have undergone Maillard reactions with this carbohydrate layer within a reasonable period of time, before liquid decomposition products stained or damaged the cloth. The gases produced by a dead body are extremely reactive chemically and within a few hours, in an environment such as a tomb, a body starts to produce heavier amines in its tissues such as putrescine and cadaverine. However the potential source for amines required for the reaction is a decomposing body, and no signs of decomposition have been found on the Shroud. Rogers also notes that their tests revealed that there were no proteins or bodily fluids on the image areas. Also, the image resolution and the uniform coloration of the linen resolution seem to be incompatible with a mechanism involving diffusion.
Alan A. Mills argued that the image was formed by the chemical reaction auto-oxidation. He noted that the image corresponds to what would have been produced by a volatile chemical if the intensity of the color change were inversely proportional to the distance from the body of a loosely draped cloth.
Energy source
Since 1930 several researchers (J. Jackson, G. Fanti, T. Trenn, T. Phillips, J.-B. Rinaudo and others) endorsed the flash-like irradiation hypothesis. It was suggested that the relatively high definition of the image details can be obtained through the energy source (specifically, protonic) acting from inside. The Russian researcher Alexander Belyakov proposed an intense, but short flashlight source, which lasted some hundredths of a second. Some other authors suggest the X-radiation or a burst of directional ultraviolet radiation may have played a role in the formation of the Shroud image. From the image characteristics, several researchers have theorized that the radiant source was prevalently vertical. These theories do not include the scientific discussion of a method by which the energy could have been produced.
Raymond Rogers criticized the theory, saying: "It is clear that a corona discharge (plasma) in air will cause easily observable changes in a linen sample. No such effects can be observed in image fibers from the Shroud of Turin. Corona
discharges and/or plasmas made no contribution to image formation."
Corona discharge
During restoration in 2002, the back of the cloth was photographed and scanned for the first time. An article on this subject by Giulio Fanti and others envisages the electrostatic corona discharge as the probable mechanism to produce the images of the body in the Shroud. Congruent with that mechanism, they also describe an image on the reverse side of the fabric, much fainter than that on the front view of the body, consisting primarily of the face and perhaps hands. As with the front picture, it is entirely superficial, with coloration limited to the carbohydrate layer. The images correspond to, and are in registration with, those on the other side of the cloth. No image is detectable in the reverse side of the dorsal view of the body.
In December 2011 Giulio Fanti, a scientist at the University of Padua, published a critical compendium of the major hypotheses regarding the formation of the body image on the shroud. Fanti stated that "none of them can completely explain the mysterious image". Fanti then considered corona discharge as the most probable hypothesis regarding the formation of the body image. He stated that it would be impossible to reproduce all the characteristics of the image in a laboratory because the energy source required would be too high. Fanti has restated the radiation theories in a 2013 book.
Raymond Rogers criticized the theory, saying: "It is clear that a corona discharge (plasma) in air will cause easily observable changes in a linen sample. No such effects can be observed in image fibers from the Shroud of Turin. Corona discharges and/or plasmas made no contribution to image formation."[210][211]
Ultraviolet radiation
In December 2011 scientists at Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development ENEA deduced from the STURP results that the color of the Shroud image is the result of an accelerated aging process of the linen, similar to the yellowing of the paper of ancient books. They demonstrated that the photochemical reactions caused by exposing linen to ultraviolet light could reproduce the main characteristics of the Shroud image, such as the shallowness of the coloration and the gradient of the color, which are not reproducible by other means. When subsequently illuminated with a UV lamp, the irradiated linen fabrics behaved like the linen of the Shroud. They also determined that UV radiation changes the crystalline structure of cellulose in a similar manner as aging and long-duration background radiation.
Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro, the lead researcher, indicated in an e-mail interview that '….it appears unlikely a forger may have done this image with technologies available in the Middle Ages or earlier', but their study does not mean the Shroud image was created by the flash of a miraculous resurrection, contrary to how the story was presented in the media, especially on the Web. Professional skeptic Joe Nickell states that the latest findings are nothing new despite being 'dressed up in high-tech tests', and that they don't prove much of anything.
Recent developments
In November 2011, F. Curciarello et al. published a paper that analyzed the abrupt changes in the yellowed fibril density values on the Shroud image. They concluded that the rapid changes in the body image intensity are not anomalies in the manufacturing process of the linen but that they can be explained with the presence of aromas or burial ointments. However, their work leaves the existence of an energy source for the image an open question.
On Holy Saturday (30 March) 2013, images of the shroud were streamed on various websites as well as on television for the first time in 40 years. Roberto Gottardo of the diocese of Turin stated that for the first time ever they had released high definition images of the shroud that can be used on tablet computers and can be magnified to show details not visible to the naked eye. As this rare exposition took place, Pope Francis issued a carefully worded statement which urged the faithful to contemplate the shroud with awe but, like his predecessors, he "stopped firmly short of asserting its authenticity".
In 2013, three articles were published that seem to support the hypothesis that the Turin shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. One followed a "Minimal Facts approach" to determine which hypothesis relating to the image formation process "is the most likely". Another analysed the wounds seemingly evident on the image in the shroud and compared them to the wounds which the gospels state were inflicted on Jesus. A regression analysis by Riani et al. concluded that “for whatever reasons, the structure of the TS is more complicated than that of the three fabrics with which it was compared”.
In 2013, Giulio Fanti performed new dating studies on fragments obtained from the shroud. He performed three different tests including spectroscopy (absorption of light of different colours). The date range from these tests date the shroud between 300 BC and 400 AD. These studies have been publicly disregarded by Mgr. Cesare Nosiglia, archbishop of Turin and custodian of the shroud. Cardinal Nosiglia stated that "as it is not possible to be certain that the analysed material was taken from the fabric of the shroud no serious value can be recognized to the results of such experiments".
In 2015, Italian researchers published a new study in Scientific Reports. After sequencing some DNA of pollen and dust found on the shroud, they confirmed that many people from many different places came in contact with the shroud. According to the scientists, "such diversity does not exclude a Medieval origin in Europe but it would be also compatible with the historic path followed by the Turin Shroud during its presumed journey from the Near East. Furthermore, the results raise the possibility of an Indian manufacture of the linen cloth."
See also
Acheiropoieta
Altar cloth
Depiction of Jesus
Manoppello Image
Relics associated with Jesus
Sudarium of Oviedo
Veil of Veronica
References
Further reading
Wilson, Ian : The Turin Shroud: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?, Galilee Trade; Revised edition, 1979, ISBN 0-385-15042-3
Picknett, Lynn and Prince, Clive: The Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?, Harper-Collins, 1994 ISBN 0-552-14782-6.
Nickell, Joe : Inquest on the Shroud of Turin: Latest Scientific Findings, Prometheus Books; Subsequent edition, 1998, ISBN 1-57392-272-2.
McCrone, Walter : Judgment Day for The Turin Shroud, Prometheus Books, 1999, ISBN 1-57392-679-5
Antonacci, Mark : The Resurrection of the Shroud, M. Evans & Co., New York 2000, ISBN 0-87131-890-3
Zugibe, Frederick : The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry – (2005), 2nd edition, ISBN 1-59077-070-6
Whiting, Brendan, The Shroud Story, Harbour Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-646-45725-X
Rogers, Raymond N., A Chemist's Perspective on the Shroud of Turin, Joan Rogers and Barrie Schwortz, 2008, ISBN 978-0-615-23928-6
Wilson, Ian : The Shroud : the 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved, Bantam Press, 2010, ISBN 0-593-06359-7
Di Lazzaro, Paolo (ed.) : Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Scientific Approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, ENEA, 2010, ISBN 978-88-8286-232-9.
O'Shea, Jim "The Linen God - A Novel" 2013 ISBN 978-1938679063
Olmi, Massimo, Indagine sulla croce di Cristo, Torino 2015 ISBN 978-88-6737-040-5
External links
Oldest Shroud site with more information than any other site of its kind
Official site of the custodians of the Shroud in Turin
Shroud blog and discussion forum used by many Shroud researchers both pro & con
An Autopsy on the Man of the Shroud
"The Shroud of Turin: Genuine Artifact or Manufactured Relic? - Jack Kilmon
"Science And The Shroud", Time Magazine, April 20, 1998
Online Length Measurements on Shroud Photographs
Shroud Exhibit & Museum (SEAM) site linked to the Alamogordo, NM museum by Pete Schumacher, VP8 Image Analyzer expert
Shroud University with a plethora of videos and other Shroud information by Russ Breault
The Skeptical Shroud of Turin Website
Shroud Scope, a unique tool to analyze the Shroud by Mario Latendresse
DMOZ list of content-rich Shroud websites
Category:Visitor attractions in Turin
Category:Culture in Turin
Category:Forgery controversies
Category:Fringe theories |
2016-01 | The_Chronicles_of_Narnia-696123161 | The_Chronicles_of_Narnia | The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven high fantasy novels by author C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages. Written by Lewis between 1949 and 1954, illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published in London between October 1950 and September 1956, The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, the stage, and film.
Set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals, the series narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of that world. Except in The Horse and His Boy, the protagonists are all children from the real world, magically transported to Narnia, where they are called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil and restore the throne to its rightful line. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician's Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle.
Inspiration for the series is taken from multiple sources; in addition to adapting numerous traditional Christian themes, the books freely borrow characters and ideas from Greek and Roman mythology as well as from traditional British and Irish fairy tales. The books have profoundly influenced adult and children's fantasy literature since World War II. Lewis's exploration of themes not usually present in children's literature, such as religion, as well as the books' perceived treatment of issues including race and gender, has caused some controversy.
Background and conception
Although Lewis originally conceived what would become The Chronicles of Narnia in 1939, he did not finish writing the first book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe until 1949. The Magician's Nephew, the penultimate book to be published, but the last to be written, was completed in 1954. Lewis did not write the books in the order in which they were originally published, nor were they published in their current chronological order of presentation. The original illustrator, Pauline Baynes, created pen and ink drawings for the Narnia books that are still used in the editions published today. Lewis was awarded the 1956 Carnegie Medal for The Last Battle, the final book in the saga. Fellow children's author Roger Lancelyn Green first referred to the series as The Chronicles of Narnia, in March 1951, after he had read and discussed with Lewis his recently completed fourth book The Silver Chair, originally entitled Night under Narnia.
Lewis described the origin of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in an essay entitled "It All Began with a Picture":
The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.'
Shortly before the start of World War II, many children were evacuated to the English countryside in anticipation of attacks on London and other major urban areas by Nazi Germany. As a result, on 2 September 1939, three school girls, Margaret, Mary and Katherine, came to live at The Kilns in Risinghurst, Lewis' home three miles east of Oxford city centre. Lewis later suggested that the experience gave him a new appreciation of children and in late September he began a children's story on an odd sheet of paper which has survived as part of another manuscript:
This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter. But it is most about Peter who was the youngest. They all had to go away from London suddenly because of Air Raids, and because Father, who was in the Army, had gone off to the War and Mother was doing some kind of war work. They were sent to stay with a kind of relation of Mother's who was a very old professor who lived all by himself in the country.
In "It All Began With a Picture" C. S. Lewis continues:
At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it. I think I had been having a good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don't know where the Lion came from or why he came. But once he was there, he pulled the whole story together, and soon he pulled the six other Narnian stories in after him.
The manuscript for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was complete by the end of March 1949.
Name
The name Narnia is based on Narni, Italy, written in Latin as Narnia. Lancelyn Green wrote: When Walter Hooper asked [C. S. Lewis] where he found the word 'Narnia', Lewis showed him Murray's Small Classical Atlas, ed. G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when he was reading the classics with Mr Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham [1914–1917]. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy. Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia — or 'Narni' in Italian — is in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Assisi.
Publication history
The Chronicles of Narnia's seven books have been in continuous publication since 1956, selling over 100 million copies in 47 languages and with editions in Braille.
The first five books were originally published in the United Kingdom by Geoffrey Bles. The first edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was released in London on 16 October 1950. Although three more books, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Horse and His Boy, were already complete, they were not released immediately at that time, but appeared (along with The Silver Chair) one at a time in each of the subsequent years (1951–1954). The last two books (The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle) were published in the United Kingdom originally by The Bodley Head in 1955 and 1956.
In the United States, the publication rights were first owned by Macmillan Publishers, and later by HarperCollins. The two issued both hardcover and paperback editions of the series during their tenure as publishers, while at the same time Scholastic, Inc. produced paperback versions for sale primarily through direct mail order, book clubs, and book fairs. Harper Collins also published several one-volume collected editions containing the full text of the series. As noted below (see Reading Order), the first American publisher, Macmillan, numbered the books in publication sequence, but when Harper Collins won the rights in 1994, at the suggestion of Lewis' stepson they used the series' internal chronological order. Scholastic switched the numbering of its paperback editions in 1994 to mirror that of Harper Collins.
Books
The seven books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia are presented here in order of original publication date:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, completed by the end of March 1949 and published by Geoffrey Bles in the United Kingdom on 16 October 1950, tells the story of four ordinary children: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, who have been evacuated to the English countryside from London in 1940 following the outbreak of World War II. They discover a wardrobe in Professor Digory Kirke's house that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The Pevensie children help Aslan, a talking lion, save Narnia from the evil White Witch, who has reigned over the land of Narnia for a century of perpetual winter with no Christmas. The children become kings and queens of this new-found land and establish the Golden Age of Narnia, leaving a legacy to be rediscovered in later books.
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
Completed after Christmas 1949 and published on 15 October 1951, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia tells the story of the Pevensie children's second trip to Narnia. They are drawn back by the power of Susan's horn, blown by Prince Caspian to summon help in his hour of need. Narnia, as they knew it, is no more, as more than 1,000 years have passed and their castle is in ruins, while all Narnians have retreated so far within themselves that only Aslan's magic can wake them. Caspian has fled into the woods to escape his uncle, Miraz, who has usurped the throne. The children set out once again to save Narnia.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
Written between January and February 1950 and published on 15 September 1952, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sees Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their priggish cousin, Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia. Once there, they join Caspian's voyage on the ship Dawn Treader to find the seven lords who were banished when Miraz took over the throne. This perilous journey brings them face to face with many wonders and dangers as they sail toward Aslan's country at the edge of the world.
The Silver Chair (1953)
Completed at the beginning of March 1951 and published 7 September 1953, The Silver Chair is the first Narnia book without any of the Pevensie children. Instead, Aslan calls Eustace back to Narnia together with his classmate Jill Pole. There they are given four signs to aid them in the search for Prince Rilian, Caspian's son, who disappeared after setting out ten years earlier to avenge his mother's death. Fifty years have passed in Narnia and Caspian, who was barely an adult in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is now an old man, while Eustace is still a child.
Eustace and Jill, with the help of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle, face danger and betrayal on their quest to find Rilian.
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
Begun in March and completed at the end of July 1950, The Horse and His Boy was published on 6 September 1954. The story takes place during the reign of the Pevensies in Narnia, an era which begins and ends in the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A talking horse called Bree and a young boy named Shasta, both of whom are in bondage in the country of Calormen, are the protagonists. By "chance", they meet and plan their return to Narnia and freedom. Along the way they meet Aravis and her talking horse Hwin who are also fleeing to Narnia.
The Magician's Nephew (1955)
Completed in February 1954
and published by Bodley Head in London on 2 May 1955, the prequel The Magician's Nephew brings the reader back to the origins of Narnia where we learn how Aslan created the world and how evil first entered it. Digory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer stumble into different worlds by experimenting with magic rings made by Digory's uncle. They encounter Jadis (The White Witch) in the dying world of Charn, and witness the creation of Narnia. Many long-standing questions about the world are answered as a result. The story is set in 1900, when Digory was a 12-year-old boy. He is a middle-aged professor and host to the Pevensie children by the time of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 40 years later.
The Last Battle (1956)
Completed in March 1953 and published 4 September 1956, The Last Battle chronicles the end of the world of Narnia. Jill and Eustace return to save Narnia from Shift, an ape, who tricks Puzzle, a donkey, into impersonating the lion Aslan, precipitating a showdown between the Calormenes and King Tirian. This leads to the end of Narnia, revealing the true Narnia to which Aslan brings them.
Reading order
Fans of the series often have strong opinions over the order in which the books should be read. The issue revolves around the placement of The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy in the series. Both are set significantly earlier in the story of Narnia than their publication order and fall somewhat outside the main story arc connecting the others. The reading order of the other five books is not disputed.
When first published, the books were not numbered. The first American publisher, Macmillan, enumerated them according to their original publication order, while some early British editions specified the internal chronological order. When Harper Collins took over the series rights in 1994, they adopted chronological order. To make the case for chronological order, Lewis' stepson, Douglas Gresham, quoted Lewis' 1957 reply to a letter from an American fan who was having an argument with his mother about the order:
I think I agree with your [chronological] order for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.
In the 2005 Harper Collins adult editions of the books, the publisher cites this letter to assert Lewis' preference for the numbering they adopted by including this notice on the copyright page:
Although The Magician's Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series. Harper Collins is happy to present these books in the order in which Professor Lewis preferred.
Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view, and continues, "most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis's deepest intentions". Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books' order in his lifetime had he so desired. They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than The Magician's Nephew, where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do" — which is nonsensical if one has already read The Magician's Nephew. Other similar textual examples are also cited.
Doris Meyer, author of C. S. Lewis in Context and Bareface: A guide to C. S. Lewis, writes that rearranging the stories chronologically "lessens the impact of the individual stories" and "obscures the literary structures as a whole". Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds, and in Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia he writes:
The only reason to read The Magician's Nephew first [...] is for the chronological order of events, and that, as every story teller knows, is quite unimportant as a reason. Often the early events in a sequence have a greater impact or effect as a flashback, told after later events which provide background and establish perspective. So it is [...] with the Chronicles. The artistry, the archetypes, and the pattern of Christian thought all make it preferable to read the books in the order of their publication.
Main characters
Aslan
Aslan, the Great Lion, is the eponymous lion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and his role in Narnia is developed throughout the remaining books. He is also the only character to appear in all seven books. Aslan is a talking lion, the King of Beasts, son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea. He is a wise, compassionate, magical authority (both temporal and spiritual) who serves as mysterious and benevolent guide to the human children who visit, as well as being the guardian and saviour of Narnia. C. S. Lewis described Aslan as an alternative version of Jesus as the form in which Christ might have appeared in an alternative reality.
Pevensie Family
The four Pevensie siblings are the main human protagonists of The Chronicles of Narnia. Varying combinations of some or all of them appear in five of the seven novels. They are introduced in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and eventually become Kings and Queens of Narnia reigning as a tetrarchy: High King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant. Although introduced in the series as children, the siblings grow up into adults while reigning in Narnia. They go back to being children once they get back to their own world, but feature as adults in The Horse and His Boy during their Narnia reign.
Echoing the Christian theme of betrayal, repentance, and subsequent redemption via blood sacrifice, Edmund betrays his siblings to Jadis, the White Witch, but quickly realises the true nature of the witch and her evil intentions towards his siblings, and joins Aslan's side. At that point he is redeemed by the sacrifice of Aslan's life and he joins the fight against the White Witch. Lucy is the youngest of the four Pevensie siblings. Of all the Pevensie children, Lucy is the closest to Aslan, and of all the human characters who visit Narnia, Lucy is perhaps the one who believes in Narnia the most.
All four appear in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian; in the latter, however, Aslan tells Peter and Susan that they will not return, as they are getting too old. Susan, Lucy, and Edmund appear in The Horse and His Boy – Peter is said to be away fighting giants on the other side of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund appear in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Aslan tells them, too, that they are getting too old. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy appear in The Last Battle.
Susan doesn't appear in The Last Battle because by that time she has stopped believing in Narnia. Asked by a child in 1958 if he would please write another book entitled "Susan of Narnia" so that the entire Pevensie family would be reunited, C. S. Lewis replied: "I am so glad you like the Narnian books and it was nice of you to write and tell me. There's no use just asking me to write more. When stories come into my mind I have to write them, and when they don't I can't!..."*
Eustace Scrubb
Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a cousin of the Pevensies, and a classmate of Jill Pole at their school Experiment House. He is portrayed at first as a brat and a bully, but comes to improve his nasty behaviour when his greed turns him into a dragon for a while. His distress at having to live as a dragon causes him to reflect upon how horrible he has been, and he soon becomes a better person so Aslan changes him back into a boy. In the later books, Eustace comes across as a much nicer person, although he is still rather grumpy and argumentative. Nonetheless, he becomes a hero along with Jill Pole when the pair succeed in freeing the lost Prince Rilian from the clutches of an evil witch. He appears in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.
Jill Pole
Jill Pole is not related to any of the other children who enter Narnia. She is merely a classmate and neighbour of Eustace Scrubb. She appears in The Silver Chair, where she is the viewpoint character for most of the action, and returns in The Last Battle. In The Silver Chair Eustace introduces her to the Narnian world, where Aslan gives her the task of memorising a series of signs that will help her and Eustace on their quest to find Caspian's lost son. In The Last Battle she and Eustace accompany King Tirian in his ill-fated defence of Narnia against the Calormenes.
Digory Kirke
Digory Kirke is the character referred to in the title of The Magician's Nephew. He first appears as a minor character in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but his true significance in the narrative is only revealed in The Magician's Nephew. He returns in The Last Battle.
Polly Plummer
Polly Plummer appears in The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle. She is the next-door neighbour of the young Digory Kirke. She is tricked by a wicked magician (who is Digory's uncle) into touching a magic ring which transports her to the Wood between the Worlds and leaves her there stranded. The wicked uncle persuades Digory to follow her with a second magic ring that has the power to bring her back. This sets up the pair's adventures into other worlds, and they witness the creation of Narnia as described in The Magician's Nephew.
Prince Caspian / Caspian X
Prince Caspian, later to become King Caspian X of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of The Lone Islands – also called "Caspian the Seafarer" and "Caspian the Navigator" — is the title character of the second book in the series, first introduced as the young nephew and heir of King Miraz of Narnia. Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia is set 1300 years after the rule of High King Peter and his siblings, when Old Narnians have been driven into hiding by Caspian's ancestors the Telmarines. Caspian is also a central character in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and appears briefly at the beginning and end of The Silver Chair.
White Witch / Jadis
Jadis, commonly known during her rule of Narnia as the White Witch, is the main antagonist of The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. She is the witch responsible for the freezing of Narnia resulting in the Hundred Year Winter. The White Witch was born in the world of Charn, before the creation of Narnia, and died in battle in Narnian year 1000.
Shasta / Cor
Shasta, later known as Cor of Archenland, is the principal character in The Horse and His Boy. Born the eldest son and heir of King Lune of Archenland, and elder twin of Prince Corin, Cor was kidnapped as an infant and raised as a fisherman's son in the country of Calormen. Learning that he is about to be sold into slavery at the beginning of The Horse and His Boy, Shasta escapes to freedom, saves Archenland and Narnia from invasion, learns of his true identity, and is restored to his heritage. Shasta grows up to become King of Archenland, marries the Calormene Tarkheena Aravis, and fathers the next (and most famous) king of Archenland, Ram the Great.
Aravis
Aravis, daughter of Kidrash Tarkaan, is the secondary protagonist in The Horse and His Boy. Escaping a forced betrothal to the loathsome Ahoshta, she joins Shasta on his journey and inadvertently overhears a plot by Rabadash, crown prince of Calormen, to invade Archenland. She later marries Shasta, now known as Prince Cor, and becomes queen of Archenland at his side.
Bree
Bree (Breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah) is Shasta's mount and mentor in The Horse and His Boy. A Talking Horse of Narnia, he wandered into Calormen as a foal and was captured. He first appears as a Calormene nobleman's war-horse; when the nobleman buys Shasta as a slave, Bree organises and carries out their joint escape. Though friendly, he is also vain and a braggart until his encounter with Aslan late in the story.
Trumpkin
Trumpkin the Dwarf is the narrator of several chapters of Prince Caspian; he is one of Caspian's rescuers and a leading figure in the "Old Narnian" rebellion, and accompanies the Pevensie children from the ruins of Cair Paravel to the Old Narnian camp. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader we learn that Caspian has made him his Regent in Narnia while he is away at sea, and he appears briefly in this role (now elderly and very deaf) in The Silver Chair.
Puddleglum
Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle guides Eustace and Jill on their quest in The Silver Chair. Though always comically pessimistic, he provides the voice of reason and as such intervenes critically in the climactic enchantment scene.
King Tirian
The last King of Narnia is the viewpoint character for much of The Last Battle. Having rashly killed a Calormene for mistreating a Narnian Talking Horse, he is imprisoned by the villainous ape Shift but released by Eustace and Jill. Together they fight faithfully to the last and are welcomed into Aslan's Kingdom.
Title characters
The Magician's Nephew — Digory Kirke
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — Aslan, Jadis
The Horse and His Boy — Bree, Shasta
Prince Caspian — Prince Caspian
Appearances of main characters
Narnian universe
The main setting of The Chronicles of Narnia is the world of Narnia constructed by Lewis and, in The Magician's Nephew, the world containing the city of Charn. The Narnian and Charnian worlds are themselves posited as just two in a multiverse of countless worlds that includes our own universe, the main protagonists' world of origin. Passage between these worlds is possible, though rare, and may be accomplished by various means. Narnia itself is described as populated by a wide variety of creatures, most of which would be recognisable to those familiar with European mythologies and British fairy tales.
Inhabitants
See also: Narnia creatures and List of The Chronicles of Narnia characters
Lewis' stories are populated with two distinct types of character: Humans originating from the reader's world of Earth, and Narnian creatures and their descendants created by Aslan. This is typical of works that involve parallel universes. The majority of characters from the reader's world serve as the protagonists of the various books, although some are only mentioned in passing depending on chronology. Lewis does not limit himself to a single source of inspiration; instead, he borrows from many sources,including ancient Greek and German mythology, as well as Celtic literature.
Geography
The Chronicles of Narnia describes the world in which Narnia exists as one major landmass encircled by an ocean. Narnia's capital sits on the eastern edge of the landmass on the shores of the The Great Eastern Ocean. This ocean contains the islands explored in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. On the main landmass Lewis places the countries of Narnia, Archenland, Calormen, and Telmar, along with a variety of other areas that are not described as countries. The author also provides glimpses of more fantastic locations that exist in and around the main world of Narnia, including an edge and an underworld.
There are several maps of the Narnian universe available, including what many consider the "official" one, a full-colour version published in 1972 by the books' illustrator, Pauline Baynes. This is currently out of print, although smaller copies can be found in the most recent HarperCollins 2006 hardcover edition of The Chronicles of Narnia. Two other maps were produced as a result of the popularity of the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. One, the "Rose Map of Narnia", is based loosely on Baynes' map and has Narnian trivia printed on the reverse. The other, made in a monochromatic, archaic style reminiscent of maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth, is available in print and in an interactive version on the DVD of the movie. The latter map depicts only the country Narnia and not the rest of Lewis' world.
Cosmology
A recurring plot device in The Chronicles is the interaction between the various worlds that make up the Narnian multiverse. A variety of methods are used to initiate these cross-overs which generally serve to introduce characters to the land of Narnia. The Cosmology of Narnia is not as internally consistent as that of Lewis' contemporary Tolkien's Middle-earth, but suffices given the more fairy tale atmosphere of the work. During the course of the series we learn in passing, that the world of Narnia is flat and geocentric and has different stars from those of Earth, and that the passage of time does not correspond directly to the passage of time in our world.
History
See also: Narnian timeline and History of Narnia
The Chronicles cover the entire history of the world of Narnia, describing the process by which it was created, offering snapshots of life in Narnia as its history unfolds, and how it is ultimately destroyed. As is often the case in a children's series, children themselves, usually from our world, play a prominent role in all of these events. The history of Narnia is generally divided into the following periods: creation and the period shortly afterwards, the rule of the White Witch, the Golden Age, the invasion and rule of the Telmarines, their subsequent defeat by Caspian X, the rule of King Caspian and his descendants, and the destruction of Narnia. Like many stories, the narrative is not necessarily always presented in chronological order.
Influences
Lewis' life
Lewis' early life has parallels with The Chronicles of Narnia. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to a large house on the edge of Belfast. Its long hallways and empty rooms inspired Lewis and his brother to invent make-believe worlds whilst exploring their home, an activity reflected in Lucy's discovery of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Like Caspian and Rilian, Lewis lost his mother at an early age, spending much of his youth in English boarding schools similar to those attended by the Pevensie children, Eustace Scrubb, and Jill Pole. During World War II many children were evacuated from London and other urban areas because of German air raids. Some of these children, including one named Lucy (Lewis' goddaughter) stayed with him at his home The Kilns near Oxford, just as the Pevensies stayed with The Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Influences from mythology and cosmology
Drew Trotter, president of the Center for Christian Study, noted that the producers of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe felt that the books' plots adhere to the archetypal "monomyth" pattern as detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Lewis was widely read in medieval Celtic literature, an influence reflected throughout the books, and most strongly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The entire book imitates one of the immrama, a type of traditional Old Irish tale that combines elements of Christianity and Irish mythology to tell the story of a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld. Medieval Ireland also had a tradition of High Kings ruling over lesser kings and queens or princes, as in Narnia. Lewis' term "Cair," as in Cair Paravel, also mirrors "Caer", or "fortress" in the Welsh language. Reepicheep's small boat is a coracle, a type of vessel traditionally used in the Celtic regions of the British Isles. Some creatures in the book such as the one-footed Dufflepuds reflect elements of Greek, Roman and Medieval mythology while other Narnian creatures are borrowed from Greek and Germanic mythology: for example, centaurs from the former and dwarfs from the latter.
In 2008 Michael Ward published Planet Narnia, which proposed that each of the seven books related to one of the seven moving heavenly bodies or "planets" known in the Middle Ages according to the Ptolemaic geocentric model of cosmology (a theme to which Lewis returned habitually throughout his work). At that time, each of these heavenly bodies was believed to have certain attributes, and Ward contends that these attributes were deliberately but subtly used by Lewis to furnish elements of the stories of each book:
In The Lion [the child protagonists] become monarchs under sovereign Jove; in Prince Caspian they harden under strong Mars; in The "Dawn Treader" they drink light under searching Sol; in The Silver Chair they learn obedience under subordinate Luna; in The Horse and His Boy they come to love poetry under eloquent Mercury; in The Magician's Nephew they gain life-giving fruit under fertile Venus; and in The Last Battle they suffer and die under chilling Saturn."
Similarly, Lewis' interest in the literary symbolism of medieval and Renaissance astrology is more overtly referenced in other works such as his study of medieval cosmology The Discarded Image, in his early poetry as well as in Space Trilogy. Narnia scholar Paul F. Ford finds Ward's assertion that Lewis intended The Chronicles to be an embodiment of medieval astrology implausible, though Ford addresses an earlier (2003) version of Ward's thesis (also called Planet Narnia, published in the Times Literary Supplement). Ford argues that Lewis did not start with a coherent plan for the books, but Ward's book answers this by arguing that the astrological associations grew in the writing.
George MacDonald's "Phantastes" (1858) influenced the structure and setting of "The Chronicles". It was a work that was " a great balm to the soul"
Influences on other works
Influences on literature
The Chronicles of Narnia has been a significant influence on both adult and children's fantasy literature in the post-World War II era. Examples include:
Philip Pullman's acclaimed fantasy series His Dark Materials is seen as a response to The Chronicles. Pullman is a self-described atheist who wholly rejects the spiritual themes that permeate The Chronicles, yet his series nonetheless addresses many of the same issues and introduces some similar character types, including talking animals. In another parallel, the first books in each series – Pullman's Northern Lights and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – both open with a young girl hiding in a wardrobe.
Neil Gaiman's young-adult horror novella Coraline has been compared to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as both books involve young girls travelling to magical worlds through doors in their new houses and fighting evil with the help of talking animals. His Sandman comic book series also features a Narnia-like "dream island" in its story arc entitled A Game of You.
The novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson has Leslie, one of the main characters, reveal to her co-protagonist Jesse her love of Lewis' books, subsequently lending him The Chronicles of Narnia so that he can learn how to behave like a king. Her book also features the island name "Terabithia", which sounds similar to Terebinthia, a Narnian island that appears in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Katherine Paterson herself acknowledges that Terabithia is likely to be derived from Terebinthia:
I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the Terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously."
Science-fiction author Greg Egan's short story "Oracle" depicts a parallel universe in which an author nicknamed Jack (Lewis' nickname) has written novels about the fictional "Kingdom of Nesica", and whose wife is dying of cancer, paralleling the death of Lewis' wife Joy Davidman. Several Narnian allegories are also used to explore issues of religion and faith versus science and knowledge.
Lev Grossman's New York Times best-seller The Magicians is a contemporary dark fantasy about an unusually gifted young man obsessed with Fillory, the magical land of his favourite childhood books. Fillory is a thinly veiled substitute for Narnia, and clearly the author expects it to be experienced as such. Not only is the land home to many similar talking animals and mythical creatures, it is also accessed through a grandfather clock in the home of an uncle to whom five English children are sent during World War II. Moreover, the land is ruled by two Aslan-like rams named Ember and Umber, and terrorised by The Watcherwoman. She, like the White Witch, freezes the land in time. The book's plot revolves heavily around a place very like the "wood between the worlds" from The Magician's Nephew, an interworld waystation in which pools of water lead to other lands. This reference to The Magician's Nephew is echoed in the title of the book.
J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has said that she was a fan of the works of Lewis as a child, and cites the influence of The Chronicles on her work: "I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in Kings Cross Station — it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for Hogwarts." Nevertheless, she is at pains to stress the differences between Narnia and her world: "Narnia is literally a different world", she says, "whereas in the Harry books you go into a world within a world that you can see if you happen to belong. A lot of the humour comes from collisions between the magic and the everyday worlds. Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy. Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal." New York Times writer Charles McGrath notes the similarity between Dudley Dursley, the obnoxious son of Harry's neglectful guardians, and Eustace Scrubb, the spoiled brat who torments the main characters until he is redeemed by Aslan.
Influences on popular culture
As with any popular long-lived work, contemporary culture abounds with references to the lion Aslan, travelling via wardrobe and direct mentions of The Chronicles. Examples include:
Charlotte Staples Lewis, a character first seen early in the fourth season of the TV series Lost, is named in reference to C. S. Lewis. Lost producer Damon Lindelof said that this was a clue to the direction the show would take during the season. The book Ultimate Lost and Philosophy, edited by William Irwin and Sharon Kaye, contains a comprehensive essay on Lost plot motifs based on The Chronicles.
The second SNL Digital Short by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell features a humorous nerdcore hip hop song titled Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday), which focuses on the performers' plan to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at a cinema. It was described by Slate magazine as one of the most culturally significant Saturday Night Live skits in many years, and an important commentary on the state of rap. Swedish Christian power metal band Narnia, whose songs are mainly about the Chronicles of Narnia or the Bible, feature Aslan on all their album covers. In anticipation of the 9 December 2005 premiere of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, various Christian artists released a collection of songs based on The Chronicles of Narnia.
During interviews, the primary creator of the Japanese anime and gaming series Digimon has said that he was inspired and influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia.
Influences on music
The Roar of Love is a 1980 concept album by Christian band 2nd Chapter of Acts based on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Christian themes
A convert to Christianity in later life, Lewis had authored a number of works on Christian apologetics and other literature with Christian-based themes before writing the Narnia books. The character Aslan is widely accepted by literary academia as being based on Jesus Christ. Lewis did not initially plan to incorporate Christian theological concepts into his Narnia stories. Lewis maintained that the Narnia books were not allegorical, preferring to term their Christian aspects a "supposition".
The Chronicles have, consequently, a large Christian following, and are widely used to promote Christian ideas. However, some Christians object that The Chronicles promote "soft-sell paganism and occultism" due to recurring pagan imagery and themes.
Criticism
Accusations of gender stereotyping
In later years, both Lewis and the Chronicles have been criticised (often by other authors of fantasy fiction) for gender role stereotyping, though other authors have defended Lewis in this area. For example, Lucy gets a healing potion and a dagger, while Peter gets a sword. Most allegations of sexism centre on the description of Susan Pevensie in The Last Battle when Lewis writes that Susan is "no longer a friend of Narnia" and interested "in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations".
J.K. Rowling has said:
There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.
Philip Pullman, inimical to Lewis on many fronts, calls the Narnia stories "monumentally disparaging of women". His interpretation of the Susan passages reflects this view:
Susan, like Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn't approve of that. He didn't like women in general, or sexuality at all, at least at the stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.
In fantasy author Neil Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan" (2004), an elderly woman, Professor Hastings, deals with the grief and trauma of her entire family's death in a train crash. Although the woman's maiden name is not revealed, details throughout the story strongly imply that this character is the elderly Susan Pevensie. The story is written for an adult audience and deals with issues of sexuality and violence and through it Gaiman presents a critique of Lewis' treatment of Susan.
Other writers, including fan-magazine editor Andrew Rilstone, oppose this view, arguing that the "lipsticks, nylons and invitations" quote is taken out of context. They maintain that in The Last Battle, Susan is excluded from Narnia explicitly because she no longer believes in it. At the end of The Last Battle Susan is still alive with her ultimate fate unspecified. Moreover, in The Horse and His Boy, Susan's adulthood and sexual maturity are portrayed in a positive light, and therefore argued to be unlikely reasons for her exclusion from Narnia.
Lewis supporters also cite the positive roles of women in the series, including Jill Pole in The Silver Chair, Aravis Tarkheena in The Horse and His Boy, Polly Plummer in The Magician's Nephew, and particularly Lucy Pevensie in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College, asserts that Lucy is the most admirable of the human characters and that generally the girls come off better than the boys throughout the series (Jacobs, 2008: 259). In her contribution to The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, Karin Fry, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, notes that "the most sympathetic female characters in The Chronicles are consistently the ones who question the traditional roles of women and prove their worth to Aslan through actively engaging in the adventures just like the boys." Fry goes on to say:
The characters have positive and negative things to say about both male and female characters, suggesting an equality between sexes. However, the problem is that many of the positive qualities of the female characters seem to be those by which they can rise above their femininity ... The superficial nature of stereotypical female interests is condemned.
Accusations of racism
In addition to sexism, Pullman and others have also accused the Narnia series of fostering racism. Over the alleged racism in The Horse and His Boy, newspaper editor Kyrie O'Connor wrote:
It's just too dreadful. While the book's storytelling virtues are enormous, you don't have to be a bluestocking of political correctness to find some of this fantasy anti-Arab, or anti-Eastern, or anti-Ottoman. With all its stereotypes, mostly played for belly laughs, there are moments you'd like to stuff this story back into its closet.
Gregg Easterbrook, writing in The Atlantic, calls the Calormenes "standins for Muslims", while novelist Philip Hensher raises specific concerns that a reader might gain the impression Islam is a "Satanic cult". In rebuttal to this charge, at an address to a C. S. Lewis conference, Dr. Devin Brown argued that there are too many dissimilarities between the Calormene religion and Islam, particularly in the areas of polytheism and human sacrifice, for Lewis' writing to be regarded as critical of Islam.
Nicholas Wanberg has argued, echoing claims by Mervyn Nicholson, that accusations of racism in the books are "an oversimplification", but he asserts that the stories employ beliefs about human aesthetics, including equating dark skin with ugliness, that have been traditionally associated with racist thought.
Adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia
Television
Various books from The Chronicles of Narnia have been adapted for television over the years, including:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first adapted in 1967. Comprising ten episodes of thirty minutes each, the screenplay was written by Trevor Preston, and directed by Helen Standage. Unlike subsequent adaptations, it is currently unavailable to purchase for home viewing. The book was adapted again in 1979, this time as an animated cartoon co-produced by Bill Meléndez and the Children's Television Workshop, with a screenplay by David D. Connell. Winner of the 1979 Emmy award for Outstanding Animated Program, it was one of the first major made-for-television feature-length animated films. Many of the characters' voices in the British TV release were re-recorded by British actors and actresses with the exception of the characters Aslan, Peter, Susan, and Lucy.
Between 1988 and 1990, the first four books (as published) were adapted by the BBC as four television serials. They were also aired in America on the PBS/Disney show WonderWorks. They were nominated for a total of 14 Emmy awards, including "Outstanding Children's Program", and a number of BAFTA awards including Best Children's Programme (Entertainment / Drama) in 1988, 1989 and 1990. The serials were later edited into three feature-length films (the second of which combined Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader into one) and released on VHS and DVD.
Radio
A critically acclaimed BBC Radio 4 dramatisation was produced in the 1980s, starring Maurice Denham as Professor Kirke. Collectively titled Tales of Narnia, the programs covered the entire series with a running time of approximately 15 hours. In Great Britain, BBC Audiobooks release both audio cassette and compact disc versions of the series.
Between 1999 and 2002 Focus on the Family produced radio dramatisations of the entire series through its Radio Theatre program. Over one hundred performers took part including Paul Scofield as "The Storyteller" and David Suchet as Aslan. Accompanied by an original orchestral score and cinema-quality digital sound design, the series was hosted by Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham and ran for just over 22 hours. Recordings of the entire adaptation were released on compact disc between 1999–2003.
Stage
Many stage adaptations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have been produced over the years.
In 1984, Vanessa Ford Productions presented The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at London's Westminster Theatre. Adapted by Glyn Robbins, the play was directed by Richard Williams and designed by Marty Flood. The production was later revived at Westminster and The Royalty Theatre and went on tour until 1997. Productions of other tales from The Chronicles were also staged, including The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1986), The Magician's Nephew (1988) and The Horse and His Boy (1990).
In 1997, Trumpets Inc., a Filipino Christian theatre and musical production company, produced a musical rendition of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" that Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson (and co-producer of the Walden Media film adaptations), has openly declared that he feels is the closest to Lewis' intent. The book and lyrics were written by Jaime del Mundo and Luna Inocian, while the music was composed by Lito Villareal.
The Royal Shakespeare Company premiered The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1998. The novel was adapted as a musical production by Adrian Mitchell, with music by Shaun Davey. The show was originally directed by Adrian Noble and designed by Anthony Ward, with the revival directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace. Well received by audiences, the production was periodically re-staged by the RSC for several years afterwards. Limited engagements were subsequently undertaken at the Barbican Theatre in London and at Sadler's Wells. This adaptation also toured the United States in the early 2000s.
Film
Sceptical that any cinematic adaptation could render the more fantastical elements and characters of the story realistically, Lewis never sold the film rights to the Narnia series. In answering a letter with a question posed by a child in 1957, asking if the Narnia series could please be on television, C. S. Lewis wrote back: "They'd be no good on TV. Humanized beasts can't be presented to the eye without at once becoming either hideous or ridiculous. I wish the idiots who run the film world [would] realize that there are stories [which] are for the ear alone." Only after seeing a demo reel of CGI animals did Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson and literary executor, and the films' co-producer, give approval for a film adaptation.
The first novel adapted was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe released in December 2005. Produced by Walden Media and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was directed by Andrew Adamson, with a screenplay by Ann Peacock, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus. The movie was a critical and box-office success, grossing over $745 million worldwide and ranked 38th on the list of highest-grossing films in nominal terms. Disney and Walden Media then co-produced a sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, released in May 2008, which grossed over $419 million worldwide.
In December 2008 Disney pulled out of financing the remainder of the Chronicles of Narnia film series. Already in pre-production at the time, 20th Century Fox and Walden Media eventually co-produced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was released in December 2010 going on to gross over $415 million worldwide.
See also
Outline of Narnia
Notes
References
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Drama: 'Narnia' A Children's Musical, Stephen Holden, New York Times, 5 October 1986
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O'Connor, Kyrie " 5th Narnia book may not see big screen" Houston Chronicle, 1 December 2005
Meghan O'Rourke The Lion King: C. S. Lewis' Narnia isn't simply a Christian allegory, Meghan O'Rourke, Slate magazine, 9 December 2005
Paterson, Katherine Katherine Paterson: On Her Own Words, Walden Media, 2006
Pearce, Joseph Literary Giants, Literary Catholics, Ignatius Press, 2004, ISBN 978-1-58617-077-6
Pullman, Philip "The Darkside of Narnia", The Guardian, 1 October 1998
Ward, Michael Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, Oxford University Press, 2008
Further reading
Bruner, Kurt & Ware, Jim Finding God in the Land of Narnia, Tyndale House Publishers, 2005
Bustard, Ned The Chronicles of Narnia Comprehension Guide, Veritas Press, 2004
Duriez, Colin A Field Guide to Narnia. InterVarsity Press, 2004
Downing, David Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles, Jossey-Bass, 2005
Hein, Rolland Christian Mythmakers: C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, & Others Second Edition, Cornerstone Press Chicago, 2002, ISBN 978-0-940895-48-5
Jacobs, Alan The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, HarperSanFrancisco, 2005
McIntosh, Kenneth Following Aslan: A Book of Devotions for Children, Anamchara Books, 2006
Ward, Michael Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis'', Oxford University Press, 2008
External links
C. S. Lewis entry at BBC Religions
The secret of the wardrobe BBC News, 18 November 2005
The Chronicles of Narnia Wiki
Are The Chronicles of Narnia Sexist and Racist?
Category:The Chronicles of Narnia books
Chronicles of Narnia
Category:Religious themed fiction
Category:Fantasy books by series
Category:High fantasy novels
Category:Parallel universes in fiction |
2016-01 | Snakes_on_a_Plane-695911218 | Snakes_on_a_Plane | Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane is a 2006 American action thriller film directed by David R. Ellis and starring Samuel L. Jackson. It was released by New Line Cinema on August 18, 2006, in North America. The film was written by David Dalessandro, John Heffernan, and Sheldon Turner and follows the events of hundreds of snakes being released on a passenger plane in an attempt to kill a trial witness.
The film gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fanbases online and becoming an Internet phenomenon, due to the film's title, casting, and premise. In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting. Before and after the film was released, it was parodied and alluded to on television shows and films, fan-made videos, video games, and various forms of literature.
Released in the United States and United Kingdom on August 18, 2006, the film received mixed to positive reviews with 68% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 58%, according to the review aggregation websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.
Despite the immense Internet buzz, the film's gross revenue did not live up to expectations, earning US$15.25 million in its opening weekend. The film grossed US$62 million worldwide before its release on home video on January 2, 2007.
Plot
After witnessing gangster Eddie Kim brutally beat U.S. Prosecutor Daniel Hayes to death in Hawaii, Sean Jones is escorted by FBI agents Neville Flynn and John Sanders on a Boeing 747-400 to testify in a trial in Los Angeles. Despite increased security for the flight, Kim arranges for a time-release crate full of venomous snakes to be placed in the cargo hold in an attempt to bring down the plane before it reaches Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). To ensure the snakes attack the passengers without being provoked, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes highly aggressive. The crate opens midway through the flight and the snakes make their way through the cabin. A couple having sex in the bathroom, and a man using the bathroom are the first killed. The plane's captain, Sam McKeon, investigates and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick, unaware of the snake, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX.
Some of the snakes attack Rick, and while fending them off he accidentally releases the oxygen masks throughout the plane, causing several snakes to drop into the cabin with them. Numerous passengers, including Agent Sanders, are killed when the snakes invade the cabin. The surviving passengers, who have made their way to the front of the plane, put up blockades of luggage in a desperate attempt to stop the snakes. Rick is attacked and the plane starts to dip downwards, causing a food trolley to crash through the luggage blockade. The passengers flee to the upstairs first class cabin before blocking the stairwell with an inflatable liferaft. Agent Flynn and Flight Attendant Claire regain control of the plane. Rick retakes the controls and has Flynn go into the cargo hold to restore the air conditioning/ventilation system. Agent Flynn contacts FBI Special Agent Hank Harris on the ground, who gets in touch with ophiologist Dr. Steven Price (Louiso), Customs' main source for animal smuggling cases. Based on pictures of the reptiles emailed to him via a passenger's mobile phone, Price believes a Los Angeles snake dealer known for illegally importing exotic and highly dangerous snakes to be responsible. After a shootout, the dealer is forced to talk after he is bitten by one of his snakes and Harris withholds the antivenom, revealing that he was hired by Kim to obtain the snakes. His supply of anti-venom is commandeered for the plane's victims based on the list he provides to Price, and Harris gives orders to have Eddie Kim arrested on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.
Harris contacts Flynn, telling him that anti-venom will be ready for the passengers when they land. However, Flynn discovers that the cockpit is filled with snakes and Rick is dead. After a brief discussion, Troy, Three Gs' bodyguard, agrees to land the plane based on prior experience. After everyone gets prepared, Flynn shoots out two windows with his pistol, causing the plane to depressurize. The snakes are blown out of the cockpit and the lower floor of the plane. Flynn and Troy take the controls of the plane and Troy reveals that his flight experience was from a video game flight simulator. Despite his lack of real-world experience, after Troy makes an emergency landing, the plane makes it to the terminal. The passengers leave the plane and anti-venom is given to those who need it. Just as Flynn and Sean are about to disembark the plane, a final snake jumps out and bites Sean in the chest. Flynn draws his gun and shoots the snake, and paramedics rush to Sean, who is unharmed due to a bulletproof vest. As a token of gratitude, Sean later takes Flynn to Bali and teaches him how to surf.
Cast
Samuel L. Jackson as Agent Neville Flynn, an FBI agent assigned to protect Sean Jones on his flight to Los Angeles.
Julianna Margulies as Claire Miller, a flight attendant.
Nathan Phillips as Sean Jones, a surfer and dirtbike racer who witnesses a brutal murder committed by Eddie Kim.
Bobby Cannavale as Special Agent Henry "Hank" Harris, Flynn's contact in Los Angeles.
Flex Alexander as Clarence "Three Gs", a famous rapper who is germophobic, keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer with him, and refuses to be touched by others.
Todd Louiso as Dr. Steven Price, a snake venom expert assigned by the FBI to communicate with Flynn.
Sunny Mabrey as Tiffany, a flight attendant who develops a crush on Sean.
Kenan Thompson as Troy, Clarence's bodyguard.
Rachel Blanchard as Mercedes, a socialite passenger who brings her pet Chihuahua Mary-Kate aboard.
Lin Shaye as Grace, the senior flight attendant who acts as the flight's purser.
David Koechner as Richard "Rick", Captain McKeon's co-pilot.
Elsa Pataky as Maria, a female passenger who brings her infant son aboard.
Keith Dallas as Big Leroy, Clarence's bodyguard.
Tom Butler as Captain Samuel "Sam" McKeon, the captain of the plane.
Byron Lawson as Eddie Kim, a crime syndicate leader.
Taylor Kitsch as Kyle, a young man who boards the plane with his girlfriend.
Samantha McLeod as Kelly, a young woman who boards the plane with her boyfriend.
Kevin McNulty as Emmett Bradley, an air traffic tower controller.
Development
The story is credited to David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator and first-time Hollywood writer. He developed the concept in 1992 after reading a nature magazine article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing onto planes in cargo during World War II. He originally wrote the screenplay about the brown tree snake loose on a plane, titling the film Venom. He soon revised it, expanding upon the premise to include a plague of assorted venomous snakes, then—crediting the film Aliens—revised it once again to include "lots of them loose in the fuselage of a plane." Dalessandro's third draft of Venom was turned down by more than 30 Hollywood studios in 1995. In 1999, a producer for MTV/Paramount showed interest in the script, followed up by New Line Studios, which took over the rights for production.
Originally, the film, under the working title "Snakes on a Plane", was going to be directed by Hong Kong action director Ronny Yu. Jackson, who had previously worked with Yu on The 51st State, learned about the announced project in the Hollywood trade newspapers and, after talking to Yu, agreed to sign on without reading the script based on the director, storyline, and the title.
The film's B movie-esque title generated a lot of pre-release interest on the Internet. One journalist wrote that Snakes on a Plane is "perhaps the most internet-hyped film of all time". Much of the initial publicity came from a blog entry made by screenwriter Josh Friedman, who had been offered a chance to work on the script. The casting of Samuel L. Jackson further increased anticipation. At one point, the film was given the title Pacific Air Flight 121, only to have it changed back to the working title at Samuel Jackson's request. In August 2005, Samuel Jackson told an interviewer, "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." On March 2, 2006, the studio reverted the title to Snakes on a Plane. New Line hired two additional writers to smooth out the screenplay.
Taking advantage of the Internet buzz for what had been a minor film in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006 (principal photography had wrapped in September 2005). While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to change the MPAA rating from PG-13 to R and bring it in line with growing fan expectations. The most notable addition was a revision of a catchphrase from the film that was parodied on the Internet by fans of the film, capitalizing on Samuel L. Jackson's typically foul-mouthed and violent film persona: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!". Subsequently, the public responded favorably to this creative change and marketing strategy, leading some members of the press to speculate that "the movie has grown from something of a joke into a phenomenon".
More than 450 snakes were used for filming to represent thirty different species of snakes. The different species include a 19-foot burmese python named Kitty (which the crew called Kong for film purposes), a scarlet kingsnake (the non-venomous double for the coral snake), a milk snake to fill in for the Taipan (which attacks the couple having sex), corn snakes, rattlesnakes, and mangrove snakes. About two-thirds of the snakes seen throughout the film were either animatronic or CGI . The snakes that were real were mostly the non-venomous ones that are never seen attacking anyone. The scenes where someone is clearly bitten were often done with animation. According to the DVD, all the snakes had production names, but only Scarface (an animated pit viper), Peanut (a cobra), and Kong are mentioned by name in the audio commentary. During filming, Samuel Jackson did not come into contact with any live snakes, due to a contract clause preventing snakes from being within (25 ft) of the actor. When the film was released in theaters, rumors circulated that two live western diamondback rattlesnakes had been released at a showing of the film on August 22, 2006, in Phoenix, Arizona. It was later revealed that one snake had made its way into the lobby of the theater on its own, and another had been found in the parking lot in a separate incident. The snakes were later released back into the desert.
Media coverage
Print
An illustrated book from Thunder's Mouth Press, Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation by David Waldon, details the Internet phenomenon and was published July 28, 2006. Waldon details various viral videos relating to the film's craze, and interviewed their producers to find out what about the film captured their attention.
Music
On March 16, 2006, New Line Cinema announced a contest on TagWorld and a website promoting the film. The contest allowed artists on TagWorld to have their music featured in the film. A flood of SoaP-themed songs were submitted by artists such as Captain Ahab (who ultimately won the contest), Louden Swain, the Former Fat Boys, Nispy, and others. In addition, a music video for the film, "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" by Cobra Starship, was released on July 10, 2006 on MTV2's Unleashed. The music video appeared on the film's soundtrack as well as during the film's closing credits.
In October 2005, Nathanial Perry and Chris Rohan recorded an audio trailer spoof, which helped fuel the Internet buzz. Perry and Rohan recorded the "motherfucking snakes" line in the audio trailer which was added to the film during the week of re-shoots. In July 2006, New Line Cinema signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the Cutting Corporation to produce an audiobook of the film.
Television
Beginning in May 2006, episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its sister show The Colbert Report contained references to Snakes on a Planes title, the catchphrase, and general premise. On August 15, 2006, Samuel L. Jackson guest featured on The Daily Show, opening with the film's catchphrase. Keith Olbermann featured stories about the film and Internet buzz several times on his MSNBC news program Countdown. In addition, G4's Attack of the Show! featured a semi-regular segment entitled "Snakes on a Plane: An Attack of the Show Investigation", and had a week dedicated to the film which included interviews and the appearance of hundreds of snakes on set.
Internet
Snakes on a Plane generated considerable buzz on the Internet after Josh Friedman's blog entry and mentions on several Internet portals. The title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers, and short film parody competitions. On July 6, 2006, the official Snakes on a Plane website started a promotional sweepstakes called "The #1 Fan King Cobra Sweepstakes". The contest made innovative use of the publicity-generating potential of the Internet, requiring contestants to post links on forums, blogs, and websites and collecting votes from the users of those sites.
Many of the early fan-made trailers and later other viral videos and commercials circulated via YouTube, and captured media attention there with such titles as: Cats on a Plane (which was featured in Joel Siegel's review of Snakes on a Plane on Good Morning America), Snakes Who Missed the Plane, All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us (a spoof of the All your base are belong to us phenomenon), Steaks on a Train, and Badgers on a Plane (a spoof of "Badger Badger Badger"). Several websites also held contests about the film in fan-submitted short films and posters.
In August 2006, Varitalk launched an advertising campaign in which fans could send a semi-personalized message in Samuel Jackson's voice to telephone numbers of their choosing. Within the first week, over 1.5 million calls were sent to participants.
Previews
In June 2006, New Line commissioned famed UK audio-visual film remixers and chop-up artists Addictive TV to cut and sample Snakes on a Plane to create trailers for the U.S. television networks. The official teaser trailer premiered before X-Men: The Last Stand, and the first official trailer appeared online on June 26, 2006. Another trailer circulated in July 2006, showing several of the snake attacks and a missing pilot and co-pilot. Rotten Tomatoes had video clips of the official trailers, as well as fan-made trailers.
During a July 21, 2006 panel discussion at the Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, California, a preview clip from the film was shown to a crowd of more than 6,500 people. The panel included actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kenan Thompson, director David R. Ellis, and snake-handler Jules Sylvester.
Release
Snakes on a Plane debuted on August 18, 2006. The film opened in 3,555 theaters and had some late-night screenings on August 17. In a move meant to exploit the attention from the film, a straight-to-DVD Z-movie horror film with a supernatural twist, Snakes on a Train, was released on August 15, 2006, three days before the film's theatrical release.
Critical response
In mid-July 2006, New Line Cinema revealed that it would not be showing any advance screenings for critics. After the film opened, the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 68% based reviews from 171 critics, with the consensus: "Snakes on a Plane lives up to its title, featuring snakes on a plane. It isn't perfect, but then again, it doesn't need to be." reviews, with an average score of 6.2/10. At the website Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film earned a mixed rating of 58% based on 31 reviews by mainstream critics. Reviewers reported audiences cheering, applauding, and engaging in "call and response", noting that audience participation was an important part of the film's appeal.
The Arizona Republic'''s Randy Cordova gave the film a positive review, calling the film "... an exploitation flick that knows what it wants to do, and it gets the job done expertly." and a "... Mecca for B-movie lovers." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle enjoyed the film, asking his readers "... if you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it." Boston Globe reviewer Ty Burr reacted to Samuel L. Jackson's performance by saying he "... bestrides this film with the authority of someone who knows the value of honest bilge. He's as much the auteur of this baby as the director and screenwriters, and that fierce glimmer in his eye is partly joy."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying that "after all the Internet hype about those motherfuckin' snakes on that motherfuckin' plane, the flick itself is a murky stew of shock effects repeated so often that the suspense quickly droops along with your eyelids." David Denby of The New Yorker claimed that the film "... may mark a new participatory style in marketing, but it still gulls an allegedly knowing audience with the pseudo-morality of yesteryear."
Film critic and radio host Michael Medved criticized New Line Cinema for agreeing to re-shoot scenes so that the film would receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America to match fan expectations. He argued that the film would have grossed more revenue at the box office with a PG-13 rating, stating that the demographic most likely to be drawn to a movie titled Snakes on a Plane is males between the ages of 12 and 15. "My fourteen-year-old son, Danny, for instance, felt a powerful inclination to go out and see the movie with his two sleep-over friends this Sunday night," he explained, "but I wouldn't permit it. It's rated R for good reason." Medved ultimately awarded the film 2 1/2 stars out of 4 in a radio review, but said that he did so "grudgingly."
Box office
Due to the Internet hype surrounding the film, industry analysts estimated the film's opening box office to be between US$20-30 million. While Snakes on a Plane did narrowly beat Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for the number one position during its opening weekend, it did not meet these estimates and grossed only $15.25 million in its opening days, a disappointment for New Line Cinema. In its second weekend, the film fell to sixth place with $6.4 million, a more than fifty percent drop from its opening weekend revenue. By the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed $62,022,014 worldwide.
Robert K. Shaye, the founder of New Line, stated that he was "disappointed" that Snakes on a Plane was a "dud" despite "higher expectations". The press declared that Snakes on a Plane was a "box office disappointment", with The New York Times reporting that after all the "hype online, Snakes on a Plane is letdown at box office" and Entertainment Weekly reporting that the film was an "internet-only phenomenon."
Home mediaSnakes on a Plane released on DVD December 26, 2006 in Region 2; December 28, 2006 in Region 4; and January 2, 2007 in Region 1. The DVD features commentaries, deleted and extended scenes, several featurettes, Cobra Starship's music video, and trailers. The U.S. Blu-ray was released on September 29, 2009.
TV version
The film received further attention when fans noticed the U.S. TV edit of the film purposely dubbed its foul language with nonsense words for a broader audience. An example is Samuel L. Jackson's line toward the end of the film, "I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane", which is replaced with "I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane".http://www.slashfilm.com/lol-snakes-on-a-plane-the-television-edit/
Adaptations
Black Flame published the novelization of the film, written by Christa Faust. The 405–page novel contains significant backstories for the characters and introduces other characters that were not featured in the film. Comic book writer Chuck Dixon wrote a comic book adaptation of the film. DC Comics released the two-issue miniseries on August 16, 2006 and September 27, 2006 under their Wildstorm imprint.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film was released on August 15, 2006. The enhanced portion of the CD contains what was considered the "best of the best" of the amateur Internet creations inspired by the film, including the songs "Snakes on the Brain" by Captain Ahab and "Here Come the Snakes (Seeing Is Believing)" by Louden Swain. The single "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" peaked at the 32nd position of Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks in 2006.
"Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" by Cobra Starship, William Beckett, Maja Ivarsson, Travie McCoy
"The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage" (Tommie Sunshine Brooklyn Fire Remix) by Panic! at the Disco
"Black Mamba" (Teddybears Remix) by The Academy Is...
"Ophidiophobia" by Cee-Lo Green
"Can't Take It" (The Baldwin Brothers "El Camino Prom Wagon" Remix) by The All-American Rejects
"Queen of Apology" (Patrick Stump Remix) by The Sounds
"Of All the Gin Joints in All the World" (Tommie Sunshine's Brooklyn Fire Retouch) by Fall Out Boy
"New Friend Request" (Hi-Tek Remix) by Gym Class Heroes
"Around the Horn" (Louis XIV Remix) by The Bronx
"Remember to Feel Real" (Machine Shop Remix) by Armor for Sleep
"Wine Red" (Tommie Sunshine's Brooklyn Fire Retouch) by The Hush Sound
"Bruised" (Remix) by Jack's Mannequin
"Final Snakes" by Shranky Drank
"Wake Up" (Acoustic) by Coheed and Cambria
"Lovely Day" by Donavon Frankenreiter
"Hey Now Now" by Michael Franti & Spearhead
"Snakes on a Plane - The Theme" (Score) by Trevor Rabin
See also
List of killer snake films
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane Quarantine 2: Terminal Snakes on a Train''
References
External links
(archived version)
Category:2006 films
Category:2000s action thriller films
Category:American films
Category:American action thriller films
Category:2000s comedy horror films
Category:Natural horror films
Category:English-language films
Category:Aviation films
Category:Films about snakes
Category:Films set on airplanes
Category:Films set in Hawaii
Category:Films set in Los Angeles, California
Category:Films shot in Hawaii
Category:Films shot in Los Angeles, California
Category:New Line Cinema films
Category:Mutual Film Company films
Category:Film scores by Trevor Rabin |
2016-01 | Harley_Quinn-696944764 | Harley_Quinn | Harley Quinn
Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, M.D.) is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. The character was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, and first appeared on Batman: The Animated Series in September 1992. She later appeared in DC Comics' Batman comic books, with her first comic book appearance in The Batman Adventures #12 (Sept. 1993). Harley Quinn is depicted as having a very pronounced New York accent.
The character is a frequent accomplice and lover of the Joker, and ally to the supervillain Poison Ivy from whom she gained an immunity to poisons and toxins. Harley Quinn's origin story relates that she met the Joker while working as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, where the Joker was a patient. Her name is a play on the name "Harlequin", a character which originated in the commedia dell'arte.
Harley Quinn was originally voiced by Arleen Sorkin in various tie-ins to the DC animated universe, and has also been voiced by Hynden Walch and Tara Strong in either DC Animated Showcases or in various video games. In the Birds of Prey television series, she was portrayed by actress Mia Sara. The character will be making her live-action cinematic debut in the upcoming 2016 film Suicide Squad portrayed by Australian actress Margot Robbie.
IGN's 2009 list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time ranked Harley Quinn as #45. She was ranked 16th in Comics Buyer's Guide's 2011 "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.
History
Creation and introduction
Harley Quinn first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favor", as what was originally supposed to be the animated equivalent of a walk-on role; a number of police officers were to be taken hostage by someone jumping out of a cake, and it was decided that to have the Joker do so himself would be too bizarre (although he ended up doing so anyway). Dini thus created a female sidekick for the Joker. Arleen Sorkin, a former star of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, appeared in a dream sequence on that series in which she wore a jester costume; Dini used this scene as an inspiration for Quinn. Having been friends with Sorkin since college, he incorporated aspects of her personality into the character.
The 1994 graphic novel Mad Love recounts the character's origin. Told in the style and continuity of Batman: The Animated Series and written and drawn by Dini and Timm, the comic book describes Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, M.D. as an Arkham Asylum psychiatrist who falls for the Joker and becomes his accomplice and on-again, off-again sidekick. The story received wide praise and won the Eisner and Harvey Awards for Best Single Issue Comic of the Year. The New Batman Adventures series adapted Mad Love as the episode of the same name in 1999, making it the second "animated style" comic book adapted for the series (the other was "Holiday Knights").
She becomes fascinated with the Joker while interning at Arkham and volunteers to analyze him. She falls hopelessly in love with the Joker during their sessions, and she helps him escape from the asylum more than once. When the Joker is returned to Arkham after a battle with Batman, the sight of her badly-injured patient drives Harleen insane, leading her to quit her psychiatrist job and don a jester costume to become Harley Quinn, the Joker's sidekick. She later befriends Poison Ivy, who injects her with an antitoxin which gives her increased agility and immunity to toxins.
Expanded role
After Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, Harley makes several other animated appearances. She appears as one of the four main female characters of the web cartoon Gotham Girls. She also made guest appearances in other cartoons in the DC animated universe, appearing in the Justice League episode "Wild Cards" (alongside the Joker) and the Static Shock episode "Hard as Nails" (alongside Poison Ivy).
She appeared in World's Finest: The Batman/Superman Movie as a rival and foil for Lex Luthor's assistant Mercy Graves; each takes an immediate dislike for the other, at one point fighting brutally with each other as Lex Luthor and the Joker have a business meeting. In the film's climax, Harley tied Graves as a human shield to a combat robot set to confront Superman and Batman, but Graves is rescued by the two heroes without suffering any harm (other than the damage Harley had inflicted on her beforehand).
The animated movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker takes place in the future, long after the events in Batman: The Animated Series. It includes a flashback scene with Harley falling down a deep pit during a battle with Batgirl. At the end of the movie, a pair of twin girls who model themselves on the Joker are released on bail to their grandmother, who angrily berates them—to which they answer: "Oh, shut up, Nana Harley!"
Transition to comic books and publication history
After the success of The Animated Series, the character proved so popular that she was eventually added to the Batman comic book canon. She first appeared in the original graphic novel, Batman: Harley Quinn, as part of the "No Man's Land" story, although she had already appeared in the Elseworlds Batman: Thrillkiller and Batman: Thrillkiller '62 in 1997. The comic book version of Quinn, like the comic book version of the Joker, is more dangerously violent and less humorously quirky than the animated series version. Despite her noticeably more violent demeanor, Harley does show mercy and compassion from time to time; she notably stops Poison Ivy from killing Batman, instead convincing her to leave the hero hanging bound and gagged from a large statue. Batman is later untied by Batgirl.
A Harley Quinn ongoing series was published monthly by DC Comics for 38 issues from 2001 to 2003. Creators who contributed to the title included Karl Kesel, Terry Dodson, A.J. Lieberman, and Mike Huddleston. The series dealt with her going solo, eventually starting a gang and then fleeing Gotham for the city of Metropolis with her friend Poison Ivy. Quinn dies, only to be resurrected and return to Gotham. The series ends with Harley turning herself in to Arkham Asylum, having finally understood that she needs help. We also learn in issue #8 of the comic that Harley had a relationship in college with fellow psychiatry major Guy Kopski whose suicide started her obsession with the Joker. Harley later appears in the Jeph Loeb series Hush. She is next seen in a Villains United Infinite Crisis special, where she is one of the many villains who escape from Arkham (although she is knocked unconscious the moment she escapes).
In the One Year Later continuity, Harley Quinn is an inmate at Arkham, glimpsed briefly in Detective Comics #823.
Harley next appeared in Batman #663, in which she helps the Joker with a plan to kill all his former henchmen, unaware that the "punch line" to the scheme is her own death. Upon realizing this, she shoots him in the shoulder.
Harley resurfaces in Detective Comics #831, written by Paul Dini. Harley has spent the last year applying for parole, only to see her request systematically rejected by Bruce Wayne, the layman member of Arkham's medical commission. She is kidnapped by Peyton Riley, the new female Ventriloquist, who offers her a job; Harley turns the job down out of respect for the memory of Arnold Wesker, the original Ventriloquist, who attempted to cheer her up during her first week in Arkham while the Joker was still on the loose. She then helps Batman and Commissioner Gordon foil the impostor's plans. Although Riley escapes, Bruce Wayne is impressed with Harley's effort at redemption, and agrees with granting her parole.
In Birds of Prey #105, Harley Quinn is revealed as the sixth member of the Secret Six. In issue #108, upon hearing that Oracle has sent the Russian authorities footage of teammate Deadshot murdering the Six's employer as payback for double-crossing them, Harley asks, "Is it a bad time to say 'I quit'?", thus leaving the team.
In Countdown #43, Harley appears to have reformed and is shown to be residing in an Amazon-run women's shelter. Having abandoned her jester costume and clown make-up, she now only wears an Amazonian stola or chiton. She befriends the former Catwoman replacement Holly Robinson, and then succeeds in persuading her to join her at the shelter, where she is working as an assistant. They are both brought to Themiscyra by "Athena" (really Granny Goodness) and begin Amazon training. Holly and Harley then meet the real Athena, and encounter Mary Marvel. The group reveal Granny's deception, and Holly, Harley, and Mary follow her as she retreats to Apokolips. Mary finds the Olympian gods, whom Granny had been holding prisoner, and the group frees them. Harley is granted powers by Thalia as a reward. Upon returning to Earth, the powers vanish, and Harley and Holly return to Gotham City.
Harley Quinn joins forces with Poison Ivy and Catwoman in the series Gotham City Sirens. Having moved in with Pamela Isley at the Riddler's apartment, she meets up with Catwoman, who offers for the three of them to live and work together. A new villain who tried to take down Selina Kyle named Boneblaster breaks into the apartment, and the three of them have to move after they defeat him. Later, after a chance encounter with Hush, the Joker attempts to kill her, apparently out of jealousy. Quinn is rescued by Ivy and Catwoman, and it is later revealed that her attacker wasn't the real Joker, but one of his old henchmen impersonating him.
Gotham City Sirens #7 establishes that she was born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, into a Jewish-Catholic family. Her father is a con artist who is still in jail. Her brother, Barry, is a slob with dreams of rock stardom, and her mother, Sharon, wants her to stop the "villain and hero stuff". It is stated that the reason why Harley chose to become a psychologist in the first place was to try and understand her own broken family.
On a certain instance Harley attempted to steal from Two-Face and the Riddler, but was caught and they were not happy. Later, Poison Ivy discovers Harley bound and gagged in a closet, and Ivy removes the gag and unties her.
Following a number of adventures with Catwoman and Ivy, Harley betrays them and breaks into Arkham Asylum with the goal of killing the Joker for his years of abuse towards her. However, Harley ultimately chooses instead to release Joker from his cell, and together the two orchestrate a violent takeover of the facility that results in most of the guards and staff members either being killed or taken hostage by the inmates. Harley and the Joker are eventually defeated by Batman and Catwoman, and Harley is last seen being wheeled away while bound in a straitjacket and muzzle. Shortly after this, Poison Ivy breaks into Harley's cell and attempts to kill her for her betrayal, but instead offers to free her if she helps kill Catwoman, who had left both of her fellow Sirens behind in Arkham. Harley agrees, and the two set out to trap Catwoman. During the ensuing fight, Catwoman says that she saw good in them and only wanted to help. Just as Batman is about to arrest them, Catwoman helps the two of them escape.
The New 52
Following DC's 2011 relaunch of its titles, Harley Quinn's costume and appearance is fully revamped. Harley Quinn has a more revealing costume, altered hair color, and bleached skin. Her hair is half-red and half-black, like the jester cap of her previous incarnation, rather than fully blonde. Consistent with her new origin, her bleached skin is the result of being kicked into a vat of acid by the Joker.
After a falling out with the Joker, she goes into a murderous frenzy, directed towards people responsible for the Joker's imprisonment. Captured by Black Canary, she is forcibly inducted into the Suicide Squad by Amanda Waller. However, when she discovers that the Joker is rumored to be dead, it takes a further toll in her already addled mind, and betraying the Suicide Squad, she puts their safety and secrecy at risk by turning herself into the Gotham Police Department in a plot to gain access to the skinned face of the Joker. Her plan apparently pays off, and she manages to recover the face, though in a further psychotic episode, Harley captures and ties up Deadshot and places the skinned face of the Joker over Deadshot's face, so that she can carry on a "conversation" with her dead lover. Deadshot lures Harley in close, shooting and severely injuring her during the conversation. After the Joker returns to Gotham in the "Death of the Family" story line, he forces her to disguise herself in his old Red Hood costume and trick Batman into coming to the chemical plant where they first met. Batman then falls into a tank and demands Harley to tell him where Joker is. But she only replies, in tears, that he's no longer the Joker she had fallen in love with.
On July 16, 2013, DC announced that a new Harley Quinn ongoing comic book series would begin publication in November 2013, co-written by Amanda Conner and her husband Jimmy Palmiotti, cover illustrated by Conner and illustrated by Chad Hardin. The series has notably become distanced from the "Batman Family" of DC publications in both tone and premise, with Harley no longer having any significant connection to either Batman or the Joker following the "Death of the Family" storyline. In the series, Harley Quinn has become a landlady at Coney Island, is a part-time member of a roller derby team and has returned to psychiatric work under her real alias, indicating that Harley's real identity is not public knowledge in the new status quo.
Under Conner and Palmiotti's writing, Harley has been reinvented as an antihero rather than a villain, who values human life and actively tries to improve life in her neighborhood. Between issues #11 and #13 Harley formed a brief partnership with an amnesiac Power Girl and battled Clock King and Sportsmaster before Power Girl's memory was restored and she left Harley at the top of the Eiffel Tower as punishment for her deceit. Harley attempts to coerce a romantic connection with her tenant Mason, but was unable to make the date due to the multitude of responsibilities in her life, balancing her two jobs with her commitment to her roller derby team and her career as a crime-fighter. With support from her friend Poison Ivy, Harley makes amends with Mason and turns to the internet to recruit other strong, young women in a crime-fighting team she is forming. This team, composing of young women of various ethnic backgrounds and one gay man called Harvey Quinn, then fights Captain Horatio Strong, a sea captain who becomes superhumanly strong after eating an addictive alien sea-plant, in an homage to Popeye. Harley agrees to help a woman whose daughter has been kidnapped by a gang in Hollywood.<ref>Harley Quinn## #16-19(June–August 2015)</ref>Harley Quinn has featured a few standalone specials which are not directly connected to the main series and feature multiple artists. In the scratch and sniff-themed Annual issue, Harley briefly returned to Gotham to save her friend Poison Ivy, as the Arkham Asylum employees monitoring her had brainwashed her to create a hallucinogenic pathogen. In the Valentines Day Special, Harley returned to Gotham to win a prize date with Bruce Wayne (who unbeknownst to her is Batman) and finds herself fighting animal rights activists-turned-super villain blackmailers. She shares a brief intimate moment with Bruce Wayne. At Coney Island, Batman informs Harley that while he still distrusts her, he admires her attempt at heroism and promises not to interfere. Harley kisses Batman and tells him to get "lessons" on kissing from Bruce Wayne, to which Batman privately grins.
In Futures End, a series set five years in the future, Harley mails herself to the Bahamas in an attempt to save money on airfare. The plane carrying her crashes over the ocean while flying through a storm and Harley is washed up onto the shore's of an island inhabited by an un-contacted tribe. The tribe quickly declares her a goddess and is determined to have her meet their god-king who turns out to be The Joker. After a fight and reconciliation Harley learns that The Joker has been living on the island as a god and making the inhabitants dress up as various superheroes and track him down while playing tricks on them. It is announced that she and The Joker are to be married. She's initially excited about the pending marriage until she discovers that the two will be sacrificed to the island's volcano as their wedding ceremony ends.
A spin-off series entitled "Harley Quinn and Power Girl" was launched in June 2015. The series is set to run six issues and will takes place while Harley has the amnesiac Power Girl convinced the two are a crime fighting duo. The story follows the two when they're sent to a part of deep space known as La Galaxia Del Sombrero during the unseen events mentioned in Harley Quinn #12 and the chronicles their journey to return to earth.
Controversy
In September 2013, DC Comics announced a contest for fans and artists, "Break into comics with Harley Quinn!", in which contestants were to draw Harley in four different suicide scenarios. This contest drew controversy not only because it was announced close to National Suicide Prevention Week, but because some artists did not like the sexualized portrayal of Harley in the fourth scenario, in which Harley attempts suicide while naked in her bath tub.
Other versions
Harley Quinn's first major appearance outside the Batman animated world was in the Elseworlds miniseries Thrillkiller. This version of Harley is a schoolgirl named Hayley Fitzpatrick who dresses up in order to help a female version of the Joker called Bianca Steeplechase. The relationship between this lesbian or bisexual Joker and Harley Quinn is short-lived but noticeably more egalitarian than its heterosexual counterpart in mainstream DC continuity. After Batgirl kills Bianca, Harley is shown killing her own family, intent on revenge in the final frames of the story.
In the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant, one of the stories is about Lex Luthor as a music producer. One of his groups is, as the press puts it, "alternative lifestyle folkies Ivy and Harley".
On the new Earth-3, Harleen Quinzel is the Jokester's business manager. She is killed by Owlman.
In the 2008 graphic novel Joker, Harley Quinn appears as the Joker's helper and aide-de-camp. She at one point acts as a stripper (though this may be a ruse), and is never shown speaking.
In Batman '66, a version of Harley Quinn appears as Dr. Quinn, a psychiatric specialist at Arkham Asylum here called Arkham Institute for the Criminally Insane. She convinces Joker to cooperate with Batman and Robin in exchange for approving his comedy night proposal.
Harley Quinn appears in the prequel comic to the game Injustice: Gods Among Us. She helps the Joker kidnap Lois Lane and surgically plant a trigger in her heart that will set off a nuclear bomb in Metropolis should her heart stop; when Superman accidentally kills her (thinking she is Doomsday) this happens, with the grieving Superman killing the Joker as a result. Harley evades arrest and meets Green Arrow, who wants to save her from potential wrath from Superman. The two unexpectedly become close as a result, with Harley staying in his secret lair, the Arrow Cave (a running gag being Harley suggesting the better name, 'The Quiver' as the actual name is considered terrible). After she starts a fire, he takes her to Arkham Asylum where the patients are being illegally transferred by the League. Harley sets them all free, though is left saddened when Nightwing is inadvertently killed by Robin (Damien Wayne). She later appears in the Injustice: Gods Among Us Annual #1, teaming up with Green Arrow and Black Canary when Lobo tracks her down for a bounty Superman has placed on her head. She later joins the Insurgency full-time, getting closer to Canary after the death of Green Arrow. She continues to be a member into Injustice Gods Among Us Year Three and Year Four, developing an infatuation with Shazam along the way.
In other media
Television
Animation
Harley Quinn makes an appearance on the Kids' WB series The Batman, voiced by Hynden Walch. In the episode "Two of a Kind" (written by her co-creator Paul Dini), this version of the character is at first the host of pop psychology television show "Heart To Heart With Harley". Harleen Quinzel claims to have obtained a degree in psychology from an online educational institution, and she gives off-the-cuff advice to her callers that usually hurts more than it helps, resulting in a lot of controversy in the media which the Joker finds amusing being a fan of her show. Her boss Jimmy Herbert becomes fed up with her irresponsible behavior and cancels the show on the air after she stages an ambush of Bruce Wayne on her show under a false promise to help promote a charity-drive for crime victims. Joker sees the episode and knows that Harley's having an emotional breakdown, proceeding to take advantage of the situation by making her a partner. Harley rationalizes joining Joker by telling herself that she will be able to get a tell-all that will restore her career, but then she ends up rampaging across Gotham city as Joker's partner-in-crime. Eventually, Harley learns that the network is planning to share with the police a psychological profile of her by TV psychologist Dr. Elliot Blaine, so she plans to destroy the network as revenge for her firing, something which Joker finds amusing. However, she is foiled by Batman, Robin and Batgirl, and she is arrested after Joker deserts her. She seemingly regrets taking up with Joker. However, once she has been taken into a police car, she sees that Joker has left her an affectionate message, and instantly falls in love again. She has a few short appearances in the episode "Rumor" and a slightly larger appearance in "The Metal Face of Comedy". This incarnation wears a slightly different costume than the one she wears in Batman: The Animated Series as in this depiction, the black parts of the original are dark red, the headdress is larger than the original, the inverted diamond pattern on the shoulders and thighs is absent, her gloves are fingerless, and her mask conceals her eyes.
Harley Quinn appeared in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by Meghan Strange. This version is a henchwoman of the Joker modeled after a 1920s flapper woman (shown in black-and-white) instead of her traditional costume. In the episode "Legends of the Dark Mite!" while Bat-Mite is giving a speech at the Comic-Con, there is a brief cameo of Paul Dini (Harley Quinn's creator) dressed up as the woman. She appears alongside the Joker in "Emperor Joker!". Though she has a mutual crush on Bat-Mite, she ultimately proves to love Joker more. Alongside virtually every other character that appeared during the show's three season run, Harley makes a cameo appearance in the series finale "Mitefall!" She is shown with Joker at the show's wrap party and kicks Gagsworthy when he tries to approach Joker.
Web series
Harley Quinn (credited as Harlequin) appears in the first episode of the web series Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles where she kidnapped and mutilated an unknown number of people and made toys and dolls out of the bodies. She fights Batman after he frees her latest victim and ends up surrendering, only to be drained of her blood and possibly killed after Batman reveals himself to be a vampire. She is once again voiced by Tara Strong.
Harley Quinn appears in the web series DC Super Hero Girls where she is a student at Super Hero High and the roommate of Wonder Woman. She is voiced again by Tara Strong.
Live-action
In 2002, a live-action television series called Birds of Prey, loosely based on the comic of the same name, included Harley Quinn as a psychotic psychiatrist and main antagonist. The character was portrayed by actress Mia Sara (replacing Sherilyn Fenn from an unaired pilot episode). The show aired only 13 episodes. In this show, she is portrayed as an older, far more calculating and sinister character than her bubbly comic and cartoon personas. Picking up where the Joker had left off, Harleen Quinzel used her day job as a psychiatrist to achieve her savage purpose – to take control of the city of New Gotham. She does not wear a costume, although she does wear an outfit that is reminiscent of her cartoon costume in the series finale "Devil's Eyes". In that episode, she uses experimental technology to transfer metahuman mind control powers to herself. She occasionally makes reference to her "sweet Mr. J.", laments his loss as a Gotham City crime boss and hints at a past relationship reminiscent to that of the animated series. A criminal known as the Crawler addresses her as "the Joker's girlfriend" in the seventh episode "Split".
Harley Quinn makes a cameo appearance in the Arrow season two episode "Suicide Squad", voiced again by Tara Strong, while physically portrayed by Cassidy Alexa (credited as "Deranged Squad Female"). The series star Stephen Amell revealed in an interview that she was originally set to appear in the season two finale episode "Unthinkable", but was cut due to time. The show's producer Andrew Kreisberg revealed that there were plans for the character to appear, but series actress Willa Holland revealed that they had been axed due to the Suicide Squad film.Why Arrow Axed Harley Quinn & Suicide Squad + Willa Holland on Female Superheroes
Film
Live-action
Prior to the release of Batman & Robin, Mark Protosevich was commissioned by Warner Bros. to write a script for a fifth Batman film titled Batman Triumphant to be directed by Joel Schumacher, with Harley Quinn and the Scarecrow as the film's villains. Protosevich wrote her as the Joker's daughter seeking revenge for his death.
The character will be making her cinematic debut in the upcoming 2016 film Suicide Squad portrayed by actress Margot Robbie.
Animation
Harley Quinn, both in her younger form in a flashback and elderly form in the present day, appears in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, again voiced by Arleen Sorkin.
In Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Harley Quinn is the name of a monkey owned by the Jester (Joker's Parallel Earth equivalent).
Harley Quinn appears in Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, with Laura Bailey reprising her role.
Harley Quinn is one of the main characters in Batman: Assault on Arkham, voiced by Hynden Walch. In this version, she is pressganged by Amanda Waller into joining the Suicide Squad, and must venture to Arkham Asylum on a mission to retrieve the Riddler for Waller. Having once worked at the Asylum and knowing its layout and schedules, she is considered vital for the task. Harley seems to be interested in Deadshot, but ultimately rejoins the Joker and reveals having intended all along to use the mission in order to invade Arkham and break him out. During their escape, Harley battles Batman as Joker faces Deadshot. Both are defeated, but their fates are not revealed. As the film takes place before Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, it is assumed that Harley was recaptured, while Joker escaped.
Video games
Harley Quinn appears in several video games based upon the animated series.
She appears in a cameo role in The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Super NES, and as a boss in The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega Genesis.
She appears in The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega CD and Batman: Chaos in Gotham, voiced by Arleen Sorkin.
Harley Quinn played a major role in the game's storyline in Batman Vengeance, voiced by Arleen Sorkin. She first appears posing as "Mary Flynn" in a trap for Batman set by the Joker; she later does the Joker's dirty work after he fakes his death.
Harley Quinn was considered as a DLC fighter for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, alongside Mortal Kombat's Quan Chi, but these plans were discarded following Midway's bankruptcy.
Harley Quinn appears in the DC Universe Online video game, with Arleen Sorkin returning as her voice. Harley appears in the Joker's Fun house, where she will be seen being arrested by Robin if the player uses a villain character, or holding Robin hostage if the character is a hero, in which case the player will have to defeat her. She plays a minor role in T.O.Morrow's hideout, as she has gone there with the Joker to pursue Morrow. Harley is the basic Legends PVP character, granted to Villains without having to spend Marks of Legend. If a player using Harley defeats an enemy player using Joker, the player will get a feat called Mad Love. To date this was the last time Arleen Sorkin voiced her iconic character.
Harley Quinn appears in Infinite Crisis as a playable character, voiced by Tara Strong.
Harley Quinn is among the villains summoned by Brainiac to retrieve Starites in Scribblenauts Unmasked.
Batman: Arkham
Harley Quinn is a recurring Enemy in the Batman: Arkham franchise. Arleen Sorkin initially reprises her role in the first game whereas Tara Strong assumes the role for the remainder of the series.
In Batman: Arkham Asylum, she serves as the secondary antagonist of the game, here with a new costume based on a nurse uniform. She takes control of Arkham, allowing Joker to escape, releases Poison Ivy from her cell, and kidnaps Warden Quincy Sharp. After Batman rescues Sharp, he confronts her and locks her in a cell. She returns in the Scarecrow's final nightmare as one of the guards escorting Batman away.
In Batman: Arkham City, She is shown wearing a biker-girl themed costume in this game, using a low-key version of her usual makeup, with heavy eye shadow in lieu of her domino mask. Batman encounters Harley in the Sionis Steel Mill where she was with the Joker. She later steals the cure for the Joker's illness while Batman was fighting Mr. Freeze for it, but is bound and gagged by Talia al Ghul. When the Joker dies from his illness, Quinn was with the Joker's henchmen when Batman brought his dead body out of the theater.
Harley also appears in "Harley Quinn's Revenge" expansion as the main antagonist, seeking revenge on Batman for the death of the Joker. By this time, Harley has dyed her hair completely black and wears almost all black, with a "J" necklace and mourning veil. After escaping from a temporary holding area following the destruction of Arkham City, Harley transforms the Steel Mill into a gigantic memorial of him. She is later beaten by the duo of Batman and Robin and taken into custody by the GCPD.
Included as an Easter egg in the manager's office of the Steel Mill, there is a crib with Scarface painted as the Joker inside, surrounded by dozens of negative pregnancy tests accompanied by a single positive pregnancy test, which could indicate that she had a miscarriage, the positive test was false, or after several failed attempts she finally got pregnant just before the Joker died.
Harley Quinn introduced Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, at the Nintendo Press Conference at E3 2012 where Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition was introduced for the Wii U.
Harley Quinn appears in Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, where she kidnaps a reporter to use as a hostage to free the Joker. After luring Batman into a trap, she tries to execute the bound and gagged reporter, but is stopped by one of Batman's batarangs. She is once again voiced by Tara Strong.
Dr. Harleen Quinzel, M.D. appears briefly in Batman: Arkham Origins before her transformation into Harley Quinn. She interviews Joker at Blackgate Prison and falls in love with him after he confesses his fascination with someone who he considers special to him (Batman).
While Dr. Harleen Quinzel, M.D. never makes a physical appearance in Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, she is referred to in the unlockable Detective Case titled "Doctor's Orders". According to the Detective Case, Quinzel's increasing obsession with the Joker is not going unnoticed by her fellow staff, who are beginning to worry that the Joker may be manipulating Quinzel. The Case also states that Quinzel has started referring to the Joker as "Mister J" in her personal journal with hearts drawn around his name, rather than "Patient ARK119805".
In the main story of Batman: Arkham Knight, it's revealed that in between the events of Arkham City and the current game, she's become a very competent gang leader, having recovered control of the Joker's former gang (including the members that were plotting to overthrow her or desert her) and has even become one of Gotham's main gang leaders, recruited by Scarecrow in his plan to kill Batman. She tries to break free and recruit the victims of Joker's blood transfusion who were not affected by the cure, all of whom started to display traces of his appearance and behavior, but they all end up dead after she was betrayed by one of the Joker patients that was working for her.
Apart from the main game, she is a playable character via pre-order downloadable content in a story-driven mission, featuring her own weapons and abilities; the content also includes four challenge maps for the character. In her mission, which takes place shortly before the main story, Harley breaks into the Blüdhaven prison to free Poison Ivy, defeating all police officers and, with Ivy's help, Nightwing.
Harley appears, this time in her classic costume, in the Batgirl: A Matter of Family downloadable content story pack. Set before the events of Arkham Asylum, she serves as one of the two final bosses alongside the Joker, confronting Batgirl and Robin.
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Harley Quinn appears as a playable fighter in Injustice: Gods Among Us voiced again by Tara Strong. In the alternate universe depicted in the game, Quinn establishes the Joker Clan to honor the Clown Prince after he is murdered by Superman. She is part of Batman's Insurgency, and reacts very negatively when the "Prime" Joker appears, believing him to be a fake. The Joker still temporarily gains her trust after proving himself to be the real deal, but she gets over it again once he threatens to kill her when she fails to defeat her Earth's version of Lex Luthor who, unknown to them both at the time, is a fellow Insurgent posing as an ally of Superman. In her battle ending, she had gone to marry The Joker, but after he playfully smashed her face into a cake, years of abuse made Harley snap. Using the ceremonial knife she slit The Joker's throat, killing him. It is then stated she permanently became a patient at the Arkham Asylum, still wearing her wedding gown. That happens not in our universe but where everyone is at ends with each other.
Lego Batman
She appears in Lego Batman: The Videogame, with her sound effects provided by Grey DeLisle. She appears as an enemy of Batman and a 1st deputy of the Joker.Game Informer magazine features a two-page gallery of the many heroes and villains who appear in the game with a picture for each character and a descriptive paragraph. See "LEGO Batman: Character Gallery", Game Informer 186 (October 2008): 93. Harley Quinn in Lego Batman is a playable character and can be unlocked through the villain levels, and carries a pistol and her giant mallet. She can perform high jumps like most women in the game.
Harley Quinn appears as a minor antagonist in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, voiced by Laura Bailey.
Harley Quinn appears as a playable character in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, with Tara Strong reprising her role.
Harley Quinn will be a playable character in Lego Dimensions'', Tara Strong reprising the role.
See also
Hybristophilia
List of Batman Family adversaries
References
External links
Harley Quinn at DC Comics
Collecting Harley Quinn
Harley Quinn on the official Superman/Batman Adventures homepage
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2016-01 | Television-697365971 | Television | Television
A television, commonly referred to as TV, telly or the tube, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting sound with moving images in monochrome (black-and-white), or in colour, and in two or three dimensions. It can refer to a television set, a television program, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium, for entertainment, education, news and advertising.
Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, an improved form became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US and most other developed countries. The availability of storage media such as VHS tape (1976), DVDs (1997), and high-definition Blu-ray Discs (2006) enabled viewers to watch recorded material such as movies. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity. Another development was the move from standard-definition television (SDTV) (576i, with 576 interlaced lines of resolution and 480i) to high-definition television (HDTV), which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats: 1080p, 1080i and 720p. Since 2010, with the invention of smart television, Internet television has increased the availability of television programs and movies via the Internet through services such as Netflix, iPlayer, Hulu, Roku and Chromecast.
In 2013, 79% of the world's households owned a television set. The replacement of early bulky, high-voltage cathode ray tube (CRT) screen displays with compact, energy-efficient, flat-panel alternative technologies such as plasma displays, LCDs (both fluorescent-backlit and LED), and OLED displays was a hardware revolution that began with computer monitors in the late 1990s. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs. Major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are expected to be replaced gradually by OLEDs in the near future. Also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TV sets in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s.
Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by co-axial cable or optical fibre, satellite systems and via the Internet. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals but countries started switching to digital, this transition is expected to be completed worldwide by late 2010s. A standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television.
Etymology
The word television comes . The slang term "telly" is more common in the UK. The slang term "the tube" refers to the bulky cathode ray tube used on most TVs until the advent of flat-screen TVs.
History
Mechanical television
Facsimile transmission systems for still photographs pioneered methods of mechanical scanning of images in early 19th century. Alexander Bain introduced the facsimile machine between 1843 and 1846. Frederick Bakewell demonstrated a working laboratory version in 1851. Willoughby Smith discovered the photoconductivity of the element selenium in 1873.
As a 23-year-old German university student, Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow proposed and patented the Nipkow disk in 1884. This was a spinning disk with a spiral pattern of holes in it, so each hole scanned a line of the image. Although he never built a working model of the system, variations of Nipkow's spinning-disk "image rasterizer" became exceedingly common. Constantin Perskyi had coined the word television in a paper read to the International Electricity Congress at the International World Fair in Paris on 25 August 1900. Perskyi's paper reviewed the existing electromechanical technologies, mentioning the work of Nipkow and others. However, it was not until 1907 that developments in amplification tube technology by Lee de Forest and Arthur Korn, among others, made the design practical.
The first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of images was by Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier in Paris in 1909. A matrix of 64 selenium cells, individually wired to a mechanical commutator, served as an electronic retina. In the receiver, a type of Kerr cell modulated the light and a series of variously angled mirrors attached to the edge of a rotating disc scanned the modulated beam onto the display screen. A separate circuit regulated synchronization. The 8x8 pixel resolution in this proof-of-concept demonstration was just sufficient to clearly transmit individual letters of the alphabet. An updated image was transmitted "several times" each second.
In 1911, Boris Rosing and his student Vladimir Zworykin created a system that used a mechanical mirror-drum scanner to transmit, in Zworykin's words, "very crude images" over wires to the "Braun tube" (cathode ray tube or "CRT") in the receiver. Moving images were not possible because, in the scanner: "the sensitivity was not enough and the selenium cell was very laggy".
By the 1920s, when amplification made television practical, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird employed the Nipkow disk in his prototype video systems. On 25 March 1925, Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion, at Selfridge's Department Store in London. Since human faces had inadequate contrast to show up on his primitive system, he televised a ventriloquist's dummy named "Stooky Bill" talking and moving, whose painted face had higher contrast. By 26 January 1926 he demonstrated the transmission of the image of a face in motion by radio. This is widely regarded as the first television demonstration. The subject was Baird's business partner Oliver Hutchinson. Baird's system used the Nipkow disk for both scanning the image and displaying it. A bright light shining through a spinning Nipkow disk set with lenses projected a bright spot of light which swept across the subject. Selenium photoelectric tube detected the light reflected from the subject and converted it into a proportional electrical signal. This was transmitted by AM radio waves to a receiver unit, where the video signal was applied to a neon light behind a second Nipkow disk rotating synchronized with the first. The brightness of the neon lamp was varied in proportion to the brightness of each spot on the image. As each hole in the disk passed by, one scan line of the image was reproduced. Baird's disk had 30 holes, producing an image with only 30 scan lines, just enough to recognize a human face. In 1927, Baird transmitted a signal over of telephone line between London and Glasgow.
In 1928, Baird's company (Baird Television Development Company/Cinema Television) broadcast the first transatlantic television signal, between London and New York, and the first shore-to-ship transmission. In 1929, he became involved in the first experimental mechanical television service in Germany. In November of the same year, Baird and Bernard Natan of Pathé established France's first television company, Télévision-Baird-Natan. In 1931, he made the first outdoor remote broadcast, of the Epsom Derby. In 1932, he demonstrated ultra-short wave television. Baird's mechanical system reached a peak of 240-lines of resolution on BBC television broadcasts in 1936 though the mechanical system did not scan the televised scene directly. Instead a 17.5mm film was shot, rapidly developed and then scanned while the film was still wet.
An American inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins, also pioneered the television. He published an article on "Motion Pictures by Wireless" in 1913, but it was not until 1923 that he transmitted moving silhouette images for witnesses; and it was on 13 June 1925 that he publicly demonstrated synchronized transmission of silhouette pictures. In 1925 Jenkins used the Nipkow disk and transmitted the silhouette image of a toy windmill in motion, over a distance of five miles, from a naval radio station in Maryland to his laboratory in Washington, D.C., using a lensed disk scanner with a 48-line resolution. He was granted the U.S. patent No. 1,544,156 (Transmitting Pictures over Wireless) on 30 June 1925 (filed 13 March 1922).
Herbert E. Ives and Frank Gray of Bell Telephone Laboratories gave a dramatic demonstration of mechanical television on 7 April 1927. Their reflected-light television system included both small and large viewing screens. The small receiver had a 2-inch-wide by 2.5-inch-high screen. The large receiver had a screen 24 inches wide by 30 inches high. Both sets were capable of reproducing reasonably accurate, monochromatic moving images. Along with the pictures, the sets received synchronized sound. The system transmitted images over two paths: first, a copper wire link from Washington to New York City, then a radio link from Whippany, New Jersey. Comparing the two transmission methods, viewers noted no difference in quality. Subjects of the telecast included Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. A flying-spot scanner beam illuminated these subjects. The scanner that produced the beam had a 50-aperture disk. The disc revolved at a rate of 18 frames per second, capturing one frame about every 56 milliseconds. (Today's systems typically transmit 30 or 60 frames per second, or one frame every 33.3 or 16.7 milliseconds respectively.) Television historian Albert Abramson underscored the significance of the Bell Labs demonstration: "It was in fact the best demonstration of a mechanical television system ever made to this time. It would be several years before any other system could even begin to compare with it in picture quality."
In 1928, WRGB then W2XB was started as world's first television station. It broadcast from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY. It was popularly known as "WGY Television". Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Léon Theremin had been developing a mirror drum-based television, starting with 16 lines resolution in 1925, then 32 lines and eventually 64 using interlacing in 1926, and as part of his thesis on 7 May 1926 he electrically transmitted and then projected near-simultaneous moving images on a five-foot square screen. By 1927 he achieved an image of 100 lines, a resolution that was not surpassed until 1931 by RCA, with 120 lines. On 25 December 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a television system with a 40-line resolution that employed a Nipkow disk scanner and CRT display at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan. This prototype is still on display at the Takayanagi Memorial Museum in Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu Campus. His research in creating a production model was halted by the US after Japan lost World War II.
Because only a limited number of holes could be made in the disks, and disks beyond a certain diameter became impractical, image resolution on mechanical television broadcasts was relatively low, ranging from about 30 lines up to 120 or so. Nevertheless, the image quality of 30-line transmissions steadily improved with technical advances, and by 1933 the UK broadcasts using the Baird system were remarkably clear. A few systems ranging into the 200-line region also went on the air. Two of these were the 180-line system that Compagnie des Compteurs (CDC) installed in Paris in 1935, and the 180-line system that Peck Television Corp. started in 1935 at station VE9AK in Montreal.
The advancement of all-electronic television (including image dissectors and other camera tubes and cathode ray tubes for the reproducer) marked the beginning of the end for mechanical systems as the dominant form of television. Mechanical television, despite its inferior image quality and generally smaller picture, would remain the primary television technology until the 1930s. The last mechanical television broadcasts ended in 1939 at stations run by a handful of public universities in the United States.
Electronic television
In 1897, English physicist J. J. Thomson was able, in his three famous experiments, to deflect cathode rays, a fundamental function of the modern cathode ray tube (CRT). The earliest version of the CRT was invented by the German physicist Ferdinand Braun in 1897 and is also known as the Braun tube. It was a cold-cathode diode, a modification of the Crookes tube with a phosphor-coated screen. In 1907, Russian scientist Boris Rosing used a CRT in the receiving end of an experimental video signal to form a picture. He managed to display simple geometric shapes onto the screen, which marked the first time that CRT technology was used for what is now known as television.
In 1908 Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, fellow of the Royal Society (UK), published a letter in the scientific journal Nature in which he described how "distant electric vision" could be achieved by using a cathode ray tube, or Braun tube, as both a transmitting and receiving device, He expanded on his vision in a speech given in London in 1911 and reported in The Times and the Journal of the Röntgen Society. In a letter to Nature published in October 1926, Campbell-Swinton also announced the results of some "not very successful experiments" he had conducted with G. M. Minchin and J. C. M. Stanton. They had attempted to generate an electrical signal by projecting an image onto a selenium-coated metal plate that was simultaneously scanned by a cathode ray beam. These experiments were conducted before March 1914, when Minchin died, but they were later repeated by two different teams in 1937, by H. Miller and J. W. Strange from EMI, and by H. Iams and A. Rose from RCA. Both teams succeeded in transmitting "very faint" images with the original Campbell-Swinton's selenium-coated plate. Although others had experimented with using a cathode ray tube as a receiver, the concept of using one as a transmitter was novel. The first cathode ray tube to use a hot cathode was developed by John B. Johnson (who gave his name to the term Johnson noise) and Harry Weiner Weinhart of Western Electric, and became a commercial product in 1922.
In 1926, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi designed a television system utilizing fully electronic scanning and display elements and employing the principle of "charge storage" within the scanning (or "camera") tube. The problem of low sensitivity to light resulting in low electrical output from transmitting or "camera" tubes would be solved with the introduction of charge-storage technology by Kálmán Tihanyi beginning in 1924. His solution was a camera tube that accumulated and stored electrical charges ("photoelectrons") within the tube throughout each scanning cycle. The device was first described in a patent application he filed in Hungary in March 1926 for a television system he dubbed "Radioskop". After further refinements included in a 1928 patent application, Tihanyi's patent was declared void in Great Britain in 1930, so he applied for patents in the United States. Although his breakthrough would be incorporated into the design of RCA's "iconoscope" in 1931, the U.S. patent for Tihanyi's transmitting tube would not be granted until May 1939. The patent for his receiving tube had been granted the previous October. Both patents had been purchased by RCA prior to their approval. Charge storage remains a basic principle in the design of imaging devices for television to the present day.
On 25 December 1926, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan, Japanese inventor Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a TV system with a 40-line resolution that employed a CRT display. This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. Takayanagi did not apply for a patent.
On 7 September 1927, American inventor Philo Farnsworth's image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco. By 3 September 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. This is widely regarded as the first electronic television demonstration. In 1929, the system was further improved by the elimination of a motor generator, so that his television system now had no mechanical parts. That year, Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images with his system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Elma ("Pem") with her eyes closed (possibly due to the bright lighting required).
Meanwhile, Vladimir Zworykin was also experimenting with the cathode ray tube to create and show images. While working for Westinghouse Electric in 1923, he began to develop an electronic camera tube. But in a 1925 demonstration, the image was dim, had low contrast and poor definition, and was stationary. Zworykin's imaging tube never got beyond the laboratory stage. But RCA, which acquired the Westinghouse patent, asserted that the patent for Farnsworth's 1927 image dissector was written so broadly that it would exclude any other electronic imaging device. Thus RCA, on the basis of Zworykin's 1923 patent application, filed a patent interference suit against Farnsworth. The U.S. Patent Office examiner disagreed in a 1935 decision, finding priority of invention for Farnsworth against Zworykin. Farnsworth claimed that Zworykin's 1923 system would be unable to produce an electrical image of the type to challenge his patent. Zworykin received a patent in 1928 for a color transmission version of his 1923 patent application, he also divided his original application in 1931. Zworykin was unable or unwilling to introduce evidence of a working model of his tube that was based on his 1923 patent application. In September 1939, after losing an appeal in the courts, and determined to go forward with the commercial manufacturing of television equipment, RCA agreed to pay Farnsworth US$1 million over a ten-year period, in addition to license payments, to use his patents.
In 1933, RCA introduced an improved camera tube that relied on Tihanyi's charge storage principle. Dubbed the Iconoscope by Zworykin, the new tube had a light sensitivity of about 75,000 lux, and thus was claimed to be much more sensitive than Farnsworth's image dissector. However, Farnsworth had overcome his power problems with his Image Dissector through the invention of a completely unique "multipactor" device that he began work on in 1930, and demonstrated in 1931. This small tube could amplify a signal reportedly to the 60th power or better and showed great promise in all fields of electronics. Unfortunately, a problem with the multipactor was that it wore out at an unsatisfactory rate.
At the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931, Manfred von Ardenne gave a public demonstration of a television system using a CRT for both transmission and reception. However, Ardenne had not developed a camera tube, using the CRT instead as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and film. Philo Farnsworth gave the world's first public demonstration of an all-electronic television system, using a live camera, at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia on 25 August 1934, and for ten days afterwards.
Mexican inventor Guillermo González Camarena also played an important role in early TV. His experiments with TV (known as telectroescopía at first) began in 1931 and led to a patent for the "trichromatic field sequential system" color television in 1940.
In Britain the EMI engineering team led by Isaac Shoenberg applied in 1932 for a patent for a new device they dubbed "the Emitron", which formed the heart of the cameras they designed for the BBC. On 2 November 1936, a 405-line broadcasting service employing the Emitron began at studios in Alexandra Palace, and transmitted from a specially built mast atop one of the Victorian building's towers. It alternated for a short time with Baird's mechanical system in adjoining studios, but was more reliable and visibly superior. This was the world's first regular "high-definition" television service.
The original American iconoscope was noisy, had a high ratio of interference to signal, and ultimately gave disappointing results, especially when compared to the high definition mechanical scanning systems then becoming available. The EMI team under the supervision of Isaac Shoenberg analyzed how the iconoscope (or Emitron) produces an electronic signal and concluded that its real efficiency was only about 5% of the theoretical maximum. They solved this problem by developing and patenting in 1934 two new camera tubes dubbed super-Emitron and CPS Emitron. The super-Emitron was between ten and fifteen times more sensitive than the original Emitron and iconoscope tubes and, in some cases, this ratio was considerably greater. It was used for an outside broadcasting by the BBC, for the first time, on Armistice Day 1937, when the general public could watch on a television set as the King laid a wreath at the Cenotaph. This was the first time that anyone could broadcast a live street scene from cameras installed on the roof of neighboring buildings, because neither Farnsworth nor RCA could do the same before the 1939 New York World's Fair.
On the other hand, in 1934, Zworykin shared some patent rights with the German licensee company Telefunken. The "image iconoscope" ("Superikonoskop" in Germany) was produced as a result of the collaboration. This tube is essentially identical to the super-Emitron. The production and commercialization of the super-Emitron and image iconoscope in Europe were not affected by the patent war between Zworykin and Farnsworth, because Dieckmann and Hell had priority in Germany for the invention of the image dissector, having submitted a patent application for their Lichtelektrische Bildzerlegerröhre für Fernseher (Photoelectric Image Dissector Tube for Television) in Germany in 1925, two years before Farnsworth did the same in the United States. The image iconoscope (Superikonoskop) became the industrial standard for public broadcasting in Europe from 1936 until 1960, when it was replaced by the vidicon and plumbicon tubes. Indeed, it was the representative of the European tradition in electronic tubes competing against the American tradition represented by the image orthicon. The German company Heimann produced the Superikonoskop for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, later Heimann also produced and commercialized it from 1940 to 1955; finally the Dutch company Philips produced and commercialized the image iconoscope and multicon from 1952 to 1958.
American television broadcasting, at the time, consisted of a variety of markets in a wide range of sizes, each competing for programming and dominance with separate technology, until deals were made and standards agreed upon in 1941. RCA, for example, used only Iconoscopes in the New York area, but Farnsworth Image Dissectors in Philadelphia and San Francisco. In September 1939, RCA agreed to pay the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation royalties over the next ten years for access to Farnsworth's patents. With this historic agreement in place, RCA integrated much of what was best about the Farnsworth Technology into their systems. In 1941, the United States implemented 525-line television.
The world's first 625-line television standard was designed in the Soviet Union in 1944, and became a national standard in 1946. The first broadcast in 625-line standard occurred in Moscow in 1948. The concept of 625 lines per frame was subsequently implemented in the European CCIR standard.
In 1936, Kálmán Tihanyi described the principle of plasma display, the first flat panel display system.
Color television
The basic idea of using three monochrome images to produce a color image had been experimented with almost as soon as black-and-white televisions had first been built.
Although he gave no practical details, among the earliest published proposals for television was one by Maurice Le Blanc, in 1880, for a color system, including the first mentions in television literature of line and frame scanning. Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik patented a color television system in 1897, using a selenium photoelectric cell at the transmitter and an electromagnet controlling an oscillating mirror and a moving prism at the receiver. But his system contained no means of analyzing the spectrum of colors at the transmitting end, and could not have worked as he described it. Another inventor, Hovannes Adamian, also experimented with color television as early as 1907. The first color television project is claimed by him, and was patented in Germany on 31 March 1908, patent № 197183, then in Britain, on 1 April 1908, patent № 7219, in France (patent № 390326) and in Russia in 1910 (patent № 17912).
Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first color transmission on 3 July 1928, using scanning discs at the transmitting and receiving ends with three spirals of apertures, each spiral with filters of a different primary color; and three light sources at the receiving end, with a commutator to alternate their illumination. Baird also made the world's first color broadcast on 4 February 1938, sending a mechanically scanned 120-line image from Baird's Crystal Palace studios to a projection screen at London's Dominion Theatre.
Mechanically scanned color television was also demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in June 1929 using three complete systems of photoelectric cells, amplifiers, glow-tubes, and color filters, with a series of mirrors to superimpose the red, green, and blue images into one full color image.
The first practical hybrid system was again pioneered by John Logie Baird. In 1940 he publicly demonstrated a color television combining a traditional black-and-white display with a rotating colored disk. This device was very "deep", but was later improved with a mirror folding the light path into an entirely practical device resembling a large conventional console. However, Baird was not happy with the design, and as early as 1944 had commented to a British government committee that a fully electronic device would be better.
In 1939, Hungarian engineer Peter Carl Goldmark introduced an electro-mechanical system while at CBS, which contained an Iconoscope sensor. The CBS field-sequential color system was partly mechanical, with a disc made of red, blue, and green filters spinning inside the television camera at 1,200 rpm, and a similar disc spinning in synchronization in front of the cathode ray tube inside the receiver set. The system was first demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on 29 August 1940, and shown to the press on 4 September.
CBS began experimental color field tests using film as early as 28 August 1940, and live cameras by 12 November. NBC (owned by RCA) made its first field test of color television on 20 February 1941. CBS began daily color field tests on 1 June 1941. These color systems were not compatible with existing black-and-white television sets, and, as no color television sets were available to the public at this time, viewing of the color field tests was restricted to RCA and CBS engineers and the invited press. The War Production Board halted the manufacture of television and radio equipment for civilian use from 22 April 1942 to 20 August 1945, limiting any opportunity to introduce color television to the general public.
As early as 1940, Baird had started work on a fully electronic system he called the "Telechrome". Early Telechrome devices used two electron guns aimed at either side of a phosphor plate. The phosphor was patterned so the electrons from the guns only fell on one side of the patterning or the other. Using cyan and magenta phosphors, a reasonable limited-color image could be obtained. He also demonstrated the same system using monochrome signals to produce a 3D image (called "stereoscopic" at the time). A demonstration on 16 August 1944 was the first example of a practical color television system. Work on the Telechrome continued and plans were made to introduce a three-gun version for full color. However, Baird's untimely death in 1946 ended development of the Telechrome system.
Similar concepts were common through the 1940s and 50s, differing primarily in the way they re-combined the colors generated by the three guns. The Geer tube was similar to Baird's concept, but used small pyramids with the phosphors deposited on their outside faces, instead of Baird's 3D patterning on a flat surface. The Penetron used three layers of phosphor on top of each other and increased the power of the beam to reach the upper layers when drawing those colors. The Chromatron used a set of focusing wires to select the colored phosphors arranged in vertical stripes on the tube.
One of the great technical challenges of introducing color broadcast television was the desire to conserve bandwidth, potentially three times that of the existing black-and-white standards, and not use an excessive amount of radio spectrum. In the United States, after considerable research, the National Television Systems Committee approved an all-electronic Compatible color system developed by RCA, which encoded the color information separately from the brightness information and greatly reduced the resolution of the color information in order to conserve bandwidth. The brightness image remained compatible with existing black-and-white television sets at slightly reduced resolution, while color televisions could decode the extra information in the signal and produce a limited-resolution color display. The higher resolution black-and-white and lower resolution color images combine in the brain to produce a seemingly high-resolution color image. The NTSC standard represented a major technical achievement.
Although all-electronic color was introduced in the U.S. in 1953, high prices and the scarcity of color programming greatly slowed its acceptance in the marketplace. The first national color broadcast (the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade) occurred on 1 January 1954, but during the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. It was not until the mid-1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in part to the color transition of 1965 in which it was announced that over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that fall. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1972, the last holdout among daytime network programs converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.
Early color sets were either floor-standing console models or tabletop versions nearly as bulky and heavy; so in practice they remained firmly anchored in one place. The introduction of GE's relatively compact and lightweight Porta-Color set in the spring of 1966 made watching color television a more flexible and convenient proposition. In 1972, sales of color sets finally surpassed sales of black-and-white sets.
Color broadcasting in Europe was not standardized on the PAL format until the 1960s, and broadcasts did not start until 1967. By this point many of the technical problems in the early sets had been worked out, and the spread of color sets in Europe was fairly rapid.
By the mid-1970s, the only stations broadcasting in black-and-white were a few high-numbered UHF stations in small markets, and a handful of low-power repeater stations in even smaller markets such as vacation spots. By 1979, even the last of these had converted to color and by the early 1980s B&W sets had been pushed into niche markets, notably low-power uses, small portable sets, or for use as video monitor screens in lower-cost consumer equipment. By late 1980's even these areas switched to color sets.
Digital television
Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of audio and video by digitally processed and multiplexed signals, in contrast to the totally analog and channel separated signals used by analog television. Digital TV can support more than one program in the same channel bandwidth. It is an innovative service that represents the first significant evolution in television technology since color television in the 1950s.
Digital TV's roots have been tied very closely to the availability of inexpensive, high performance computers. It wasn't until the 1990s that digital TV became a real possibility.
In the mid-1980s, as Japanese consumer electronics firms forged ahead with the development of HDTV technology, the MUSE analog format proposed by NHK, a Japanese company, was seen as a pacesetter that threatened to eclipse U.S. electronics companies. Until June 1990, the Japanese MUSE standard, based on an analog system, was the front-runner among the more than 23 different technical concepts under consideration. Then, an American company, General Instrument, demonstrated the feasibility of a digital television signal. This breakthrough was of such significance that the FCC was persuaded to delay its decision on an ATV standard until a digitally based standard could be developed.
In March 1990, when it became clear that a digital standard was feasible, the FCC made a number of critical decisions. First, the Commission declared that the new ATV standard must be more than an enhanced analog signal, but be able to provide a genuine HDTV signal with at least twice the resolution of existing television images.(7) Then, to ensure that viewers who did not wish to buy a new digital television set could continue to receive conventional television broadcasts, it dictated that the new ATV standard must be capable of being "simulcast" on different channels.(8)The new ATV standard also allowed the new DTV signal to be based on entirely new design principles. Although incompatible with the existing NTSC standard, the new DTV standard would be able to incorporate many improvements.
The final standards adopted by the FCC did not require a single standard for scanning formats, aspect ratios, or lines of resolution. This compromise resulted from a dispute between the consumer electronics industry (joined by some broadcasters) and the computer industry (joined by the film industry and some public interest groups) over which of the two scanning processes—interlaced or progressive—would be best suited for the newer digital HDTV compatible display devices. Interlaced scanning, which had been specifically designed for older analogue CRT display technologies, scans even-numbered lines first, then odd-numbered ones. In fact interlaced scanning can be looked at as the first video compression model as it was partly designed in the 1940s to double the image resolution to exceed the limitations of the television broadcast bandwidth. Another reason for its adoption was to limit the flickering on early CRT screens whose phosphor coated screens could only retain the image from the electron scanning gun for a relatively short duration. However interlaced scanning does not work as efficiently on newer display devices such as Liquid-crystal (LCD) for example which are better suited to a more frequent progressive refresh rate. Progressive scanning, the format that the computer industry had long adopted for computer display monitors, scans every line in sequence, from top to bottom. Progressive scanning in effect doubles the amount of data generated for every full screen displayed in comparison to interlaced scanning by painting the screen in one pass in 1/60 second, instead of two passes in 1/30 second. The computer industry argued that progressive scanning is superior because it does not "flicker" on the new standard of display devices in the manner of interlaced scanning. It also argued that progressive scanning enables easier connections with the Internet, and is more cheaply converted to interlaced formats than vice versa. The film industry also supported progressive scanning because it offers a more efficient means of converting filmed programming into digital formats. For their part, the consumer electronics industry and broadcasters argued that interlaced scanning was the only technology that could transmit the highest quality pictures then (and currently) feasible, i.e., 1,080 lines per picture and 1,920 pixels per line. Broadcasters also favored interlaced scanning because their vast archive of interlaced programming is not readily compatible with a progressive format. William F. Schreiber, who was director of the Advanced Television Research Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1983 until his retirement in 1990, thought that the continued advocacy of interlaced equipment originated from consumer electronics companies that were trying to get back the substantial investments they made in the interlaced technology.
Digital television transition started in late 2000s. All the governments across the world set the deadline for analog shutdown by 2010s. Initially the adoption rate was low. But soon, more and more households were converting to digital televisions. The transition is expected to be completed worldwide by mid to late 2010s.
Smart television
The advent of digital television allowed innovations like smart TVs. A smart television, sometimes referred to as connected TV or hybrid TV, is a television set or set-top box with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 features, and is an example of technological convergence between computers and television sets and set-top boxes. Besides the traditional functions of television sets and set-top boxes provided through traditional broadcasting media, these devices can also provide Internet TV, online interactive media, over-the-top content, as well as on-demand streaming media, and home networking access. These TVs come pre-loaded with an operating system.
Smart TV should not to be confused with Internet TV, IPTV or with Web TV. Internet television refers to the receiving of television content over the internet instead of by traditional systems - terrestrial, cable and satellite (although internet itself is received by these methods). Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is one of the emerging Internet television technology standards for use by television broadcasters. Web television (WebTV) is a term used for programs created by a wide variety of companies and individuals for broadcast on Internet TV.
A first patent was filed in 1994 (and extended the following year) for an "intelligent" television system, linked with data processing systems, by means of a digital or analog network. Apart from being linked to data networks, one key point is its ability to automatically download necessary software routines, according to a user's demand, and process their needs.
Major TV manufacturers have announced production of smart TVs only, for middle-end and high-end TVs in 2015. Smart TVs are expected to become dominant form of television by late 2010s.
3D television
Stereoscopic 3D television was demonstrated for the first time on 10 August 1928, by John Logie Baird in his company's premises at 133 Long Acre, London. Baird pioneered a variety of 3D television systems using electro-mechanical and cathode-ray tube techniques. The first 3D TV was produced in 1935. The advent of digital television in 2000s greatly improved 3D TVs.
Although 3D TV sets are quite popular for watching 3D home media such as on Blu-ray discs, 3D programming has largely failed to make inroads with the public. Many 3D television channels which started in early 2010s were shut down by the mid 2010s.
Broadcast Systems
Terrestrial television
Programming is broadcast by television stations, sometimes called "channels", as stations are licensed by their governments to broadcast only over assigned channels in the television band. At first, terrestrial broadcasting was the only way television could be widely distributed, and because bandwidth was limited, i.e., there were only a small number of channels available, government regulation was the norm.
In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed stations to broadcast advertisements beginning in July 1941, but required public service programming commitments as a requirement for a license. By contrast, the United Kingdom chose a different route, imposing a television license fee on owners of television reception equipment to fund the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which had public service as part of its Royal Charter.
WRGB claims to be the world's oldest television station, tracing its roots to an experimental station founded on 13 January 1928, broadcasting from the General Electric factory in Schenectady, NY, under the call letters W2XB. It was popularly known as "WGY Television" after its sister radio station. Later in 1928, General Electric started a second facility, this one in New York City, which had the call letters W2XBS and which today is known as WNBC. The two stations were experimental in nature and had no regular programming, as receivers were operated by engineers within the company. The image of a Felix the Cat doll rotating on a turntable was broadcast for 2 hours every day for several years as new technology was being tested by the engineers.
On 2 November 1936, the BBC began transmitting the world's first public regular high-definition service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London. It therefore claims to be the birthplace of TV broadcasting as we know it today.
With the widespread adoption of cable across the United States in the 1970s and 80s, terrestrial television broadcasts have been in decline; in 2013 it was estimated that about 7% of US households used an antenna.<ref>"CEA Study Says Seven Percent of TV Households Use Antennas", '"TVTechnology, 30 July 2013</ref> A slight increase in use began around 2010 due to switchover to digital terrestrial television broadcasts, which offered pristine image quality over very large areas, and offered an alternate to CATV for cord cutters.
All other countries around the world are also in the process of either shutting down analog terrestrial television or switching over to digital terrestrial television.
Cable television
Cable television is a system of broadcasting television programming to paying subscribers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables or light pulses through fiber-optic cables. This contrasts with traditional terrestrial television, in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone service, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables.
The abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, from cable television's origins in 1948: in areas where over-the-air reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large "community antennas" were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable broadcasting are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European cities as far back as 1924.
Earlier cable television was analog, but since 2000s all cable operators have switched to, or are in process of switching to, digital cable television.
Satellite television
Satellite television is a system of supplying television programming using broadcast signals relayed from communication satellites. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic reflector antenna usually referred to as a satellite dish and a low-noise block downconverter (LNB). A satellite receiver then decodes the desired television programme for viewing on a television set. Receivers can be external set-top boxes, or a built-in television tuner. Satellite television provides a wide range of channels and services, especially to geographic areas without terrestrial television or cable television.
The most common method of reception is direct-broadcast satellite television (DBSTV), also known as "direct to home" (DTH). In DBSTV systems, signals are relayed from a direct broadcast satellite on the Ku wavelength and are completely digital. Satellite TV systems formerly used systems known as television receive-only. These systems received analog signals transmitted in the C-band spectrum from FSS type satellites, and required the use of large dishes. Consequently, these systems were nicknamed "big dish" systems, and were more expensive and less popular.
The direct-broadcast satellite television signals were earlier analog signals and later digital signals, both of which require a compatible receiver. Digital signals may include high-definition television (HDTV). Some transmissions and channels are free-to-air or free-to-view, while many other channels are pay television requiring a subscription.
In 1945, British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke proposed a world-wide communications system which would function by means of three satellites equally spaced apart in earth orbit. This was published in the October 1945 issue of the Wireless World magazine and won him the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1963.
The first satellite television signals from Europe to North America were relayed via the Telstar satellite over the Atlantic ocean on 23 July 1962. The signals were received and broadcast in North American and European countries and watched by over 100 million. Launched in 1962, the Relay 1 satellite was the first satellite to transmit television signals from the US to Japan. The first geosynchronous communication satellite, Syncom 2, was launched on 26 July 1963.
The world's first commercial communications satellite, called Intelsat I and nicknamed "Early Bird", was launched into geosynchronous orbit on 6 April 1965. The first national network of television satellites, called Orbita, was created by the Soviet Union in October 1967, and was based on the principle of using the highly elliptical Molniya satellite for rebroadcasting and delivering of television signals to ground downlink stations. The first commercial North American satellite to carry television transmissions was Canada's geostationary Anik 1, which was launched on 9 November 1972. ATS-6, the world's first experimental educational and Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), was launched on 30 May 1974. It transmitted at 860 MHz using wideband FM modulation and had two sound channels. The transmissions were focused on the Indian subcontinent but experimenters were able to receive the signal in Western Europe using home constructed equipment that drew on UHF television design techniques already in use.
The first in a series of Soviet geostationary satellites to carry Direct-To-Home television, Ekran 1, was launched on 26 October 1976. It used a 714 MHz UHF downlink frequency so that the transmissions could be received with existing UHF television technology rather than microwave technology.
Internet television
Internet television (Internet TV) (or online television) is the digital distribution of television content via the Internet as opposed to traditional systems like terrestrial, cable and satellite, although internet itself is received by terrestrial, cable or satellite methods. Internet television is a general term that covers the delivery of television shows and other video content over the Internet by video streaming technology, typically by major traditional television broadcasters.
Internet television should not to be confused with Smart TV, IPTV or with Web TV. Smart television refers to the TV set which has an inbuilt operating system. Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is one of the emerging Internet television technology standards for use by television broadcasters. Web television is a term used for programs created by a wide variety of companies and individuals for broadcast on Internet TV.
Television sets
A television set, also called a television receiver, television, TV set, TV, or telly, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and speakers for the purpose of viewing television. Introduced in late 1920's in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tubes. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the recorded media in the 1970s, such as VHS and later DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Major TV manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by mid 2010s. Televisions since 2010s mostly use LEDs.
LEDs are expected to be gradually replaced by OLEDs in near future.
Display technologies
Disk
Earliest systems employed a spinning disk to create and reproduce images. These usually had a low resolution and screen size and never became popular with the public.
CRT
The cathode ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns (a source of electrons or electron emitter) and a fluorescent screen used to view images.
It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam(s) onto the screen to create the images. The images may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television, computer monitor), radar targets or others. The CRT uses an evacuated glass envelope which is large, deep (i.e. long from front screen face to rear end), fairly heavy, and relatively fragile. As a matter of safety, the face is typically made of thick lead glass so as to be highly shatter-resistant and to block most X-ray emissions, particularly if the CRT is used in a consumer product.
In television sets and computer monitors, the entire front area of the tube is scanned repetitively and systematically in a fixed pattern called a raster. An image is produced by controlling the intensity of each of the three electron beams, one for each additive primary color (red, green, and blue) with a video signal as a reference. In all modern CRT monitors and televisions, the beams are bent by magnetic deflection, a varying magnetic field generated by coils and driven by electronic circuits around the neck of the tube, although electrostatic deflection is commonly used in oscilloscopes, a type of diagnostic instrument.
DLP
Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a type of projector technology that uses a digital micromirror device. Some DLPs have a TV tuner, which makes them a type of TV display. It was originally developed in 1987 by Dr. Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments. While the DLP imaging device was invented by Texas Instruments, the first DLP based projector was introduced by Digital Projection Ltd in 1997. Digital Projection and Texas Instruments were both awarded Emmy Awards in 1998 for the DLP projector technology. DLP is used in a variety of display applications from traditional static displays to interactive displays and also non-traditional embedded applications including medical, security, and industrial uses.
DLP technology is used in DLP front projectors (standalone projection units for classrooms and business primarily), DLP rear projection television sets, and digital signs. It is also used in about 85% of digital cinema projection, and in additive manufacturing as a power source in some printers to cure resins into solid 3D objects.
Plasma
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display common to large TV displays or larger. They are called "plasma" displays because the technology utilizes small cells containing electrically charged ionized gases, or what are in essence chambers more commonly known as fluorescent lamps.
LCD
Liquid-crystal-display televisions (LCD TV) are television sets that use LCD display technology to produce images. LCD televisions are much thinner and lighter than cathode ray tube (CRTs) of similar display size, and are available in much larger sizes (e.g., 90 inch diagonal). When manufacturing costs fell, this combination of features made LCDs practical for television receivers.
LCD's come in two types: those using cold cathode fluorescent lamps, simply called LCDs and those using LED as backlight called as LEDs.
In 2007, LCD televisions surpassed sales of CRT-based televisions worldwide for the first time, and their sales figures relative to other technologies accelerated. LCD TVs have quickly displaced the only major competitors in the large-screen market, the plasma display panel and rear-projection television. In mid 2010s LCDs especially LEDs became, by far, the most widely produced and sold television display type.
LCDs also have disadvantages. Other technologies address these weaknesses, including OLEDs, FED and SED, but none of these have entered widespread production.
OLED
An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens. It is also used for computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld games consoles and PDAs.
There are two main families of OLED: those based on small molecules and those employing polymers. Adding mobile ions to an OLED creates a light-emitting electrochemical cell or LEC, which has a slightly different mode of operation. OLED displays can use either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix (AMOLED) addressing schemes. Active-matrix OLEDs require a thin-film transistor backplane to switch each individual pixel on or off, but allow for higher resolution and larger display sizes.
An OLED display works without a backlight. Thus, it can display deep black levels and can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions such as a dark room an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, whether the LCD uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps or LED backlight.
OLEDs are expected to replace other forms of display in near future.
Display resolution
LD
Low-definition television or LDTV refers to television systems that have a lower screen resolution than standard-definition television systems such 240p (320*240). It is used in handheld television.
SD
Standard-definition television or SDTV refers to two different resolutions: 576i, with 576 interlaced lines of resolution, derived from the European-developed PAL and SECAM systems; and 480i based on the American National Television System Committee NTSC system.
HD
High-definition television (HDTV) provides a resolution that is substantially higher than that of standard-definition television.
HDTV may be transmitted in various formats:
1080p: 1920×1080p: 2,073,600 pixels (~2.07 megapixels) per frame
1080i: 1920×1080i: 1,036,800 pixels (~1.04 MP) per field or 2,073,600 pixels (~2.07 MP) per frame
A non-standard CEA resolution exists in some countries such as 1440×1080i: 777,600 pixels (~0.78 MP) per field or 1,555,200 pixels (~1.56 MP) per frame
720p: 1280×720p: 921,600 pixels (~0.92 MP) per frame
UHD
Ultra-high-definition television (also known as Super Hi-Vision, Ultra HD television, UltraHD, UHDTV, or UHD) includes 4K UHD (2160p) and 8K UHD (4320p), which are two digital video formats proposed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories and defined and approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The Consumer Electronics Association announced on 17 October 2012, that "Ultra High Definition", or "Ultra HD", would be used for displays that have an aspect ratio of at least 16:9 and at least one digital input capable of carrying and presenting native video at a minimum resolution of 3840×2160 pixels.
Sales
North American consumers purchase a new television set on average every seven years, and the average household owns 2.8 televisions. , 48 million are sold each year at an average price of $460 and size of .
Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors
Content
Programming
Getting TV programming shown to the public can happen in many different ways. After production, the next step is to market and deliver the product to whichever markets are open to using it. This typically happens on two levels:
Original Run or First Run: a producer creates a program of one or multiple episodes and shows it on a station or network which has either paid for the production itself or to which a license has been granted by the television producers to do the same.
Broadcast syndication: this is the terminology rather broadly used to describe secondary programming usages (beyond original run). It includes secondary runs in the country of first issue but also international usage which may not be managed by the originating producer. In many cases, other companies, TV stations, or individuals are engaged to do the syndication work, in other words, to sell the product into the markets they are allowed to sell into by contract from the copyright holders, in most cases the producers.
First-run programming is increasing on subscription services outside the US, but few domestically produced programs are syndicated on domestic free-to-air (FTA) elsewhere. This practice is increasing however, generally on digital-only FTA channels or with subscriber-only first-run material appearing on FTA.
Unlike the US, repeat FTA screenings of an FTA network program usually only occur on that network. Also, affiliates rarely buy or produce non-network programming that is not centered on local programming.
Genres
Television genres include a broad range of programming types that entertain, inform, and educate viewers. The most expensive entertainment genres to produce are usually dramas and dramatic miniseries. However, other genres, such as historical Western genres, may also have high production costs.
Popular culture entertainment genres include action-oriented shows such as police, crime, detective dramas, horror, or thriller shows. As well, there are also other variants of the drama genre, such as medical dramas and daytime soap operas. Science fiction shows can fall into either the drama or action category, depending on whether they emphasize philosophical questions or high adventure. Comedy is a popular genre which includes situation comedy (sitcom) and animated shows for the adult demographic such as South Park.
The least expensive forms of entertainment programming genres are game shows, talk shows, variety shows, and reality television. Game shows feature contestants answering questions and solving puzzles to win prizes. Talk shows contain interviews with film, television, and music celebrities and public figures. Variety shows feature a range of musical performers and other entertainers, such as comedians and magicians, introduced by a host or Master of Ceremonies. There is some crossover between some talk shows and variety shows because leading talk shows often feature performances by bands, singers, comedians, and other performers in between the interview segments.Reality TV shows "regular" people (i.e., not actors) facing unusual challenges or experiences ranging from arrest by police officers (COPS) to weight loss (The Biggest Loser). A variant version of reality shows depicts celebrities doing mundane activities such as going about their everyday life (The Osbournes, Snoop Dogg's Father Hood) or doing manual labor (The Simple Life).
Fictional television programs that some television scholars and broadcasting advocacy groups argue are "quality television" include series such as Twin Peaks and The Sopranos. Kristin Thompson argues that some of these television series exhibit traits also found in art films, such as psychological realism, narrative complexity, and ambiguous plotlines. Nonfiction television programs that some television scholars and broadcasting advocacy groups argue are "quality television" include a range of serious, noncommercial programming aimed at a niche audience, such as documentaries and public affairs shows.
Funding
Around the globe, broadcast TV is financed by government, advertising, licensing (a form of tax), subscription, or any combination of these. To protect revenues, subscription TV channels are usually encrypted to ensure that only subscribers receive the decryption codes to see the signal. Unencrypted channels are known as free to air or FTA.
In 2009, the global TV market represented 1,217.2 million TV households with at least one TV and total revenues of 268.9 billion EUR (declining 1.2% compared to 2008). North America had the biggest TV revenue market share with 39% followed by Europe (31%), Asia-Pacific (21%), Latin America (8%), and Africa and the Middle East (2%).
Globally, the different TV revenue sources divide into 45%-50% TV advertising revenues, 40%-45% subscription fees and 10% public funding.OFCOM's Global TV Market Report 2009 International Television Expert Group
Advertising
TV's broad reach makes it a powerful and attractive medium for advertisers. Many TV networks and stations sell blocks of broadcast time to advertisers ("sponsors") to fund their programming. Television advertisements (variously called a television commercial, commercial or ad in American English, and known in British English as an advert) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials). Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the beginning of television.
The effects of television advertising upon the viewing public (and the effects of mass media in general) have been the subject of philosophical discourse by such luminaries as Marshall McLuhan. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research, is often used as a metric for television advertisement placement, and consequently, for the rates charged to advertisers to air within a given network, television program, or time of day (called a "daypart").
In many countries, including the United States, television campaign advertisements are considered indispensable for a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted, while some countries, such as Norway, completely ban political advertisements.
The first official, paid television advertisement was broadcast in the United States on July 1, 1941 over New York station WNBT (now WNBC) before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00 (reports vary), displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute. WNBT/Bulova test pattern The first TV ad broadcast in the UK was on ITV on 22 September 1955, advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste. The first TV ad broadcast in Asia was on Nippon Television in Tokyo on August 28, 1953, advertising Seikosha (now Seiko), which also displayed a clock with the current time.
United States
Since inception in the US in 1941, television commercials have become one of the most effective, persuasive, and popular methods of selling products of many sorts, especially consumer goods. During the 1940s and into the 1950s, programs were hosted by single advertisers. This, in turn, gave great creative license to the advertisers over the content of the show. Perhaps due to the quiz show scandals in the 1950s, networks shifted to the magazine concept, introducing advertising breaks with multiple advertisers.
US advertising rates are determined primarily by Nielsen ratings. The time of the day and popularity of the channel determine how much a TV commercial can cost. For example, it can cost approximately $750,000 for a 30-second block of commercial time during the highly popular American Idol, while the same amount of time for the Super Bowl can cost several million dollars. Conversely, lesser-viewed time slots, such as early mornings and weekday afternoons, are often sold in bulk to producers of infomercials at far lower rates.
In recent years, the paid program or infomercial has become common, usually in lengths of 30 minutes or one hour. Some drug companies and other businesses have even created "news" items for broadcast, known in the industry as video news releases, paying program directors to use them.
Some TV programs also deliberately place products into their shows as advertisements, a practice started in feature films and known as product placement. For example, a character could be drinking a certain kind of soda, going to a particular chain restaurant, or driving a certain make of car. (This is sometimes very subtle, with shows having vehicles provided by manufacturers for low cost in exchange as a product placement). Sometimes, a specific brand or trade mark, or music from a certain artist or group, is used. (This excludes guest appearances by artists who perform on the show.)
United Kingdom
The TV regulator oversees TV advertising in the United Kingdom. Its restrictions have applied since the early days of commercially funded TV. Despite this, an early TV mogul, Roy Thomson, likened the broadcasting licence as being a "licence to print money". Restrictions mean that the big three national commercial TV channels: ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 can show an average of only seven minutes of advertising per hour (eight minutes in the peak period). Other broadcasters must average no more than nine minutes (twelve in the peak). This means that many imported TV shows from the US have unnatural pauses where the UK company does not utilize the narrative breaks intended for more frequent US advertising. Advertisements must not be inserted in the course of certain specific proscribed types of programs which last less than half an hour in scheduled duration; this list includes any news or current affairs programs, documentaries, and programs for children; additionally, advertisements may not be carried in a program designed and broadcast for reception in schools or in any religious broadcasting service or other devotional program or during a formal Royal ceremony or occasion. There also must be clear demarcations in time between the programs and the advertisements.
The BBC, being strictly non-commercial, is not allowed to show advertisements on television in the UK, although it has many advertising-funded channels abroad. The majority of its budget comes from television license fees (see below) and broadcast syndication, the sale of content to other broadcasters.
Ireland
The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) () oversees advertising on television and radio within Ireland for both private and state-owned broadcasters. There are some restrictions based on advertising, especially in relation to the advertising of alcohol. Such advertisements are prohibited until after 7 pm. Broadcasters in Ireland adhere to broadcasting legislation implemented by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and the European Union. Sponsorship of current affairs programming is prohibited at all times.
As of 1 October 2009, the responsibilities held by the BCI are gradually being transferred to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
Subscription
Some TV channels are partly funded from subscriptions; therefore, the signals are encrypted during broadcast to ensure that only the paying subscribers have access to the decryption codes to watch pay television or specialty channels. Most subscription services are also funded by advertising.
Taxation or license
Television services in some countries may be funded by a television licence or a form of taxation, which means that advertising plays a lesser role or no role at all. For example, some channels may carry no advertising at all and some very little, including:
Australia (ABC)
Japan (NHK)
Norway (NRK)
Sweden (SVT)
United Kingdom (BBC)
United States (PBS)
Denmark (DR)
The BBC carries no television advertising on its UK channels and is funded by an annual television licence paid by premises receiving live TV broadcasts. Currently, it is estimated that approximately 26.8 million UK private domestic households own televisions, with approximately 25 million TV licences in all premises in force as of 2010. This television license fee is set by the government, but the BBC is not answerable to or controlled by the government.
The two main BBC TV channels are watched by almost 90% of the population each week and overall have 27% share of total viewing, despite the fact that 85% of homes are multichannel, with 42% of these having access to 200 free to air channels via satellite and another 43% having access to 30 or more channels via Freeview. The licence that funds the seven advertising-free BBC TV channels currently costs £139.50 a year (about US$215) regardless of the number of TV sets owned. When the same sporting event has been presented on both BBC and commercial channels, the BBC always attracts the lion's share of the audience, indicating that viewers prefer to watch TV uninterrupted by advertising.
Other than internal promotional material, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) carries no advertising; it is banned under the ABC Act 1983. The ABC receives its funding from the Australian government every three years. In the 2008/09 federal budget, the ABC received A$1.13 billion. The funds provide for the ABC's television, radio, online, and international outputs. The ABC also receives funds from its many ABC shops across Australia. Although funded by the Australian government, the editorial independence of the ABC is ensured through law.
In France, government-funded channels carry advertisements, yet those who own television sets have to pay an annual tax ("la redevance audiovisuelle").
In Japan, NHK is paid for by license fees (known in Japanese as ). The broadcast law that governs NHK's funding stipulates that any television equipped to receive NHK is required to pay. The fee is standardized, with discounts for office workers and students who commute, as well a general discount for residents of Okinawa prefecture.
Social aspects
Television has played a pivotal role in the socialization of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are many aspects of television that can be addressed, including negative issues such as media violence. Current research is discovering that individuals suffering from social isolation can employ television to create what is termed a parasocial or faux relationship with characters from their favorite television shows and movies as a way of deflecting feelings of loneliness and social deprivation.
Several studies have found that educational television has many advantages. The Media Awareness Network, explains in its article "The Good Things about Television" that television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for children if used wisely.
Environmental aspects
With high lead content in CRTs and the rapid diffusion of new flat-panel display technologies, some of which (LCDs) use lamps which contain mercury, there is growing concern about electronic waste from discarded televisions. Related occupational health concerns exist, as well, for disassemblers removing copper wiring and other materials from CRTs. Further environmental concerns related to television design and use relate to the devices' increasing electrical energy requirements.
See also
Broadcast-safe
Content Discovery Platform
Information-action ratio
List of countries by number of television broadcast stations
List of television manufacturers
List of years in television
Media psychology
Sign language on television
References
Further reading
Albert Abramson, The History of Television, 1942 to 2000, Jefferson, NC, and London, McFarland, 2003, ISBN 0-7864-1220-8.
Pierre Bourdieu, On Television, The New Press, 2001.
Tim Brooks and Earle March, The Complete Guide to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 8th ed., Ballantine, 2002.
Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, Echographies of Television, Polity Press, 2002.
David E. Fisher and Marshall J. Fisher, Tube: the Invention of Television, Counterpoint, Washington, DC, 1996, ISBN 1-887178-17-1.
Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, New York, Riverhead (Penguin), 2005, 2006, ISBN 1-59448-194-6.
Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Perennial, 1978.
Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred, Sierra Club Books, 1992, ISBN 0-87156-509-9.
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, New York, Penguin US, 1985, ISBN 0-670-80454-1.
Evan I. Schwartz, The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television, New York, Harper Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0-06-093559-6.
Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television, Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Alan Taylor, We, the Media: Pedagogic Intrusions into US Mainstream Film and Television News Broadcasting Rhetoric, Peter Lang, 2005, ISBN 3-631-51852-8.
Amanda D. Lotz, The Television Will Be Revolutionized'', New York University Press, ISBN 978-0814752203
External links
National Association of Broadcasters
Association of Commercial Television in Europe
The Encyclopedia of Television at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
Television's History - The First 75 Years
Collection Profile - Television at the Canada Science and Technology Museum
The Evolution of TV, A Brief History of TV Technology in Japan - NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)
Worldwide Television Standards
Category:Television
Category:Television terminology
Category:Video hardware
Category:Media formats
Category:Performing arts
Category:German inventions
Category:Russian inventions
Category:Scottish inventions
Category:British inventions
Category:American inventions
Category:1927 introductions |
2016-01 | Iran-697778692 | Iran | Iran
Iran ( or ; ), also known as Persia ( or ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran ( ), is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia, the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan; with Kazakhstan and Russia across the Caspian Sea; to the northeast by Turkmenistan; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq. Comprising a land area of , it is the second-largest country in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world. With 78.4 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th-most-populous country. It is the only country that has both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. Iran has long been of geostrategic importance because of its central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Proto-Elamite and Elamite kingdoms in 3200–2800 BC. The Iranian Medes unified the area into the first of many empires in 625 BC, after which it became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. Iran reached the pinnacle of its power during the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC, which at its greatest extent comprised major portions of the ancient world, stretching from parts of the Balkans (Thrace-Macedonia, Bulgaria-Paeonia) and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great. The Parthian Empire emerged from the ashes and was succeeded by the Sassanid Dynasty in 224 AD, under which Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world, along with the Roman-Byzantine Empire, for a period of more than four centuries.
In 633 AD, Rashidun Muslims invaded Iran and conquered it by 651 AD, largely replacing the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism. Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. Establishment of the Safavid Dynasty in 1501, which promoted Twelver Shia Islam as the official religion, marked one of the most important turning points in Iranian and Muslim history. Starting in 1736 under Nader Shah, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, briefly possessing what was arguably the most powerful empire at the time. During the 19th century, Iran irrevocably lost swaths of its territories in the Caucasus which made part of the concept of Iran for centuries, to neighboring Imperial Russia. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a constitutional monarchy and the country's first parliament. Following a coup d'état instigated by the U.K. and the U.S. in 1953, Iran gradually became close allies with the United States and the rest of the West, remained secular, but grew increasingly autocratic. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression culminated in the 1979 Revolution, which led to the establishment of an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979.
Tehran is the country's capital and largest city, as well as its leading cultural and economic center. Iran is a major regional and middle power, exerting considerable influence in international energy security and the world economy through its large reserves of fossil fuels, which include the largest natural gas supply in the world and the fourth-largest proven oil reserves. Iran's rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the fourth-largest number in Asia and 12th-largest in the world.
Iran is a founding member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC, and OPEC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a parliamentary democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are officially Shia, and Persian is the official language.
Etymology
Iran is a Modern Persian derivative from the Proto-Iranian term Āryānam, meaning "land of the Aryans," first attested in Avesta. The term Ērān is found in a 3rd-century Middle Persian inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam, and the term Āryān is used in the Parthian inscription that accompanies it, in reference to Iranians.
Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis (Περσίς), meaning "land of the Persians." As the most extensive and close interaction the Ancient Greeks ever had with any outsider was that with the Persians, the term became coined forever, even long after the Persian rule in Greece.
In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, Iran. As the New York Times explained at the time, "At the suggestion of the Persian Legation in Berlin, the Tehran government, on the Persian New Year, Nowruz, March 21, 1935, substituted Iran for Persia as the official name of the country." Opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably. Today, both Persia and Iran are used in cultural contexts; although, Iran is the name used officially in political contexts.
Historical and cultural usage of the word Iran is not restricted to the modern state proper. Irānzamīn or Irān e Bozorg (Greater Iran) correspond to territories of the Iranian cultural and linguistic zones. In addition to modern Iran, it includes portions of the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Central Asia.
History
Prehistory
The earliest archaeological artifacts in Iran, like those excavated at the Kashafrud and Ganj Par sites, attest to a human presence in Iran since the Lower Paleolithic era, c. 800,000–200,000 BC. Iran's Neanderthal artifacts from the Middle Paleolithic period, c. 200,000–40,000 BC, have been found mainly in the Zagros region, at sites such as Warwasi and Yafteh Cave. Around 10th to 8th millennium BC, early agricultural communities such as Chogha Golan and Chogha Bonut began to flourish in Iran, as well as Susa and Chogha Mish developing in and around the Zagros region.
The emergence of Susa as a city, as determined by radiocarbon dating, dates back to early 4,395 BC. There are dozens of prehistoric sites across the Iranian plateau, pointing to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the 4th millennium BC. During the Bronze Age, Iran was home to several civilizations including Elam, Jiroft, and Zayande River. Elam, the most prominent of these civilizations, developed in the southwest of Iran, alongside those in Mesopotamia. The emergence of writing in Elam was paralleled to Sumer, and the Elamite cuneiform was developed since the 3rd millennium BC. The Elamite Kingdom continued its existence until the emergence of the Median and Achaemenid empires. Between 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, northwestern Iran was part of the Kura-Araxes culture that stretched into the neighbouring regions of the Caucasus and Anatolia. Since the earliest 2nd millennium BC, Assyrians settled in swaths of western Iran, and incorporated the region into their territories.
Classical antiquity
During the 2nd millennium BC, Proto-Iranian tribes arrived in Iran from the Eurasian steppes, rivaling the native settlers of the country. As these tribes dispersed into the wider area of Greater Iran and beyond, the boundaries of modern Iran were dominated by the Persian, Median, and Parthian tribes.
From the late 10th to late 7th centuries BC, the Iranian peoples, together with the pre-Iranian kingdoms, fell under the domination of the Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. Under king Cyaxares, the Medes and Persians entered into an alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon, as well as the Scythians and the Cimmerians, and together they attacked the Assyrian Empire. The civil war ravaged Assyrian Empire between 616 BC and 605 BC, thus freeing their respective peoples from three centuries of Assyrian rule. The unification of the Median tribes under a single ruler in 728 BC led to the foundation of the Median Empire which, by 612 BC, controlled the whole Iran and the eastern Anatolia. This marked the end of the Kingdom of Urartu as well, which was subsequently conquered and dissolved.
In 550 BC, Cyrus the Great, son of Mandane and Cambyses I, took over the Median Empire, and founded the Achaemenid Empire by unifying other city states. The conquest of Media was a result of what is called the Persian Revolt. The brouhaha was initially triggered by the actions of the Median ruler Astyages, and was quickly spread to other provinces, as they allied with the Persians. Later conquests under Cyrus and his successors expanded the empire to include Lydia, Babylon, Egypt, parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper, as well as the lands to the west of the Indus and Oxus rivers. 539 BC, which was the year in which Persian forces defeated the Babylonian army at Opis, marks the end of around four centuries of Mesopotamian domination of the region with the transition from the Neo-Babylonian Period to the Achaemenid Period. Cyrus entered Babylon and presented himself as a traditional Mesopotamian monarch. Subsequent Achaemenid art and iconography reflect the influence of the new political reality on the Mesopotamian tradition.
At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire included the modern territories of Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, much of the Black Sea coastal regions, northeastern Greece and southern Bulgaria (Thrace), Macedonia (northern Greece), Paeonia (FYROM), Bulgaria, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, all significant ancient population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya, Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia, parts of the UAE and Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and much of Central Asia, making it the first world government and the largest empire had yet seen. It is estimated that in 480 BC, 50 million people lived in the Achaemenid Empire. According to Guinness World Records, the empire at its peak ruled over 44% of the world's population, the highest such figure for any empire in history. In Greek history, it is considered as the antagonist of the Greek city states, for the emancipation of slaves including the Jewish exiles in Babylon, building infrastructures such as road and postal systems, and the use of an official language, the Imperial Aramaic, throughout its territories. The empire had a centralized, bureaucratic administration under the emperor, a large professional army, and civil services, inspiring similar developments in later empires. Furthermore, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, was built in the empire between 353 to 350 BC.
Eventual conflict on the western borders began with the Ionian Revolt which erupted into the Greco-Persian Wars, and continued through the first half of the 5th century BC, and ended with the Persian withdrawal from all of their European territories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper.
In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Achaemenid Empire, defeating the last Achaemenid emperor, Darius III, at the Battle of Issus. Following the premature death of Alexander, Iran came under the control of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. In the middle of the 2nd century BC, the Parthian Empire rose to become the main power in Iran, and the century-long geopolitical arch-rivalry between Romans and Parthians began, culminating in the Roman–Parthian Wars. The Parthian Empire continued as a feudal monarchy for nearly five centuries, until 224 CE, when it was succeeded by the Sassanid Empire. Together with their neighboring arch-rival, the Roman-Byzantines, they made up the world's two most dominant powers at the time, for over four centuries.
The Sassanids established an empire within the frontiers achieved by the Achaemenids, with their capital at Ctesiphon. The Sassanid Empire of the Late Antiquity is considered as one of the most influential periods of Iran, as Iran influenced the culture of ancient Rome (and through that as far as Western Europe), Africa, China, and India, and played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art.
Most of the era of both Parthian and Sassanid empires were overshadowed by the Roman-Persian Wars, which raged on their western borders at the Anatolia, the western Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and the Levant, for over 700 years. These wars exhausted both Romans and Sassanids, and led to the defeat of both at the hands of the invading Muslim Arabs.
Several offshoots of the Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids, established eponymous dynasties and branches in Anatolia and the Caucasus, including the Kingdom of Pontus, the Mihranids, and the Arsacid dynasties of Armenia, Iberia (Georgia), and Caucasian Albania (present-day Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan).
Medieval period
The prolonged Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, most importantly the climactic Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602-628, as well as the social conflict within the Sassanid Empire, opened the way for an Arab invasion to Iran in the 7th century. Initially defeated by the Arab Rashidun Caliphate, Iran came under the rule of the Arab caliphates of Umayyad and Abbasid. The prolonged and gradual process of the Islamization of Iran began following the conquest. Under the new Arab elite of the Rashidun and later the Umayyad caliphates, both converted (mawali) and non-converted (dhimmi) Iranians were discriminated against, being excluded from the government and military, and having to pay a special tax called Jizya. Gunde Shapur, home of the Academy of Gunde Shapur which was the most important medical center of the world at the time, survived after the invasion, but became known as an Islamic institute thereafter.
In 750, the Abbasids overthrown the Umayyads, due mainly to the support from the mawali Iranians. The mawali formed the majority of the rebel army, which was led by the Iranian general Abu Muslim. The arrival of the Abbasid Caliphs saw a revival of Iranian culture and influence, and a move away from the imposed Arabic customs. The role of the old Arab aristocracy was gradually replaced by an Iranian bureaucracy.
After two centuries of the Arab rule, semi-independent and independent Iranian kingdoms such as the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, and Buyids, began to appear on the fringes of the declining Abbasid Caliphate. By the Samanid era in the 9th and 10th centuries, the efforts of Iranians to regain their independence had been well solidified.
The blossoming literature, philosophy, medicine, and art of Iran became major elements in the formation of a new age for the Iranian civilization, during the period known as the Islamic Golden Age. The Islamic Golden Age reached its peak by the 10th and 11th centuries, during which Iran was the main theater of the scientific activities. After the 10th century, Persian language, alongside Arabic, was used for the scientific, philosophical, historical, musical, and medical works, whereas the important Iranian writers, such as Tusi, Avicenna, Qotb od Din Shirazi, and Biruni, had major contributions in the scientific writing.
The cultural revival that began in the Abbasid period led to a resurfacing of the Iranian national identity, and so earlier attempts of Arabization never succeeded in Iran. The Iranian Shuubiyah movement became a catalyst for Iranians to regain independence in their relations with the Arab invaders. The most notable effect of this movement was the continuation of Persian language attested to the epic poet Ferdowsi, now regarded as the most important figure in Iranian literature.
The 10th century saw a mass migration of Turkic tribes from Central Asia into the Iranian plateau. Turkic tribesmen were first used in the Abbasid army as mamluks (slave-warriors), replacing Iranian and Arab elements within the army. As a result, the mamluks gained a significant political power. In 999, large portions of Iran came briefly under the rule of the Ghaznavids, whose rulers were of mamluk Turk origin, and longer subsequently under the Turkish Seljuk and Khwarezmian empires. These Turks had been Persianized and had adopted Persian models of administration and rulership. The Seljuks subsequently gave rise to the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia, while taking their thoroughly Persianized identity with them. The result of the adoption and patronage of Persian culture by Turkish rulers was the development of a distinct Turko-Persian tradition.
In 1219–21 the Khwarezmian Empire suffered a devastating invasion by the Mongol army of Genghis Khan. According to Steven R. Ward, "Mongol violence and depredations killed up to three-fourths of the population of the Iranian Plateau, possibly 10 to 15 million people. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century." Following the fracture of the Mongol Empire in 1256, Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, established the Ilkhanate in Iran. In 1370, yet another conqueror, Timur, followed the example of Hulagu, establishing the Timurid Empire which lasted for another 156 years. In 1387, Timur ordered the complete massacre of Isfahan, reportedly killing 70,000 citizens. The Ilkhans and the Timurids soon came to adopt the ways and customs of the Iranians, choosing to surround themselves with a culture that was distinctively Iranian.
Early modern period
By the 1500s, Ismail I from Ardabil, established the Safavid Dynasty, with Tabriz as the capital. Beginning with Azerbaijan, he subsequently extended his authority over all of the Iranian territories, and established an intermittent Iranian hegemony over the vast relative regions, reasserting the Iranian identity within large parts of the Greater Iran. Iran was predominantly Sunni, but Ismail instigated a forced conversion to the Shia branch of Islam, by which the Shia Islam spread throughout the Safavid territories in the Caucasus, Iran, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. As a result, thereof, the modern-day Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan are the only official Shia nations of the world, with it holding an absolute majority in both nations, and having the 1st and 2nd highest number of Shia inhabitants by population percentage in the world.
The centuries-long geopolitical and ideological rivalry between Safavid Iran and the neighboring Ottoman Empire, led to numerous Ottoman–Persian Wars. The Safavid Era peaked in the reign of Abbas the Great, 1587–1629, surpassing their Ottoman arch rivals in strength, and making the empire a leading hub in Western Eurasia for the sciences and arts. The Safavid Era saw the start of mass integration from Caucasian populations into new layers of the society of Iran, as well as mass resettlement of them within the heartlands of Iran, playing a pivotal role in the history of Iran for centuries onwards. Following a gradual decline in the late 1600s and early 1700s, which was caused by the internal conflicts, the continuous wars with the Ottomans, and the foreign interference (most notably the Russian interference), the Safavid rule was ended by the Pashtun rebels who besieged Isfahan and defeated Soltan Hosein in 1722.
In 1729, Nader Shah, a chieftain and military genius from Khorasan, successfully drove out and conquered the Pashtun invaders. He subsequently took back the annexed Caucasian territories which were divided among the Ottoman and Russian authorities by the ongoing chaos in Iran. During the reign of Nader Shah, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire, reestablishing the Iranian hegemony all over the Caucasus, as well as other major parts of the west and central Asia, and briefly possessing what was arguably the most powerful empire at the time.
Nader Shah invaded India and sacked far off Delhi by the late 1730s. His territorial expansion, as well as his military successes, went into a decline following the final campaigns in the Northern Caucasus. The assassination of Nader Shah sparked a brief period of civil war and turmoil, after which Karim Khan of the Zand Dynasty came to power in 1750, bringing a period of relative peace and prosperity.
The geopolitical reach of the Zand Dynasty was limited, compared to its preceding dynasties, and many of the Iranian territories in the Caucasus gained de facto independence, and were locally ruled through various Caucasian khanates. However, despite the self-ruling, they all remained subjects and vassals to the Zand king. The khanates exercised control over their affairs via international trade routes between Central Asia and the West.
Another civil war ensued after the death of Karim Khan in 1779, out of which Aqa Mohammad Khan emerged, founding the Qajar Dynasty in 1794. In 1795, following the disobedience of the Georgian subjects and their alliance with the Russians, the Qajars captured Tblisi by the Battle of Krtsanisi, and drove the Russians out of the entire Caucasus, reestablishing a short-lived Iranian suzerainty over the region. The Russo-Persian wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1828 however resulted in large irrevocable territorial losses for Iran in the Caucasus, comprising all of Transcaucasia and Dagestan, which made part of the very concept of Iran for centuries, and thus substantial gains for the neighboring Russian Empire. As a result of the 19th century Russo-Persian wars, the Russians took over the Caucasus, and Iran irrevocably lost control over its integral territories in the region (comprising modern-day Dagestan, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan), which got confirmed per the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay. The area to the north of the river Aras, among which the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, eastern Georgia, Dagestan, and Armenia, were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia in the course of the 19th century.
As Iran shrank, many Transcaucasian and North Caucasian Muslims moved towards Iran, especially until the aftermath result of the Caucasian War, and the decades afterwards, while Iran's Armenians were encouraged to settle in the newly incorporated Russian territories, causing significant demographic shifts.
Late modern period
Around 1.5 million people — 20 to 25% of the population of Iran — died as a result of the Great Famine of 1870–1871.
Between 1872 and 1905, a series of protests took place in response to the sale of concessions to foreigners by Nasser od Din and Mozaffar od Din shahs of Qajar, and led to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. The first Iranian Constitution and the first national parliament of Iran were founded in 1906, through the ongoing revolution. The Constitution included the official recognition of Iran's three religious minorities, namely Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews, which has remained a basis in the legislation of Iran since then.
The struggle related to the constitutional movement continued until 1911, when Mohammad Ali Shah was defeated and forced to abdicate. On the pretext of restoring order, the Russians occupied Northern Iran in 1911, and maintained a military presence in the region for years to come. During World War I, the British occupied much of Western Iran, and fully withdrew in 1921. The Persian Campaign commenced furthermore during World War I in Northwestern Iran after an Ottoman invasion, as part of the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I. As a result of Ottoman hostilities across the border, a large amount of the Assyrians of Iran were massacred by the Ottoman armies, notably in and around Urmia. Apart from the rule of Aqa Mohammad Khan, the Qajar rule is characterized as a century of misrule.
In 1921, the Qajar Dynasty was overthrown by Reza Khan of the Pahlavi Dynasty, who was the Prime Minister of Iran and the former general of the Persian Cossack Brigade, and he became the new Shah.
In 1941, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and established the Persian Corridor, a massive supply route that would last until the end of the ongoing war. The presence of so many foreign troops in the nation also culminated in the Soviet-backed establishment of two puppet regimes in the nation; the Azerbaijan People's Government, and the Republic of Mahabad. As the Soviet Union refused to relinquish the occupied Iranian territory, the Iran crisis of 1946 was followed, which particularly resulted in the dissolution of both puppet states, and the withdrawal of the Soviets.
In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected as the prime minister. He became enormously popular in Iran, after he nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and oil reserves. He was deposed in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, an Anglo-American covert operation that marked the first time the US had overthrown a foreign government during the Cold War.
After the coup, the Shah became increasingly autocratic and sultanistic, and Iran entered a phase of decades long controversial close relations with the United States and some other foreign governments. While the Shah increasingly modernized Iran and claimed to retain it as a fully secular state, arbitrary arrests and torture by his secret police, the SAVAK, were used to crush all forms of political opposition.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah's White Revolution, and publicly denounced the government. Khomeini was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964, Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. The Shah sent him into exile. He went first to Turkey, then to Iraq, and finally to France.
Due to the 1973 spike in oil prices, the economy of Iran was flooded with foreign currency, which caused inflation. By 1974, the economy of Iran was experiencing double digit inflation, and despite many large projects to modernize the country, corruption was rampant and caused large amounts of waste. By 1975 and 1976, an economic recession led to increased unemployment, especially among millions of youth who had migrated to the cities of Iran looking for construction jobs during the boom years of the early 1970s. By the late 1970s, many of these people opposed the Shah's regime and began to organize and join the protests against it.
After the 1979 Revolution
The 1979 Revolution, later known as the Islamic Revolution, began in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations against the Shah.
After a year of strikes and demonstrations paralyzing the country and its economy, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country and Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran in February 1979, forming a new government. After holding a referendum, in April 1979, Iran officially became an Islamic Republic. A second referendum in December 1979 approved a theocratic constitution.
The immediate nationwide uprisings against the new government began by the 1979 Kurdish rebellion with the Khuzestan uprisings, along with the uprisings in Sistan and Baluchestan Province and other areas. Over the next several years, these uprisings were subdued in a violent manner by the new Islamic government. The new government went about purging itself of the non-Islamist political opposition. Although both nationalists and Marxists had initially joined with Islamists to overthrow the Shah, tens of thousands were executed by the Islamic government afterward.
On November 4, 1979, a group of students seized the United States Embassy and took the embassy with 52 personnel and citizens hostage, after the United States refused to return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran to face trial in the court of the new regime. Attempts by the Jimmy Carter administration to negotiate for the release of the hostages, and a failed rescue attempt, helped force Carter out of office and brought Ronald Reagan to power. On Jimmy Carter's final day in office, the last hostages were finally set free as a result of the Algiers Accords.
The Cultural Revolution began in 1980, with an initial closure of universities for three years, in order to perform an inspection and cleanup in the cultural policy of the education and training system.
On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded the Iranian Khuzestan, and the Iran–Iraq War began. Although the forces of Saddam Hussein made several early advances, by mid 1982, the Iranian forces successfully managed to drive the Iraqi army back into Iraq. In July 1982, with Iraq thrown on the defensive, Iran took the decision to invade Iraq and conducted countless offensives in a bid to conquer Iraqi territory and capture cities, such as Basra. The war continued until 1988, when the Iraqi army defeated the Iranian forces inside Iraq and pushed the remaining Iranian troops back across the border. Subsequently, Khomeini accepted a truce mediated by the UN. The total Iranian casualties in the war were estimated to be 123,220–160,000 KIA, 60,711 MIA, and 11,000–16,000 civilians killed.
Following the Iran–Iraq War, in 1989, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his administration concentrated on a pragmatic pro-business policy of rebuilding and strengthening the economy without making any dramatic break with the ideology of the revolution. In 1997, Rafsanjani was succeeded by the moderate reformist Mohammad Khatami, whose government attempted, unsuccessfully, to make the country more free and democratic.
The 2005 presidential election brought conservative populist candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to power. During the 2009 Iranian presidential election, the Interior Ministry announced incumbent president Ahmadinejad had won 62.63% of the vote, while Mir-Hossein Mousavi had come in second place with 33.75%. Allegations of large irregularities and fraud provoked the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, both within Iran and in major cites outside the country.
Hassan Rouhani was elected as President of Iran on June 15, 2013, defeating Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and four other candidates. The electoral victory of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has improved the relations of Iran with other countries.
Geography
Iran is the 18th largest country in the world, with an area of . Its area roughly equals that of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Germany combined, or somewhat more than the US state of Alaska. Iran lies between latitudes 24° and 40° N, and longitudes 44° and 64° E. Its borders are with Azerbaijan (, with Azerbaijan-Naxcivan exclave, ) and Armenia () to the north-west; the Caspian Sea to the north; Turkmenistan () to the north-east; Pakistan () and Afghanistan () to the east; Turkey () and Iraq () to the west; and finally the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the south.
Iran consists of the Iranian Plateau with the exception of the coasts of the Caspian Sea and Khuzestan Province. It is one of the world's most mountainous countries, its landscape dominated by rugged mountain ranges that separate various basins or plateaux from one another. The populous western part is the most mountainous, with ranges such as the Caucasus, Zagros and Alborz Mountains; the last contains Iran's highest point, Mount Damavand at , which is also the highest mountain on the Eurasian landmass west of the Hindu Kush.
The northern part of Iran is covered by dense rain forests called Shomal or the Jungles of Iran. The eastern part consists mostly of desert basins such as the Dasht-e Kavir, Iran's largest desert, in the north-central portion of the country, and the Dasht-e Lut, in the east, as well as some salt lakes. This is because the mountain ranges are too high for rain clouds to reach these regions.
The only large plains are found along the coast of the Caspian Sea and at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, where Iran borders the mouth of the Arvand river. Smaller, discontinuous plains are found along the remaining coast of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
Climate
Iran's climate ranges from arid or semiarid, to subtropical along the Caspian coast and the northern forests. On the northern edge of the country (the Caspian coastal plain) temperatures rarely fall below freezing and the area remains humid for the rest of the year. Summer temperatures rarely exceed . Annual precipitation is in the eastern part of the plain and more than in the western part. United Nations Resident Coordinator for Iran Gary Lewis has said that "Water scarcity poses the most severe human security challenge in Iran today".
To the west, settlements in the Zagros basin experience lower temperatures, severe winters with below zero average daily temperatures and heavy snowfall. The eastern and central basins are arid, with less than of rain, and have occasional deserts. Average summer temperatures rarely exceed . The coastal plains of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in southern Iran have mild winters, and very humid and hot summers. The annual precipitation ranges from .
Fauna
The wildlife of Iran is composed of several animal species, including bears, gazelles, wild pigs, wolves, jackals, panthers, Eurasian lynx, and foxes. The domestic animals of Iran include sheep, goats, cattle, horses, water buffaloes, donkeys, and camels. Pheasants, partridges, storks, eagles, and falcons are also native to the wildlife of Iran.
One of the most famous members of the Iranian wildlife is the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah, also known as the Iranian Cheetah, whose numbers were greatly reduced after the 1979 Revolution. Iran had lost all its Asiatic Lions and the now extinct Caspian Tigers by the earlier part of the 20th century.
At least 74 species of Iranian wildlife are on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a sign of serious threats against the country’s biodiversity. The Iranian Parliament has been showing disregard for wildlife by passing laws and regulations such as the act that lets the Ministry of Industries and Mines exploit mines without the involvement of the Department of Environment, and by approving large national development projects without demanding comprehensive study of their impact on wildlife habitats.
Regions, provinces and cities
Iran is divided into five regions with thirty one provinces (ostān), each governed by an appointed governor (ostāndār). The provinces are divided into counties (shahrestān), and subdivided into districts (bakhsh) and sub-districts (dehestān).
Iran has one of the highest urban growth rates in the world. From 1950 to 2002, the urban proportion of the population increased from 27% to 60%. The United Nations predicts that by 2030, 80% of the population will be urban. Most internal migrants have settled near the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Ahvaz, and Qom. The listed populations are from the 2006/07 (1385 AP) census. Tehran, with a population of 7,705,036, is the largest city in Iran and is the capital. Tehran, like many big cities, suffers from severe air pollution. It is the hub of the country's communication and transport network.
Mashhad, with a population of 2,410,800, is the second largest Iranian city and the capital of the Razavi Khorasan Province. Mashhad is one of the holiest Shia cities in the world as it is the site of the Imam Reza shrine. It is the centre of tourism in Iran, and between 15 and 20 million pilgrims go to the Imam Reza's shrine every year.
Another major Iranian city is Isfahan (population 1,583,609), which is the capital of Isfahan Province. The Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The city contains a wide variety of Islamic architectural sites ranging from the 11th to the 19th century. The growth of the suburban area around the city has turned Isfahan into Iran's third most populous metropolitan area (1,430,353).
The fourth major city of Iran is Tabriz (population 1,378,935), the capital of the East Azerbaijan Province. It is also the second industrial city of Iran after Tehran. Tabriz had been the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s and one of its former capitals and residence of the crown prince under the Qajar Dynasty. The city has proven extremely influential in the country’s recent history.
The fifth major city is Karaj (population 1,377,450), located in Alborz Province and situated 20 km west of Tehran, at the foot of the Alborz mountains; however, the city is increasingly becoming an extension of metropolitan Tehran.
The sixth major Iranian city is Shiraz (population 1,214,808); it is the capital of Fars Province. The Babylonian civilization to the west greatly influenced the area, which soon came to be known as Persis. The ancient Persians were present in the region from about the 9th century BC, and became rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty in the 6th century BC. The ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae, two of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Empire, are located in or near Shiraz. Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire and is situated northeast of modern Shiraz. UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.
Government and politics
The political system of the Islamic Republic is based on the 1979 Constitution, and comprises several intricately connected governing bodies. The Leader of the Revolution ("Supreme Leader") is responsible for delineation and supervision of the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Supreme Leader is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, controls the military intelligence and security operations, and has sole power to declare war or peace. The heads of the judiciary, state radio and television networks, the commanders of the police and military forces and six of the twelve members of the Guardian Council are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Assembly of Experts elects and dismisses the Supreme Leader on the basis of qualifications and popular esteem.
After the Supreme Leader, the Constitution defines the President of Iran as the highest state authority. The President is elected by universal suffrage for a term of four years and can only be re-elected for one term. Presidential candidates must be approved by the Guardian Council before running in order to ensure their allegiance to the ideals of the Islamic revolution.
The President is responsible for the implementation of the Constitution and for the exercise of executive powers, except for matters directly related to the Supreme Leader, who has the final say in all matters. The President appoints and supervises the Council of Ministers, coordinates government decisions, and selects government policies to be placed before the legislature. Eight Vice-Presidents serve under the President, as well as a cabinet of twenty-two ministers, who must all be approved by the legislature.
The legislature of Iran (known in English as the Islamic Consultative Assembly) is a unicameral body. The Parliament of Iran comprises 290 members elected for four-year terms. The parliament drafts legislation, ratifies international treaties, and approves the national budget. All parliament candidates and all legislation from the assembly must be approved by the Guardian Council.
The Guardian Council comprises twelve jurists including six appointed by the Supreme Leader. The others are elected by the Iranian Parliament from among the jurists nominated by the Head of the Judiciary. The Council interprets the constitution and may veto Parliament. If a law is deemed incompatible with the constitution or Sharia (Islamic law), it is referred back to Parliament for revision. The Expediency Council has the authority to mediate disputes between Parliament and the Guardian Council, and serves as an advisory body to the Supreme Leader, making it one of the most powerful governing bodies in the country. Local city councils are elected by public vote to four-year terms in all cities and villages of Iran.
Law
The Supreme Leader appoints the head of Iran's judiciary, who in turn appoints the head of the Supreme Court and the chief public prosecutor. There are several types of courts including public courts that deal with civil and criminal cases, and revolutionary courts which deal with certain categories of offenses, including crimes against national security. The decisions of the revolutionary courts are final and cannot be appealed. The Special Clerical Court handles crimes allegedly committed by clerics, although it has also taken on cases involving lay people. The Special Clerical Court functions independently of the regular judicial framework and is accountable only to the Supreme Leader. The Court's rulings are final and cannot be appealed. The Assembly of Experts, which meets for one week annually, comprises 86 "virtuous and learned" clerics elected by adult suffrage for eight-year terms. As with the presidential and parliamentary elections, the Guardian Council determines candidates' eligibility. The Assembly elects the Supreme Leader and has the constitutional authority to remove the Supreme Leader from power at any time. It has not challenged any of the Supreme Leader's decisions.
The state-owned Telecommunication Company of Iran handles telecommunications. The media of Iran is a mixture of private and state-owned, but books and movies must be approved by the The ministry of Ershaad before being released to the public. Iran originally received access to the internet in 1993, and it has become enormously popular among the Iranian youth.
Foreign relations
The Iranian government's officially stated goal is to establish a new world order based on world peace, global collective security and justice.
Often, Iran's foreign relations since the time of the revolution have been portrayed as being based on two strategic principles: eliminating outside influences in the region and pursuing extensive diplomatic contacts with developing and non-aligned countries.
Since 2005, Iran's nuclear program has become the subject of contention with the international community following earlier quotes of Iranian leadership favoring the use of an atomic bomb against Iran's enemies and in particular Israel. Many countries have expressed concern that Iran's nuclear program could divert civilian nuclear technology into a weapons program. This has led the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Iran which had further isolated Iran politically and economically from the rest of the global community. In 2009, The US Director of National Intelligence said that Iran, if choosing to, would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon until 2013, four years later.
As of 2009, Iran maintains diplomatic relations with 99 members of the United Nations, but not with the United States or Israel, a state which Iran has not recognized since the 1979 Revolution.
On July 14, 2015, Tehran and the P5+1 came to a historic agreement to end economic sanctions after demonstrating a peaceful nuclear research project that meets International Atomic Energy Agency standards.
Iran is also a member of dozens of international organizations including the G-15, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, IDA, IDB, IFC, ILO, IMF, International Maritime Organization, Interpol, OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, WHO, and currently has observer status at the World Trade Organization.
Military
The Islamic Republic of Iran has two types of armed forces: the regular forces Islamic Republic of Iran Army, Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the Revolutionary Guards, totaling about 545,000 active troops. Iran also has around 350,000 Reserve Force totaling around 900,000 trained troops. Iran has a paramilitary, volunteer militia force within the IRGC, called the Basij, which includes about 90,000 full-time, active-duty uniformed members. Up to 11 million men and women are members of the Basij who could potentially be called up for service; GlobalSecurity.org estimates Iran could mobilize "up to one million men". This would be among the largest troop mobilizations in the world. In 2007, Iran's military spending represented 2.6% of the GDP or $102 per capita, the lowest figure of the Persian Gulf nations. Iran's military doctrine is based on deterrence. In 2014 arms spending the country spent $15 billion and was outspent by the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council by a factor of 13.
Iran supports the military activities of its allies in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (Hezbollah) with thousands of rockets and missiles.
Since the 1979 Revolution, to overcome foreign embargoes, Iran has developed its own military industry, produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, guided missiles, submarines, military vessels, guided missile destroyer, radar systems, helicopters and fighter planes. In recent years, official announcements have highlighted the development of weapons such as the Hoot, Kowsar, Zelzal, Fateh-110, Shahab-3 and Sejjil missiles, and a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The Fajr-3 (MIRV) is currently Iran's most advanced ballistic missile, it is a liquid fuel missile with an undisclosed range which was developed and produced domestically.
Economy
Iran's economy is a mixture of central planning, state ownership of oil and other large enterprises, village agriculture, and small-scale private trading and service ventures. In 2014, GDP was $404.1 billion ($1.334 trillion at PPP), or $17,100 at PPP per capita. Iran is ranked as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank. In the early 21st century the service sector contributed the largest percentage of the GDP, followed by industry (mining and manufacturing) and agriculture. The Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for developing and maintaining the Iranian rial, which serves as the country's currency. The government doesn't recognize trade unions other than the Islamic Labour Councils, which are subject to the approval of employers and the security services. The minimum wage in June 2013 was 487 million rials a month ($134). Unemployment has remained above 10% since 1997, and the unemployment rate for women is almost double that of the men.
In 2006, about 45% of the government's budget came from oil and natural gas revenues, and 31% came from taxes and fees. As of 2007, Iran had earned $70 billion in foreign exchange reserves mostly (80%) from crude oil exports. Iranian budget deficits have been a chronic problem, mostly due to large-scale state subsidies, that include foodstuffs and especially gasoline, totaling more than $84 billion in 2008 for the energy sector alone. In 2010, the economic reform plan was approved by parliament to cut subsidies gradually and replace them with targeted social assistance. The objective is to move towards free market prices in a 5-year period and increase productivity and social justice.
The administration continues to follow the market reform plans of the previous one and indicated that it will diversify Iran's oil-reliant economy. Iran has also developed a biotechnology, nanotechnology, and pharmaceuticals industry. However, nationalized industries such as the bonyads have often been managed badly, making them ineffective and uncompetitive with years. Currently, the government is trying to privatize these industries, and, despite successes, there are still several problems to be overcome, such as the lagging corruption in the public sector and lack of competitiveness. In 2010, Iran was ranked 69, out of 139 nations, in the Global Competitiveness Report.
Iran has leading manufacturing industries in the fields of car-manufacture and transportation, construction materials, home appliances, food and agricultural goods, armaments, pharmaceuticals, information technology, power and petrochemicals in the Middle East. According to FAO, Iran has been a top five producer of the following agricultural products in the world in 2012: apricots, cherries, sour cherries, cucumbers and gherkins, dates, eggplants, figs, pistachios, quinces, walnuts, and watermelons.
Economic sanctions against Iran, such as the embargo against Iranian crude oil, have affected the economy. Sanctions have led to a steep fall in the value of the rial, and as of April 2013 one US dollar is worth 36,000 rial, compared with 16,000 in early 2012. Following a successful implementation of the 2015 nuclear and sanctions relief deal, the resulting benefits might not be distributed evenly across the Iranian economy as political elites such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have garnered more resources and economic interests.
Tourism
Although tourism declined significantly during the war with Iraq, it has subsequently recovered. About 1,659,000 foreign tourists visited Iran in 2004 and 2.3 million in 2009 mostly from Asian countries, including the republics of Central Asia, while about 10% came from the European Union and North America. Over five million tourists visited Iran in the fiscal year of 2014–2015, ending March 21, four percent more year-on-year.
The most popular tourist destinations are Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz. In the early 2000s the industry faced serious limitations in infrastructure, communications, industry standards and personnel training. The majority of the 300,000 tourist visas granted in 2003 were obtained by Asian Muslims, who presumably intended to visit important pilgrimage sites in Mashhad and Qom. Several organized tours from Germany, France and other European countries come to Iran annually to visit archaeological sites and monuments. In 2003 Iran ranked 68th in tourism revenues worldwide. According to UNESCO and the deputy head of research for Iran Travel and Tourism Organization (ITTO), Iran is rated among the "10 most touristic countries in the world". Domestic tourism in Iran is one of the largest in the world. Weak advertising, unstable regional conditions, a poor public image in some parts of the world, and absence of efficient planning schemes in the tourism sector have all hindered the growth of tourism.
Energy
Iran has the second largest proved gas reserves in the world after Russia, with 33.6 trillion cubic metres, and third largest natural gas production in the world after Indonesia, and Russia. It also ranks fourth in oil reserves with an estimated 153,600,000,000 barrels. It is OPEC's 2nd largest oil exporter and is an energy superpower.
In 2005, Iran spent US$4 billion on fuel imports, because of contraband and inefficient domestic use. Oil industry output averaged in 2005, compared with the peak of six million barrels per day reached in 1974. In the early years of the 2000s (decade), industry infrastructure was increasingly inefficient because of technological lags. Few exploratory wells were drilled in 2005.
In 2004, a large share of natural gas reserves in Iran were untapped. The addition of new hydroelectric stations and the streamlining of conventional coal and oil-fired stations increased installed capacity to 33,000 megawatts. Of that amount, about 75% was based on natural gas, 18% on oil, and 7% on hydroelectric power. In 2004, Iran opened its first wind-powered and geothermal plants, and the first solar thermal plant is to come online in 2009. Iran is the third country in the world to have developed GTL technology.
Demographic trends and intensified industrialization have caused electric power demand to grow by 8% per year. The government’s goal of 53,000 megawatts of installed capacity by 2010 is to be reached by bringing on line new gas-fired plants and by adding hydroelectric, and nuclear power generating capacity. Iran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr went online in 2011. It is the second Nuclear Power Plant that ever built in the Middle East after Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant in Armenia.
Education, science and technology
Education in Iran is highly centralized. K-12 education is supervised by the Ministry of Education, and higher education is under the supervision of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The adult literacy rated 93.0% in September 2015, while it had rated 85.0% in 2008, up from 36.5% in 1976.
The requirement to enter into higher education is to have a high school diploma and pass the national university entrance examination, Iranian University Entrance Exam (known as concour), which is the equivalent of the US SAT exams. Many students do a 1–2 year course of pre-university (piš-dānešgāhi), which is the equivalent of GCE A-levels and International Baccalaureate. The completion of the pre-university course earns students the Pre-University Certificate.
Higher education is sanctioned by different levels of diplomas. Kārdāni (associate degree; also known as fowq e diplom) is delivered after 2 years of higher education; kāršenāsi (bachelor's degree; also known as licāns) is delivered after 4 years of higher education; and kāršenāsi e aršad (master's degree) is delivered after 2 more years of study, after which another exam allows the candidate to pursue a doctoral program (PhD; known as doctorā).
According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the top-ranking universities in the country are the University of Tehran (468th worldwide), the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (612th) and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (815th).
Iran has increased its publication output nearly tenfold from 1996 through 2004, and has been ranked first in terms of output growth rate, followed by China. According to SCImago, Iran could rank fourth in the world in terms of research output by 2018, if the current trend persists.
In 2009, a SUSE Linux-based HPC system made by the Aerospace Research Institute of Iran (ARI) was launched with 32 cores, and now runs 96 cores. Its performance was pegged at 192 GFLOPS. Sorena 2 Robot, which was designed by engineers at the University of Tehran, was unveiled in 2010. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has placed the name of Surena among the five prominent robots of the world after analyzing its performance.
In the biomedical sciences, Iran's Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics is a UNESCO chair in biology. In late 2006, Iranian scientists successfully cloned a sheep by somatic cell nuclear transfer, at the Royan Research Center in Tehran.
According to a study by David Morrison and Ali Khadem Hosseini (Harvard-MIT and Cambridge), stem cell research in Iran is amongst the top 10 in the world. Iran ranks 15th in the world in nanotechnologies.
Iran placed its domestically built satellite, Omid into orbit on the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, on 2 February 2009, through Safir rocket, becoming the ninth country in the world capable of both producing a satellite and sending it into space from a domestically made launcher.
The Iranian nuclear program was launched in the 1950s. Iran is the seventh country to produce uranium hexafluoride, and controls the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
Iranian scientists outside Iran have also made some major contributions to science. In 1960, Ali Javan co-invented the first gas laser, and fuzzy set theory was introduced by Lotfi Zadeh. Iranian cardiologist, Tofy Mussivand invented and developed the first artificial cardiac pump, the precursor of the artificial heart. Furthering research and treatment of diabetes, HbA1c was discovered by Samuel Rahbar. Iranian physics is especially strong in string theory, with many papers being published in Iran. Iranian-American string theorist Kamran Vafa proposed the Vafa-Witten theorem together with Edward Witten.
In August 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first-ever woman, as well as the first-ever Iranian, to receive the Fields Medal, the highest prize in mathematics.
Demographics
Iran is a diverse country, consisting of many religious and ethnic groups that are unified through a shared Persian language and culture.
Iran's population grew rapidly during the latter half of the 20th century, increasing from about 19 million in 1956 to around 75 million by 2009. However, Iran's birth rate has dropped significantly in recent years, leading to a population growth rate—recorded from July 2012—of about 1.29 percent. Studies project that Iran's rate of growth will continue to slow until it stabilizes above 105 million by 2050.
Iran hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world, with more than one million refugees, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2006, Iranian officials have been working with the UNHCR and Afghan officials for their repatriation. According to estimates, about five million Iranian citizens have emigrated to other countries, mostly since the 1979 Revolution.
According to the Iranian Constitution, the government is required to provide every citizen of the country with access to social security that covers retirement, unemployment, old age, disability, accidents, calamities, health and medical treatment and care services. This is covered by tax revenues and income derived from public contributions.
Languages
The majority of the population speaks the Persian language, which is also the official language of the country. Others include the rest of the Iranian languages within the greater Indo-European languages, and the languages of the other ethnicities in Iran.
In southwestern and southern Iran, the Luri and Lari languages are spoken. In northern Iran, mostly confined to Gilan and Mazandaran, the Gilaki and Mazandarani languages are widely spoken, which, depending on author, are classified as either a dialect of Persian or a different Iranian language. They both have affinities to neighbouring Caucasian languages. In Kurdistan Province and nearby areas, Kurdish is widely spoken. In Khuzestan, many distinct Persian dialects are spoken. Furthmore, in parts of Gilan, Talysh is widely spoken, which stretches up to neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Turkic languages and dialects, most importantly the Azerbaijani language which is by far the most spoken language in the country after the official language of Persian, are spoken in different areas in Iran, but is especially widely and dominantly spoken in Iranian Azerbaijan. Arabic is also spoken by the Arabs of Khuzestan, and the wider group of Iranian Arabs.
Notable minority languages in Iran include Armenian, Georgian, and Neo-Aramaic. Circassian was also once widely used by the large Circassian minority, but, due to assimilation over the many years, no sizable number of Circassians speak the language anymore.
Percentages of spoken language continue to be a point of debate, as many opt that they are politically motivated, most notably regarding the largest and second largest ethnicities in Iran; the Persians and Azerbaijanis. According to the CIA World Factbook, the percentages are for native speakers; Persian 53%, Azerbaijani 16%, Kurdish 10%, Mazandarani and Gilaki 7%, Luri 7%, Arabic 2%, Turkmen 2%, Balochi 2%, and the remainder 2% Armenian, Georgian, Neo-Aramaic, and Circassian.
Ethnic groups
As with the spoken languages, the ethnic group composition also remains a point of debate, mainly regarding the largest and second largest ethnic groups, the Persians and Azerbaijanis, due to a lack of Iranian state censuses based on ethnicity. The CIA World Factbook has estimated that around 79% of the population of Iran are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages, with Persians (incl. Mazandaranis, and Gilakis) constituting 61% of the population, Kurds 10%, Lurs 6%, and Balochs 2%. Peoples of the other ethnicities in Iran make up the remaining 21%, with Azerbaijanis constituting 16%, Arabs 2%, Turkmens and Turkic tribes 2%, and others 1% (such as Armenians, Talysh, Georgians, Circassians, Assyrians).
The Library of Congress issued slightly different estimates: Persians 65% (incl. Mazandaranis, Gilakis and Talysh), Azerbaijanis 16%, Kurds 7%, Lurs 6%, Baluchi 2%; Turkic tribal groups such as Qashqai 1%, and Turkmens 1%; and non-Iranian, non-Turkic groups such as Armenians, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, and Arabs less than 3%. It determined that Persian is the first language of at least 65% of the country's population and is the second language for most of the remaining 35%.
Other non-governmental estimations regarding the groups other than the Persians and Azerbaijanis roughly congruate with the World Factbook and the Library of Congress. However, many scholarly as well as organisational estimations regarding the number of these two groups differ significantly from above mentioned numbers. According many of these, the number of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran comprises between 21.6–30% of the total population, with the majority holding it on 25%. Nevertheless, the largest population of Azerbaijanis in the world live in Iran, regardless of whether they compose 16% or 30% of the population.
Religion
Historically, Proto-Iranian religion and the subsequent Zoroastrianism were the dominant religions in Iran, particularly during the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid empires. This changed after the fall of the Sassanid Empire by the Muslim Conquest of Iran. Iran was predominantly Sunni until the conversion of the country (as well as the people of what is today the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan) to Shia Islam by the order of the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century.
Today, the Twelver Shia Islam is the official state religion, to which about 90% to 95% of the population officially belong. About 4% to 8% of the population are Sunni Muslims, mainly Kurds and Balochs. The remaining 2% are non-Muslim religious minorities, including Christians, Jews, Bahais, Mandeans, Yezidis, Yarsanis, and Zoroastrians.
Judaism has a long history in Iran, dating back to the Achaemenid Conquest of Babylonia. Although many left in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel and the 1979 Revolution, around 8,756 Jews remain in Iran, according to the latest census. Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel.
Around 250,000 – 370,000 Christians reside in Iran, and it is the largest recognized minority religion in the nation. Most are of Armenian background with a sizable minority of Assyrians as well.
Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and the Sunni branch of Islam are officially recognized by the government, and have reserved seats in the Iranian Parliament. But the Bahá'í Faith, which is said to be the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, is not officially recognized, and has been persecuted during its existence in Iran since the 19th century. Since the 1979 Revolution, the persecution of Bahais has increased with executions, the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the denial of access to higher education and employment.
The government has not released statistics regarding irreligiosity. However, the irreligious figures are growing and are higher in the diaspora, notably among Iranian Americans.
Culture
The earliest recorded cultures within the region of Iran date back to the Lower Paleolithic era.
Owing to its dominant geopolitical position and culture in the world, Iran has directly influenced cultures as far away as Greece, Macedonia, and Italy to the West, Russia to the North, the Arabian Peninsula to the South, and indirectly South and East Asia to the East.
Art
Iranian works of art show a great variety in style, in different regions and periods. The main connections between these works are iconographic motifs. Combination is another major element in the art of Iran, specifically the depictions of composite human and animal figures, which also refer to the mythology of Iran.
Iranian art encompasses many disciplines, including architecture, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, metalworking, and stonemasonry. The Median and Achaemenid empires left a significant classical art scene which remained as basic influences for the art of the later eras. Art of the Parthians was a mixture of Iranian and Hellenistic artworks, with their main motifs being scenes of royal hunting expeditions and investitures. The Sassanid art played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art, which carried forward to the Islamic world, and much of what later became known as Islamic learning, such as philology, literature, jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine, architecture, and science, were of Sassanid basis.
There is also a vibrant Iranian modern and contemporary art scene, with its genesis in the late 1940s. The 1949 Apadana Gallery of Tehran, which was operated by Mahmoud Javadi Pour and other colleagues, and the emergence of artists such as Marcos Grigorian in the 1950s, signaled a commitment to the creation of a form of modern art grounded in Iran.
Iranian carpet-weaving dates back to the Bronze Age, and is one of the most distinguished manifestations of the art of Iran. Iran is the world's largest producer and exporter of handmade carpets, producing three quarters of the world's total output and having a share of 30% of world's export markets.
Iran is also home to one of the largest jewel collections in the world.
Architecture
The history of Iranian architecture goes back to the 7th millennium BC. Iranians were among the first to use mathematics, geometry, and astronomy in architecture.
Iranian architecture displays great variety, both structural and aesthetic, developing gradually and coherently out of earlier traditions and experience. The guiding motifs of Iranian architecture are unity, continuity, and cosmic symbolism.
Iran ranks seventh among countries with the most archaeological architectural ruins and attractions from antiquity, as recognized by UNESCO.
Literature
Iranian literature is one of the world's oldest literatures, dating back to the poetry of Avesta and Zoroastrian literature.
Poetry is used in many Iranian classical works, whether in literature, science, or metaphysics. Persian language has been dubbed as a worthy language to serve as a conduit for poetry, and is considered as one of the four main bodies of world literature. Dialects of Persian are sporadically spoken throughout regions from China to Syria and Russia, though mainly in the Iranian Plateau.
Iran has a number of famous poets; most notably Rumi, Ferdowsi, Hafez, Saadi Shirazi, Khayyám Ney-Shapuri, and Nezami Ganjavi. Historically, Iranian literature has inspired writers including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Philosophy
Iranian philosophy originates to Indo-Iranian roots, with Zarathustra's teachings having major influences.
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, the chronology of the subject and science of philosophy starts with the Indo-Iranians, dating this event to 1500 BC. The Oxford dictionary also states, "Zarathushtra's philosophy entered to influence Western tradition through Judaism, and therefore on Middle Platonism."
While there are ancient relations between the Indian Vedas and the Iranian Avesta, the two main families of the Indo-Iranian philosophical traditions were characterized by fundamental differences, especially in their implications for the human being's position in society and their view of man's role in the universe.
The Cyrus cylinder, which is known as "the first charter of human rights," is often seen as a reflection of the questions and thoughts expressed by Zarathustra, and developed in Zoroastrian schools of the Achaemenid Era.
The earliest tenets of Zoroastrian schools are part of the extant scriptures of the Zoroastrian religion in Avestan language. Among them are treatises such as the Shikand-gumanic Vichar, Denkard, Zātspram, as well as older passages of Avesta, and the Gathas.
Mythology
Iranian mythology consists of ancient Iranian folklore and stories, all involving extraordinary beings. They reflect attitudes towards the confrontation of good and evil, actions of the gods, and the exploits of heroes and fabulous creatures.
Myths play a crucial part in the culture of Iran, and understanding of them is increased when they are considered within the context of actual events in the history of Iran. The geography of Greater Iran, a vast area covering the present-day Iran, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Central Asia, with its high mountain ranges, plays the main role in much of the Iranian mythology.
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi is the main collection of the mythology of Iran, which draws heavily on the stories and characters of Zoroastrianism, from the texts of Avesta, Denkard, and Bundahishn.
Observances
Iran has three official calendar systems, including the Solar calendar as the main, the Gregorian calendar for international and Christian events, and the Lunar calendar for Islamic events.
The main national annual of Iran is Nowruz, an ancient tradition celebrated on 21 March to mark the beginning of spring and the New Year of Iran. It is enjoyed by people with different religions, but is a holiday for Zoroastrians. It was registered on the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and was described as the Persian New Year by UNESCO in 2009.
Other remained national annuals of Iran include:
Čā'r Šanbe Suri: A prelude to Nowruz, in honor of Ātar (the Holy Fire), celebrated by fireworks and fire-jumping, on the last Wednesday before Nowruz
Sizda' be Dar: Leaving the house to join the nature, on the thirteenth day of the New Year (April 2)
Čelle ye Zemestān: Also known as Yaldā; the longest night of the year, celebrated on the eve of Winter Solstice, by reciting poetry and having the customary fruits which include watermelon, pomegranate, and mixed nuts
Tirgān: A mid summer festival, in honor of Tishtrya, celebrated on Tir 13 (July 4), by splashing water, reciting poetry, and having traditional dishes such as šole-zard and spinach soup
Mehrgān: An autumn festival, in honor of Mithra, celebrated on Mehr 16 (October 8), by family gathering and setting a table of sweets, flowers, and a mirror
Sepand Ārmazgān: Dedicated to Ameša Spenta (the Holy Devotion); celebrated by giving presents to partners, on Esfand 15 (February 24)
Along with the national celebrations, annuals such as Ramezān, Eid e Fetr, and Ruz e Āšurā are marked by Muslims; Noel, Čelle ye Ruze, and Eid e Pāk are celebrated by Christians; and the festivals Purim, Eid e Fatir, and Tu Bišvāt are celebrated by Jewish people in Iran.
Music
Iran is the apparent birthplace of the earliest complex instruments, as evidenced by the archaeological records found in Western Iran, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. The Iranian use of both vertical and horizontal angular harps have been documented at the sites Madaktu and Kul-e Farah, with the largest collection of Elamite instruments documented at Kul-e Farah. Multiple depictions of horizontal harps were also sculpted in Assyrian palaces, dating back between 865 and 650 BC.
Xenophon's Cyropaedia refers to a great number of singing women at the court of the Achaemenid Iran. Athenaeus of Naucratis states that, by the time of the last Achaemenid king, Artashata (336–330 BC), Achaemenid singing girls were captured by the Macedonian general, Parmenion. Under the Parthian Empire, a type of epic music was taught to youth, depicting the national epics and myths which were later represented in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi.
History of the Sassanid music is better documented than the earlier periods, and is specially more evident in the Zoroastrian contexts. By the time of Khosrow II, the Sassanid royal court was the host of prominent musicians, namely Ramtin, Bamshad, Nakisa, Azad, Sarkash, and Barbad.
Some Iranian traditional musical instruments include saz, Persian tar, Azerbaijani tar, dotar, setar, kamanche, harp, barbat, santur, tanbur, qanun, dap, tompak, and ney.
The first national music society of the modern-day Iran was founded by Rouhollah Khaleghi in the 1940s, with the School of National Music established in 1949. Today, the main orchestra of Iran include the National Orchestra, the Nations Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestra of Tehran.
Iranian pop music emerged by the Qajar Era. It was led to major developments in the 1950s, by the emergence of stars such as Viguen, who was referred to as the "king of Persian Pop and Jazz." The 1970s is known as a "Golden Age" for Iranian pop music, where a revolution was formed in the music industry of Iran, using indigenous instruments and forms and adding electric guitar. Hayedeh, Faramarz Aslani, Farhad Mehrad, Googoosh, and Ebi are among the leading artists of this period.
The emergence of genres such as modern rock in the 1970s and hip hop in the 1980s, which replaced the outdated musical styles among the youth, followed major movements and influences in the music of Iran.
Theater
Theater background of Iran dates back to antiquity. The earliest recorded representations of dancing figures within Iran were found in prehistoric sites such as Tepe Siyalk and Tepe Mūsīān.
The oldest initiation of theater and phenomena of acting among the people of Iran can be traced in the epic ceremonial theaters, such as Soug e Sivash and Mogh Koshi (Megakhouni), and also dances and theater narrations of Iranian mythological tales reported by Herodotos and Xenophon.
There are several theatrical genres which emerged before the advent of cinema in Iran, including Xeyme Shab Bazi (Puppetry), Saye Bazi (Shadow play), Ru-howzi (Comical plays), and Tazieh (Sorrow plays).
Before the 1979 Revolution, the Iranian national stage had become a famous performing scene for known international artists and troupes, with the Roudaki Hall of Tehran constructed to function as the national stage for opera and ballet. Opened on October 26, 1967, the hall is home to the Symphony Orchestra of Tehran, the Opera Orchestra of Tehran, and the Iranian National Ballet Company, and continues now with Vahdat Hall as its official name.
The opera Rostam o Sohrab, based on the epic of Rostam and Sohrab from Shahnameh, is an example of opera performances in the modern-day Iran.
Cinema and animation
The earliest examples of visual representations in Iranian history are traced back to the bas-reliefs of Persepolis, c. 500 BC. Persepolis was the ritual center of the ancient kingdom of Achaemenids, and the figures at Persepolis remain bound by the rules of grammar and syntax of visual language. The Iranian visual arts reached a pinnacle by the Sassanid Era. A bas-relief from this period in Taq Bostan depicts a complex hunting scene. Similar works from the period have been found to articulate movements and actions in a highly sophisticated manner. It is even possible to see a progenitor of the cinema close-up in one of these works of art, which shows a wounded wild pig escaping from the hunting ground.
By the early 20th century, the five-year-old modern industry of cinema came to Iran. The first Iranian filmmaker was Mirza Ebrahim Khan (Akkas Bashi), the official photographer of Mozaffar od Din Shah of Qajar. He obtained a camera and filmed the Shah's visit to Europe.
In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan (Sahhaf Bashi) opened the first movie theater in Tehran. After him, several others like Russi Khan, Ardeshir Khan, and Ali Vakili tried to establish new movie theaters in Tehran. Until the early 1930s, there were around 15 cinema theaters in Tehran and 11 in other provinces.
The first silent Iranian film was made by Professor Ovanes Ohanian in 1930, and the first sounded one, Lor Girl, was made by Abd ol Hossein Sepanta in 1932.
The 1960s was a significant decade for Iranian cinema, with 25 commercial films produced annually on average throughout the early 60s, increasing to 65 by the end of the decade. The majority of production focused on melodrama and thrillers. With the screening of the films Kaiser and The Cow, directed by Masoud Kimiai and Dariush Mehrjui respectively in 1969, alternative films established their status in the film industry. Attempts to organize a film festival that had begun in 1954 within the framework of the Golrizan Festival, bore fruits in the form of the Sepas Festival in 1969. The endeavors also resulted in the formation of the Tehran World Festival in 1973.
After the Revolution of 1979, as the new government imposed new laws and standards, a new age in Iranian cinema emerged, starting with Viva... by Khosrow Sinai and followed by many other directors, such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi. Kiarostami, an admired Iranian director, planted Iran firmly on the map of world cinema when he won the Palme d'Or for Taste of Cherry in 1997. The continuous presence of Iranian films in prestigious international festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival, attracted world attention to Iranian masterpieces. In 2006, six Iranian films, of six different styles, represented Iranian cinema at the Berlin International Film Festival. Critics considered this a remarkable event in the history of Iranian cinema.
Asghar Farhadi, a well-known Iranian director, has received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world by Time Magazine in 2012.
The oldest records of animation in Iran date back to the late 3rd millennium BC. An earthen goblet discovered at the site of the 5,200-year-old Burnt City in southeastern Iran, depicts what could possibly be the world’s oldest example of animation. The artifact bears five sequential images depicting a Persian Ibex jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree.
The art of animation, as practiced in modern Iran, started in the 1950s. After four decades of Iranian animation production and three-decade experience of Kanoon Institute, the Tehran International Animation Festival (TIAF) was established in February 1999. Every two years, participants from more than 70 countries attend this event in Tehran, which holds Iran's biggest national animation market.
Sports
With two thirds of Iran's population under the age of 25, many sports are played in Iran, both traditional and modern.
Iran is the birthplace of polo, known as čowgān in Persian, and košti e pahlevāni, meaning the "heroic wrestling." Freestyle wrestling has been traditionally regarded as Iran's national sport, where the national team has been Olympic and world champion.
Football is known as the most popular sport in Iran, with the national team having won the Asian Cup on three occasions.
Volleyball has been Iran's second most popular sport. Men's national team ranked fourth in 2014 FIVB Volleyball World League, ranked sixth in 2014 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship, and achieved the best result among the Asian national teams.
Being a mountainous country, Iran is a venue for hiking, rock climbing, and mountain climbing.
Iran is home to many skiing resorts, the most famous being Tochal, Dizin, and Shemshak, which are all within one to three hours traveling time from the city of Tehran. Tochal resort is the world's fifth-highest ski resort ( at its highest station).
Basketball is also popular in Iran, where the national team has won three Asian Championships since 2007.
In 1974, Iran became the first country in West Asia to host the Asian Games.
Cuisine
Iranian cuisine is diverse due to its variety of ethnic groups and the influence of other cultures. Herbs are frequently used along with fruits such as plums, pomegranates, quince, prunes, apricots, and raisins. Iranians usually eat plain yogurt with lunch and dinner; it is a staple of the diet in Iran. To achieve a balanced taste, characteristic flavourings such as saffron, dried limes, cinnamon, and parsley are mixed delicately and used in some special dishes. Onions and garlic are normally used in the preparation of the accompanying course, but are also served separately during meals, either in raw or pickled form. Iran is also famous for its caviar.
See also
List of Iran-related topics
Outline of Iran
Bibliography
Iran: A Country Study. 2008, Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 354 pp.
References
External links
The e-office of the Supreme Leader of Iran
The President of Iran
Iran.ir
Videos
Iran—Weekly program that explores Iran's past, present and future with exclusive reports. (PressTV)
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Category:6th-century BC establishments |
2016-01 | 2015_in_film-697769578 | 2015_in_film | 2015 in film
2015 in film is an overview of events, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies, festivals, and a list of films released and notable deaths.
Highest-grossing films
The top 10 films released in 2015 by worldwide gross are as follows:
Jurassic World, Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Minions, have grossed over $1 billion each, making them the 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th films, respectively, to surpass that milestone; they are currently the third, fifth, sixth, eighth, and eleventh highest-grossing films of all time, respectively.
Minions became the first non-Disney animated film and the third animated film after Toy Story 3 (2010) and Frozen (2013) to gross over $1 billion, and is currently the second highest-grossing animated film of all time. Furious 7 and Jurassic World also became the 3rd and 4th films to gross more than $1 billion outside of North America, joining Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). Inside Out became the tenth animated film to gross more than $800 million, and is currently the tenth highest grossing animated film and 44th highest-grossing film of all time.
2015 notable box office records
Studio records
It is the first year that a single studio (Universal Pictures) released three films that all grossed over $1 billion, the first year that a single studio released two films that both grossed over $1.5 billion, and the first year that a single studio released two films that both grossed over $1 billion outside of North America.
Universal also generated $2 and $3 billion in a single year at the international box office faster than any studio before, doing so on June 10, June 14, and July 17, 2015 respectively. The previous records was held by 20th Century Fox when it reached $2 and $3 billion on June 15 and July 30, 2010 respectively. Universal previously grossed $2 billion in 2013, reaching the milestone on September 17 of that year. Furthermore, the studio also broke the record for fastest studio to generate $1 billion in the United States and Canada (on June 14, 2015), beating the previous record ascendance achieved by Paramount Pictures on June 22, 2008, and $2 billion (on August 16, 2015), beating the previous speed record of December 25, 2009 held by Warner Bros., and the fastest to $3, $4 and $5 billion worldwide (It achieved the $5 billion milestone on July 17, 2015, breaking the record previously held by Fox towards the end of November 2014). Universal is also the first studio thus far to achieve $6 billion at the global box office in one year.
Marvel Studios became the first studio to produce three films within a single franchise – the Marvel Cinematic Universe – that each grossed over a $1 billion, with Avengers: Age of Ultron joining 2012's The Avengers and 2013's Iron Man 3. The Marvel Cinematic Universe also became the highest grossing film franchise with the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, surpassing the Harry Potter film franchise ($7.723 billion, 2001-2011), and becoming the first franchise to gross over $8 billion. With the subsequent release of Ant-Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe also became the first franchise to gross over $9 billion.
Film records
Furious 7 became the fastest film to accrue $1 billion in tickets sales worldwide, doing so in 17 days; this record was later surpassed by Universal's own Jurassic World two months later, accruing the same amount in 13 days; this record was in turn surpassed six months later by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which accrued $1 billion in twelve days.
Jurassic World grossed $524.4 million worldwide in its opening weekend, making it the highest-grossing worldwide opening of all time, surpassing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($483.2 million in 2011). Jurassic World also grossed $208.8 million in North America in its opening weekend, beating the previous record held by The Avengers ($207.4 million in 2012). Both records were later surpassed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the same year.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke all pre-sale ticket records and grossed $529 million in its opening weekend, making it the highest-grossing worldwide opening of all time, surpassing Jurassic World ($524.4 million on 12-14 June 2015). The Force Awakens also grossed $248 million in North America in its opening weekend, beating the previous record held by Jurassic World ($208.8 million).
2015 leads for the greatest number of films to gross more than $1 billion, with five films, and sets the record for the greatest number of films crossing the $1.5 billion mark, with two films.
2015 also leads for the most number of films to be among the top ten highest-grossing films of all time, with five films and the 50 highest-grossing films of all time with seven films.
Events
Award ceremonies
Festivals
2015 films
January – March
April – June
July – September
October – December
Notable deaths
References
Category:Years in film |
2016-01 | John_C._Calhoun-697296120 | John_C._Calhoun | John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was an American politician and political theorist during the first half of the 19th century. Hailing from South Carolina, Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. After 1830, his views evolved and he became a greater proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade; as he saw these means as the only way to preserve the Union. He is known for his intense and original defense of slavery as a positive good, his distrust of majoritarianism, and for leading the South toward secession from the Union.
Calhoun served as a member of the House of Representatives and Senate, as the seventh Vice President of the United States, and as secretary of war and state. He usually affiliated with the Democrats, but flirted with the Whig Party. As a "war hawk", he strongly supported the War of 1812 to defend American honor against Britain. As Secretary of War under President James Monroe, he reorganized and modernized the War Department. When he ran for president in 1824, he decided to run for vice-president instead early in the election, and won; serving under John Quincy Adams. He also continued his term under Andrew Jackson, who defeated Adams for re-election. However, Calhoun had a difficult relationship with Jackson during his term, which culminated in the Peggy Eaton Affair. Calhoun resigned in 1832, and entered the Senate. Shortly after Martin Van Buren was elected as Jackson's new vice-president. Calhoun was the first of two vice-presidents to resign (the second being Spiro Agnew in 1973), and the second and last vice-president to have served under two presidents, after George Clinton. As John Tyler's Secretary of State, Calhoun sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1844, but lost to surprise nominee James K. Polk.
Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist. His concept of republicanism included approval of slavery and minority rights, with the Southern states the minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule, he called for a concurrent majority whereby the minority could sometimes block proposals that it felt infringed on their liberties. Calhoun died eleven years before the start of the American Civil War, but he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860–61. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his ideological rigidity, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification, under which states could declare null and void federal laws viewed as unconstitutional. He was a strong proponent of slavery, which he defended as a "positive good" rather than as a "necessary evil". His rhetorical defense of slavery was partially responsible for escalating Southern threats of secession in the face of mounting abolitionist sentiment in the North.
Calhoun was one of the "Great Triumvirate" or the "Immortal Trio" of Congressional leaders, along with his Congressional colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Calhoun as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators of all time. Calhoun has received praise for his intellectual advancements and denunciations for his attitude towards slavery.
Origins and early life
Calhoun was born in 1782, the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun and his wife Martha Caldwell in Abbeville District, South Carolina. His father had joined the Scotch-Irish immigration from County Donegal to the backcountry of South Carolina.
When his father became ill, 17-year-old John Calhoun quit school to work on the family farm. With his brothers' financial support, he later returned to his studies, earning a degree from Yale College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1804. He was also a noted member of the debating Society of Brothers in Unity at Yale College. After studying law at the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, he was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807.
Marriage and family
In January 1811, Calhoun married Floride Bonneau Colhoun, a first cousin once removed. The couple had 10 children over 18 years; three died in infancy: 1. Andrew Pickens Calhoun (1811–1865); 2. Floride Pure Calhoun (1814–1815); 3. Jane Calhoun (1816–1816); 4. Anna Maria Calhoun (1817–1875); 5. Elizabeth Calhoun (1819–1820); 6. Patrick Calhoun (1821–1858); 7. John Caldwell Calhoun, Jr. (1823–1850); 8. Martha Cornelia Calhoun (1824–1857); 9. James Edward Calhoun (1826–1861); and 10. William Lowndes Calhoun (1829–1858). His fourth child, Anna Maria, married Thomas Green Clemson, founder of Clemson University in South Carolina. During her husband's second term as Vice President, Floride Calhoun was a central figure in the Petticoat affair. She was an active Episcopalian and Calhoun often accompanied her to church. However he was a charter member of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., in 1821 signing his name right next to John Quincy Adams and remaining a member for all his life. He rarely mentioned religion; a Presbyterian in his early life, historians believe he was closest to the informal Unitarianism typified by Thomas Jefferson. In Clyde Wilson's collection of Calhoun's papers, Wilson states that his religion is known to himself alone, although he loved to discuss religion. In a letter he wrote to his daughter Anna Maria, Calhoun provided a clue to his religious thought: "Do our best, our duty for our country, and leave the rest to Providence". In John C. Calhoun: American Portrait, Margaret Coit says he was raised Calvinist, went into Unitarianism for a bit, but for most of his life was caught between the two. Before he died, he was touched by the Great Awakening in the South. Historian Merrill Peterson describes Calhoun thus:
War Hawks and the War of 1812
Calhoun was "a high-strung man of ultra intellectual cast". Unlike Henry Clay or Andrew Jackson, he was not noted for charisma or charm (except when dealing with women and children). He was often seen as harsh, and aggressive with other representatives. But he was a brilliant intellectual and orator and strong organizer. Historian Russell Kirk says "That zeal which flared like Greek fire in Randolph burned in Calhoun, too; but it was contained in the Cast-iron Man as in a furnace, and Calhoun's passion glowed out only through his eyes. No man was more stately, more reserved."
With a base among the Irish (or Scotch Irish), Calhoun won his first election to Congress in 1810. He immediately became a leader of the "War Hawks," along with Speaker Henry Clay and South Carolina congressmen William Lowndes and Langdon Cheves. They disregarded European complexities in the wars between Napoleon and Britain, and brushed aside the vehement objections of New Englanders; they demanded war against Britain to preserve American honor and republican values. Clay made Calhoun the acting chairman of the powerful committee on foreign affairs. On June 3, 1812, Calhoun's committee called for a declaration of war in ringing phrases. The episode spread Calhoun's fame nationwide. War—the War of 1812—was declared, but it went very badly for the poorly organized Americans, whose ports were immediately blockaded by the British Royal Navy. Several attempted invasions of Canada were fiascos, but the U.S. did seize control of western Canada and broke the power of hostile Indians in battles in Canada and Alabama.
Calhoun labored to raise troops, to provide funds, to speed logistics, to improve the currency, and to regulate commerce to aid the war effort. Disasters on the battlefield made him double his legislative efforts to overcome the obstructionism of John Randolph of Roanoke and Daniel Webster and other opponents of the war. With Napoleon apparently gone, and the British invasion of New York defeated, British and American diplomats (Clay and John Quincy Adams among the American delegation) signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. Before the treaty reached the Senate for ratification, and even before news of its signing reached New Orleans, a massive British invasion force was utterly defeated at the Battle of New Orleans, making a national hero out of General Andrew Jackson. The mismanagement of the Army during the war distressed Calhoun, and he resolved to strengthen the War Department so it would never fail again.
Nationalist
After the war, Calhoun and Clay sponsored a Bonus Bill for public works. With the goal of building a strong nation that could fight future wars, Calhoun aggressively pushed for protective tariffs (to build up industry), a national bank, internal improvements (such as canals and ports), and other nationalist policies that he later repudiated because the ends had been accomplished. His repudiation of the national bank was tempered, as he suggested a winding down period to avoid economic shock.
John Quincy Adams concluded in 1821 that: "Calhoun is a man of fair and candid mind, of honorable principles, of clear and quick understanding, of cool self-possession, of enlarged philosophical views, and of ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and factious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." Historian Charles Wiltse agrees, noting, "Though he is known today primarily for his sectionalism, Calhoun was the last of the great political leaders of his time to take a sectional position—later than Daniel Webster, later than Henry Clay, later than Adams himself."
An observer commented that Calhoun was "the most elegant speaker that sits in the House... His gestures are easy and graceful, his manner forcible, and language elegant; but above all, he confines himself closely to the subject, which he always understands, and enlightens everyone within hearing; having said all that a statesman should say, he is done." His talent for public speaking required systematic self-discipline and practice. A later critic noted the sharp contrast between his hesitant conversations and his fluent speaking styles, adding that Calhoun "had so carefully cultivated his naturally poor voice as to make his utterance clear, full, and distinct in speaking and while not at all musical it yet fell pleasantly on the ear."
Secretary of War: 1817–1825
In 1817, President James Monroe appointed Calhoun Secretary of War, where he served until 1825. Calhoun continued his role as a leading nationalist during the "Era of Good Feeling". He proposed an elaborate program of national reforms to the infrastructure that would speed economic modernization. His first priority was an effective navy, including steam frigates, and in the second place a standing army of adequate size; and as further preparation for emergency "great permanent roads", "a certain encouragement" to manufactures, and a system of internal taxation which would not be subject to collapse by a war-time shrinkage of maritime trade like customs duties. He spoke for a national bank, for internal improvements (such as harbors, canals and river navigation) and a protective tariff that would help the industrial Northeast and, especially, pay for the expensive new infrastructure. The word "nation" was often on his lips, and his conscious aim was to enhance national unity which he identified with national power.
After the war ended in 1815 the "Old Republicans" in Congress, with their Jeffersonian ideology for economy in the federal government, sought at every turn to reduce the operations and finances of the War Department. In 1817, the deplorable state of the War Department led four men to turn down requests to fill the Secretary of War position before Calhoun finally accepted the task. Political rivalry, namely, Calhoun's political ambitions as well as those of William H. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, over the pursuit of the 1824 presidency also complicated Calhoun's tenure as War Secretary.
Calhoun proposed an expansible army similar to that of France under Napoleon, whereby a basic cadre of 6,000 officers and men could be expanded into 11,000 without adding additional officers or companies. Congress wanted an army of adequate size in case American interests in Florida or the west led to war with Britain or Spain. However the nation was satisfied by the diplomacy that produced the Convention of 1818 with Britain and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 with Spain, the need for a large army disappeared, and Calhoun could not prevent cutbacks in 1821.
As secretary, Calhoun had responsibility for management of Indian affairs. A reform-minded modernizer, he attempted to institute centralization and efficiency in the Indian department, but Congress either failed to respond to his reforms or responded with hostility. Calhoun's frustration with congressional inaction, political rivalries, and ideological differences that dominated the late early republic spurred him to unilaterally create the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824. He supervised the negotiation and ratification of 38 treaties with Indian tribes.
Vice Presidency
Election
Calhoun originally was a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1824. After failing to win the endorsement of the South Carolina legislature, he decided to be a candidate for Vice President. Although no presidential candidate received a majority in the Electoral College and the election was ultimately resolved by the House of Representatives, the Electoral College elected Calhoun vice president by a landslide. Calhoun served four years under John Quincy Adams, and then, in 1828, won re-election as Vice President running with Andrew Jackson. He thus became one of two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents.
Nullification
Under Andrew Jackson, Calhoun's vice presidency was also controversial. In time he developed a rift over policy with President Jackson, this time about hard cash, a policy which he considered to favor Northern financial interests.
Calhoun opposed an increase in the protective tariff. While Vice President in the John Quincy Adams administration (1825–1829), Andrew Jackson's supporters devised a high tariff legislation that placed burdensome duties on selected New England imports. Calhoun had been assured that the northeastern interests would reject the Tariff of 1828, exposing New England (pro- Adams) congressmen to charges that they selfishly opposed legislation popular among Jacksonian Democrats in the west and Mid-Atlantic States. The southern legislators miscalculated and the Tariff of Abominations passed. As Vice President during this time, Calhoun presided over the Senate and took this role very seriously. The vote on the tariff was expected to come down to his tie-breaking vote. He claimed he would have voted against the tariff, but his vote was not necessary. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation to write "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", an essay rejecting the centralization philosophy.
Calhoun proposed the theory of a concurrent majority through the doctrine of nullification—"the right of a State to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government, within its limits." Nullification can be traced back to arguments by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. They had proposed that states could nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Jackson, who supported states' rights but believed that nullification threatened the Union, opposed it. Calhoun differed from Jefferson and Madison in explicitly arguing for a state's right to secede from the Union, as a last resort, in order to protect the liberty and sovereignty. James Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law.
In 1832, states' rights theory was put to the test in the Nullification Crisis, after South Carolina passed an ordinance that nullified federal tariffs. The tariffs favored northern manufacturing interests over southern agricultural concerns. The South Carolina legislature declared them unconstitutional. Calhoun had formed a political party in South Carolina explicitly known as the Nullifier Party.
In response to the South Carolina move, Congress passed the Force Bill, which empowered the President to use military power to force states to obey all federal laws. Jackson sent US Navy warships to Charleston harbor, and even talked of hanging Calhoun. South Carolina then nullified the Force Bill. Tensions cooled after both sides agreed to the Compromise Tariff of 1833, a proposal by Senator Henry Clay to change the tariff law in a manner which satisfied Calhoun, who by then was in the Senate. Calhoun's speech on the Force Bill is perhaps the greatest example of his understanding of the Constitution's structure.
Calhoun had earlier suggested that the doctrine of nullification could lead to secession. In his 1828 essay "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any federal law that went beyond the enumerated powers and encroached upon the residual powers of the State.
At the 1830 Jefferson Day dinner at Jesse Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, Jackson proposed a toast and proclaimed, "Our federal Union, it must be preserved." Calhoun replied, "the Union, next to our liberty, the most dear."
In May 1830, Jackson discovered that Calhoun had asked President Monroe to censure then-General Jackson for his invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818 while Calhoun was serving as Secretary of War under James Monroe. Jackson had invaded Florida during the First Seminole War without explicit public authorization from Calhoun or Monroe. Calhoun's and Jackson's relationship deteriorated further.
Calhoun defended his 1818 position. The feud between him and Jackson heated up as Calhoun informed the President that he risked another attack from his opponents. They started an argumentative correspondence, fueled by Jackson's opponents, until Jackson stopped the letters in July 1830.
By February 1831, the break between Calhoun and Jackson was final. Responding to inaccurate press reports about the feud, Calhoun had published the letters in the United States Telegraph.
Petticoat Affair
This incident further strained relations between Calhoun and Jackson. Calhoun's wife Floride Calhoun organized Cabinet wives against Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John Eaton. They alleged that John and Peggy Eaton had engaged in an adulterous affair while Mrs. Eaton was still legally married to her first husband. The scandal, which became known as the "Petticoat affair" or the "Peggy Eaton affair", ripped apart the cabinet and created an intolerable situation for Jackson. Jackson was sympatheic to the Eatons. He himself had undergone controversy stemming from his marriage to Rachel Donelson in 1791, despite the fact that, unknown to them, Rachel's previous husband had failed to finalize their divorce. He saw attacks on Eaton stemming ultimately from the political opposition of Calhoun. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, Jackson replaced most of the Cabinet members, therefore limiting Calhoun's influence. Van Buren had begun the process by resigning his post as Secretary of State, thereby assisting Jackson in facilitating the removal of others. Thus, Van Buren grew in favor before the President, while Calhoun was increasingly alienated.
Resignation
On December 12, 1832, Calhoun was elected to fill the United States Senate seat vacated by South Carolina senator Robert Hayne. Sixteen days later, he would become the first Vice President in United States history to resign from office, taking his seat in the Senate the following day.
First stint in the U.S. Senate
With his break with Jackson complete, in 1832, Calhoun ran for the Senate rather than continue as Vice President. Because he had involved himself in controversy during the Nullification Crisis and Petticoat Affair, his chances of becoming President were very low. Calhoun won election. After the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was implemented, the Nullifier Party, along with other anti-Jackson politicians, formed a coalition known as the Whig Party. Calhoun sided with the Whigs until he broke with key Whig Senator Daniel Webster over slavery, as well as the Whigs' program of "internal improvements". Many Southern politicians opposed these as benefiting Northern industrial interests at the expense of Southern interests. Whig Party leader Henry Clay sided with Webster on these issues. Calhoun eventually rejoined the Democratic Party.
To restore his national stature, Calhoun cooperated with Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren, who became president in 1837. Democrats were very hostile to national banks, and the country's bankers had joined the Whig Party. The Democratic replacement, meant to help combat the Panic of 1837, was the "Independent Treasury" system, which Calhoun supported and which went into effect. Calhoun, like Jackson and Van Buren, attacked finance capitalism, which he saw as the common enemy of the Northern laborer, the Southern planter, and the small farmer everywhere. His goal, therefore, was to unite these groups in the Democratic Party, and to dedicate that party to states' rights and agricultural interests as barriers against encroachment by government and big business. Unlike Jackson and Van Buren, Calhoun was never a true Jeffersonian. Unlike Jefferson, Calhoun rejected natural rights and emphases on democracy, equality, and liberty. A representative of the planter aristocracy, Calhoun rejected attempts at economic, social, or political leveling. For Calhoun, "protection" (order) was more important than freedom. Individual rights were something to be earned, not something bestowed by nature or God.
Secretary of State
When Whig president William Henry Harrison died after a month in office in 1841, vice president John Tyler took office. Tyler was a former Democrat and broke bitterly with the Whigs, and named Calhoun Secretary of State on April 10, 1844, following the death of previous Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur in the USS Princeton disaster. Public opinion was inflamed about the Oregon boundary dispute, claimed by both Britain and the U.S. Calhoun compromised by splitting the area down the middle at the 49th parallel, ending the war threat. The British area became British Columbia; the American area became Washington and Oregon.
Texas
Tyler and Calhoun were eager to annex the independent Republic of Texas, which wanted to join the Union. Texas was slave country and anti-slavery elements in the North denounced annexation as a plot to enlarge the Slave Power (that is, the excess political power controlled by slave owners). When the Senate could not muster a two-thirds vote to pass a treaty of annexation with Texas, Calhoun devised a joint resolution of the Houses of Congress, requiring only a simple majority; Texas joined the Union. Mexico had warned all along that it would go to war if Texas joined the Union; war broke out in 1846.
Second stint in the Senate
Calhoun was reelected to the Senate in 1845 following the resignation of Daniel Elliott Huger. While there, he opposed the Mexican-American War, believing that it would not be for the benefit of the South. However, he abstained from voting on the war measure. Calhoun also strongly opposed the Wilmot Proviso, and 1846 proposal by Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot to ban slavery in all newly acquired territories. The bill was overwhelmingly defeated.
Rejection of the Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850, devised by Clay and Democratic leader Stephen Douglas, was designed to solve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories acquired from Mexico. Calhoun, weeks from death and too feeble to speak, wrote a blistering attack on the compromise that would become most likely his most famous speech. A friend, Senator James Mason of Virginia, read his speech. Calhoun affirmed the right of the South to leave the Union in response to Northern subjugation. He warned that the day "the balance between the two sections" was destroyed would be a day not far removed from disunion, anarchy, and civil war. Calhoun asked the question of how the Union might be preserved in light of subjugation by the "stronger" party against the "weaker" one. He stated his belief that the responsibility of solving the question lay entirely on the North-as the stronger section, to allow the Southern minority an equal share in governance and to cease the agitation. He added:
"If you who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so; and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to submission or resistance."
Death and burial
Calhoun died at an Old Brick Capitol boarding house in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 1850 of tuberculosis at the age of 68. He was interred at the St. Philip's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. During the Civil War, a group of Calhoun's friends were concerned about the possible ransacking of his grave and, during the night, removed his coffin to a hiding spot under the stairs of the church. The next night, his coffin was buried in an unmarked grave near the church, where it remained until 1871, when it was again exhumed and returned to its original spot. His brick tomb was replaced with a decorative sarcophagus provided by the South Carolina state government in 1884.
Political philosophy
Agrarian republicanism
Cheek (2001) distinguishes between two strands of American republican thought—the puritan tradition, based in New England, and the agrarian or South Atlantic tradition. Cheek argues that Calhoun is best understood as a representative of the South Atlantic tradition of agrarian republicanism. While the New England tradition stressed a politically centralized enforcement of moral and religious norms to secure civic virtue, the South Atlantic tradition relied on a decentralized moral and religious order based on the idea of subsidiarity (or localism). Cheek locates the fundamental principles of Calhoun's republicanism in the "Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions" (1798) written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Calhoun emphasizes the primacy of the idea of subsidiarity: popular rule is best expressed in local communities that are nearly autonomous while serving as units of a larger society.
Slavery
Calhoun led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate, opposing both abolitionism and attempts like the Wilmot Proviso to limit the expansion of slavery into the western territories. He was a major advocate of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which required the co-operation of local law enforcement officials in free states to return escaped slaves.
Calhoun was shaped by his father, Patrick Calhoun, a prosperous upstate planter who supported Independence during the American Revolutionary War but opposed ratification of the federal Constitution. The father was a staunch slaveholder who taught his son that one's standing in society depended not merely on one's commitment to the ideal of popular self-government but also on the ownership of a substantial number of slaves. Flourishing in a world in which slaveholding was a badge of civilization, Calhoun saw little reason to question its morality as an adult. He never visited Europe. Calhoun believed that the spread of slavery into the back country of his own state improved public morals by ridding the countryside of the shiftless poor whites who had once held the region back. He further believed that slavery instilled in the whites who remained a code of honor that blunted the disruptive potential of private gain and fostered the civic-mindedness that lay near the core of the republican creed. From such a standpoint, the expansion of slavery into the backcountry decreased the likelihood for social conflict and postponed the declension when money would become the only measure of self-worth, as had happened in New England. Calhoun was thus firmly convinced that slavery was the key to the success of the American dream.
Whereas other Southern politicians had excused slavery as a necessary evil, in a famous speech on the Senate floor on February 6, 1837, Calhoun asserted that slavery was a "positive good." He rooted this claim on two grounds: white supremacy and paternalism. All societies, Calhoun claimed, are ruled by an elite group which enjoys the fruits of the labor of a less-privileged group. Senator William Rives of Virginia earlier had referred to slavery as an evil that might become a "lesser evil" in some circumstances. Calhoun believed that conceded too much to the abolitionists: "I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good... I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe—look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse... I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other." A year later in the Senate (January 10, 1838), Calhoun repeated this defense of slavery as a "positive good": "Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world." Calhoun rejected the belief of Southern Whigs such as Henry Clay that all Americans could agree on the "opinion and feeling" that slavery was wrong, although they might disagree on the most practicable way to respond to that great wrong. Calhoun's constitutional ideas acted as a viable conservative alternative to Northern appeals to democracy, majority rule and natural rights.
After a one-year service as Secretary of State (April 1, 1844 – March 10, 1845), Calhoun returned to the Senate in 1845. He participated in the political struggle over the expansion of slavery in the Western states. Regions were divided as to whether slavery should be allowed in the formerly Mexican lands. The debate over this issue culminated in the Compromise of 1850.
The evils of war and political parties
Calhoun was consistently opposed to the war with Mexico from its very beginning, arguing that an enlarged military effort would only feed the alarming and growing lust of the public for empire regardless of its constitutional dangers, bloat executive powers and patronage, and saddle the republic with a soaring debt that would disrupt finances and encourage speculation. Calhoun feared, moreover, that Southern slave owners would be shut out of any conquered Mexican territories, as nearly happened with the Wilmot Proviso.
Anti-slavery Northerners denounced the war as a Southern conspiracy to expand slavery; Calhoun saw a conspiracy of Yankees to destroy the South. By 1847 he decided the Union was threatened by a totally corrupt party system. He believed that in their lust for office, patronage and spoils, politicians in the North pandered to the anti-slavery vote, especially during presidential campaigns, and politicians in the slave states sacrificed Southern rights in an effort to placate the Northern wings of their parties. Thus, the essential first step in any successful assertion of Southern rights had to be the jettisoning of all party ties. In 1848–49, Calhoun tried to give substance to his call for Southern unity. He was the driving force behind the drafting and publication of the "Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress, to Their Constituents." It listed the alleged Northern violations of the constitutional rights of the South, then warned southern voters to expect forced emancipation of slaves in the near future, followed by their complete subjugation by an unholy alliance of unprincipled Northerners and blacks, and a South forever reduced to "disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness." Only the immediate and unflinching unity of Southern whites could prevent such a disaster. Such unity would either bring the North to its senses or lay the foundation for an independent South. But the spirit of union was still strong in the region and fewer than 40% of the southern congressmen signed the address, and only one Whig.
Southerners believed his warnings and read every political news story from the North as further evidence of the planned destruction of the southern way of life. The climax was the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which led immediately to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other cotton states. They formed the new Confederate States of America, which, in accord with Calhoun's theory, did not have any political parties.
Concurrent majority
Calhoun's basic concern for protecting the diverse interests of minority interests is expressed in his chief contribution to political science—the idea of a concurrent majority across different groups as distinguished from a numerical majority. According to the principle of a numerical majority, the will of the more numerous citizens should always rule, regardless of the burdens on the minority. Such a principle tends toward a consolidation of power in which the interests of the absolute majority always prevail over those of the minority. Calhoun believed that the great achievement of the American constitution was in checking the tyranny of a numerical majority through institutional procedures that required a concurrent majority, such that each important interest in the community must consent to the actions of government. To secure a concurrent majority, those interests that have a numerical majority must compromise with the interests that are in the minority. A concurrent majority requires a unanimous consent of all the major interests in a community, which is the only sure way of preventing tyranny of the majority. This idea supported Calhoun's doctrine of interposition or nullification, in which the state governments could refuse to enforce or comply with a policy of the Federal government that threatened the vital interests of the states.
Historian Richard Hofstadter (1948) emphasizes that Calhoun’s conception of "minority" was very different from the minorities of a century later:
Calhoun was chiefly concerned with protecting the interests of the Southern States (which he largely identified with the interests of their slaveholding elites), as a distinct and beleaguered minority among the members of the federal Union. However the idea of a concurrent majority as a protection for minority rights has gained wide acceptance in American political thought.
Disquisition on Government
The Disquisition on Government is a 100-page abstract treatise that comprises Calhoun's definitive and fully elaborated ideas on government; he worked on it intermittently for six years before it was finished in 1849. It systematically presents his arguments that (1) a numerical majority in any government will typically impose a despotism over a minority unless some way is devised to secure the assent of all classes, sections, and interests and (2) that innate human depravity would debase government in a democracy.
Calhoun offered the concurrent majority as the key to achieving consensus, a formula by which a minority interest had the option to nullify objectionable legislation passed by a majority interest. The doctrine would be made effective by this tactic of nullification, a veto that would suspend the law within the boundaries of the state.
Veto power was linked to the right of secession; with secession came the threat of anarchy and social chaos. Constituencies would call for compromise to prevent this outcome. With a concurrent majority in place, the US Constitution as interpreted by the Federal Judiciary would no longer exert collective authority over the various states. According to the (Article 4, Clause 2), laws made by the federal government are the "supreme law of the land" only when they are made "in pursuance" of the U.S. Constitution.
The mechanisms for his system are convincing if one shares Calhoun’s conviction that a functioning concurrent majority never leads to stalemate in the legislature; rather, talented statesmen, practiced in the arts of conciliation and compromise would pursue "the common good", however explosive the issue. His formula promised to produce laws satisfactory to all interests. The ultimate goal of these mechanisms were to facilitate the authentic will of the white populace. Calhoun explicitly rejected the founding principles of equality in the Declaration of Independence, denying that humanity is born free and equal in shared human nature and basic needs. He regarded this precept as "the most false and dangerous of all political errors". States could constitutionally take action to free themselves from an overweening government, but slaves as individuals or interest groups could not do so.
Calhoun’s stance assumed that with the establishment of a concurrent majority, interest groups would influence their own representatives sufficiently to have a voice in public affairs; the representatives would perform strictly as high-minded public servants. Under this scenario, the political leadership would improve and persist; corruption and demagoguery would subside; and the interests of the people would be honored. This introduces the second theme in the Disquisition and a counterpoint to his concept of the concurrent majority: political corruption.
Calhoun considered the concurrent majority essential to provide structural restraints to counter his belief that "a vast majority of mankind is entirely biased by motives of self-interest and that by this interest must be governed." This innate selfishness, which he viewed as axiomatic, would inevitably emerge when government revenue became available to political parties for distribution as patronage.
Politicians and bureaucrats would succumb to the lure of government lucre accumulated through taxation, tariff duties and public land sales. Even a diminishment of massive revenue effected through nullification by the permanent minority would not eliminate these temptations. A robust national defense – acknowledged by all interests as essential to national security– would require significant military expenditures. These funds alone would be sufficient to entice political leaders into abandoning the interests of their constituents in favor of serving personal and party interests.
Calhoun predicted that electioneering, political conspiracies and outright fraud would be employed to mislead and distract a gullible public; inevitably, perfidious demagogues would come to rule the political scene. A decline in authority among the principal statesmen would follow, and, ultimately, the eclipse of the concurrent majority.
Calhoun contended that however confused and misled the masses were by political opportunists, any efforts to impose majority rule upon a minority would be thwarted by a minority veto. What Calhoun fails to explain, according to historian William W. Freehling, is how a compromise would be achieved in the aftermath of a minority veto, when the ubiquitous demagogues betray their constituencies and abandon the concurrent majority altogether. Calhoun's two key concepts – the maintenance of the concurrent majority by high-minded statesmen on the one hand; and the inevitable rise of demagogues who undermine consensus on the other – are never reconciled or resolved in the Disquisition.
South Carolina and other Southern states, in the three decades preceding the Civil War, had provided legislatures in which the vested interests of land and slaves dominated in the upper houses, while the popular will of the numerical majority prevailed in the lower houses. There was little opportunity for demagogues to establish themselves in this political milieu – the democratic component among the people was too weak to sustain a plebeian politician. The conservative statesmen – the slaveholding gentry – retained control over the political apparatus. William W. Freehling described the state's political system of the era thus:
This was done in conscious acceptance of the doctrine of the Disquisition.
The Disquisition was published shortly after his death as was his other book, Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.
State Sovereignty and the "Calhoun Doctrine"
In the 1840s three interpretations of the Constitutional powers of Congress to deal with slavery in territories emerged: the "free-soil doctrine," the "Calhoun doctrine," and "popular sovereignty". The Free Soilers said Congress had the power to outlaw slavery in the territories. The Popular Sovereignty position said the voters living there should decide. The Calhoun doctrine said Congress could never outlaw slavery in the territories.
In what historian Robert R. Russell calls the "Calhoun Doctrine," Calhoun argued that the Federal Government's role in the territories was only that of the trustee or agent of the several sovereign states: it was obliged not to discriminate among the states and hence was incapable of forbidding the bringing into any territory of anything that was legal property in any state. Calhoun argued that citizens from every state had the right to take their property to any territory. Congress, he asserted, had no authority to place restrictions on slavery in the territories. As Constitutional historian Hermann von Holst noted, "Calhoun's doctrine made it a solemn constitutional duty of the United States government and of the American people to act as if the existence or non-existence of slavery in the Territories did not concern them in the least." The Calhoun Doctrine was vehemently opposed by the Free Soil forces, who merged into the new Republican Party around 1854. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney based his decision in the 1857 Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which he ruled that the federal government could not prohibit slavery in the territories, upon Calhoun's arguments.
Film and TV
In Amistad (1997) Arliss Howard portrayed Calhoun.
In the 2015 film The Gettysburg Address, Calhoun is voiced by actor Gary Busey.
Memorials
During the Civil War, the Confederate government honored Calhoun on a one-cent postage stamp, which was printed in 1862 but was never officially released.
Lake Calhoun, one lake of the Chain of Lakes in Minneapolis, was named after Calhoun by surveyors sent by Calhoun as Secretary of War to map the area around Fort Snelling in 1817.
Calhoun was also honored by his alma mater, Yale University, which named one of its undergraduate residential colleges "Calhoun College". A sculpture of Calhoun appears on the exterior of Harkness Tower, a prominent campus landmark.
The Clemson University campus in South Carolina occupies the site of Calhoun's Fort Hill plantation, which he bequeathed to his wife and daughter. They sold it and its 50 slaves to a relative. They received $15,000 for the and $29,000 for the slaves (they were valued at about 600 USD apiece). When that owner died, Thomas Green Clemson foreclosed the mortgage. He later bequeathed the property to the state for use as an agricultural college to be named after him.
A wide range of places, streets and schools were named after Calhoun, as may be seen on the above list. The "Immortal Trio" were memorialized with streets in Uptown New Orleans. Calhoun Landing, on the Santee-Cooper River in Santee, South Carolina, was named after him. The Calhoun Monument was erected in Charleston, South Carolina. The USS John C. Calhoun was a Fleet Ballistic Missile nuclear submarine, in commission from 1963 to 1994.
In 1957, United States Senators honored Calhoun as one of the "five greatest senators of all time".
References
Sources
Biographies
. Bartlett, while hostile to slavery, portrays Calhoun as a principled, consistent, and often admirable champion of slavery and the South.
Capers, Gerald M. John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Reappraisal (1960) online edition
Current, Richard N. John C. Calhoun (1966), short biography by a scholar
Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (1993)
Niven, John. "Calhoun, John C."; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000
Specialized studies
Belko, William S. "'John C. Calhoun and the Creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: An Essay on Political Rivalry, Ideology, and Policymaking in the Early Republic," South Carolina Historical Magazine 2004 105(3): 170–197. ISSN 0038-3082
Capers Gerald M., "A Reconsideration of Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification," Journal of Southern History, 14 (Feb. 1948), 34–48.
Ford Jr., Lacy K. Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860 (1988)
Gutzman, Kevin R. C., "Paul to Jeremiah: Calhoun's Abandonment of Nationalism," The Journal of Libertarian Studies 16 (2002), 3–33.
Jarvis, Douglas Edward. "The Southern Conservative Thought of John C. Calhoun and the Cultural Foundations of the Canadian Identity," American Review of Canadian Studies, 43 (Sept. 2013), 297–314
Krannawitter, Thomas L. "John C. Calhoun and the New Science of Race and Politics," in Ronald J. Pestritto and Thomas G. West, eds. Challenges to the American founding: slavery, historicism, and progressivism in the nineteenth century (2004) ch 2 pp 43+
Lerner, Ralph. "Calhoun's New Science of Politics," American Political Science Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec. 1963), pp. 918–932
Merriam, Charles E. "The Political Theory of Calhoun," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Mar. 1902), pp. 577–594
Rayback Joseph G., "The Presidential Ambitions of John C. Calhoun, 1844–1848," Journal of Southern History, XIV (Aug. 1948), 331–56.
Wiltse, Charles. "Calhoun's Democracy," Journal of Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May 1941), pp. 210–223
Wood, W. Kirk, “History and Recovery of the Past: John C. Calhoun and the Origins of Nullification in South Carolina, 1819–1828,” Southern Studies, 16 (Spring–Summer 2009), 46–68.
Primary sources
Calhoun, John C. John C. Calhoun: Selected Writings and Speeches edited by H. Lee Cheek, (2003) excerpt and text search
The Papers of John C. Calhoun Edited by Clyde N. Wilson; 28 volumes, University of South Carolina Press, 1959–2003. Contains all letters, pamphlets and speeches by Calhoun and most letters written to him.
Calhoun, John C. Slavery a Positive Good, speech on the Senate floor, February 6, 1837.
"Correspondence Addressed to John C. Calhoun, 1837–1849," Chauncey S. Boucher and Robert P. Brooks, eds., Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1929. 1931
External links
John C. Calhoun: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
University of Virginia: John C. Calhoun – Timeline, quotes, & contemporaries, via University of Virginia
Other images via The College of New Jersey: , ,
Birthplace of Calhoun Historical Marker
The Law Offices of John C. Calhoun Monument
Disquisition on Government and other papers by John Calhoun.
Booknotes interview with Irving Bartlett on John C. Calhoun: A Biography, September 18, 1994.
John C. Calhoun Papers at Clemson University's Special Collections Library
2015 petition to Charleston City Council to change the name of Calhoun Street
See also
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2016-01 | Biofuel-697700464 | Biofuel | Biofuel
A biofuel is a fuel that is produced through contemporary biological processes, such as agriculture and anaerobic digestion, rather than a fuel produced by geological processes such as those involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as coal and petroleum, from prehistoric biological matter. Biofuels can be derived directly from plants, or indirectly from agricultural, commercial, domestic, and/or industrial wastes. Renewable biofuels generally involve contemporary carbon fixation, such as those that occur in plants or microalgae through the process of photosynthesis. Other renewable biofuels are made through the use or conversion of biomass (referring to recently living organisms, most often referring to plants or plant-derived materials). This biomass can be converted to convenient energy containing substances in three different ways: thermal conversion, chemical conversion, and biochemical conversion. This biomass conversion can result in fuel in solid, liquid, or gas form. This new biomass can also be used directly for biofuels.
Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermentation, mostly from carbohydrates produced in sugar or starch crops such as corn, sugarcane, or sweet sorghum. Cellulosic biomass, derived from non-food sources, such as trees and grasses, is also being developed as a feedstock for ethanol production. Ethanol can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, but it is usually used as a gasoline additive to increase octane and improve vehicle emissions. Bioethanol is widely used in the USA and in Brazil. Current plant design does not provide for converting the lignin portion of plant raw materials to fuel components by fermentation.
Biodiesel can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, but it is usually used as a diesel additive to reduce levels of particulates, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons from diesel-powered vehicles. Biodiesel is produced from oils or fats using transesterification and is the most common biofuel in Europe.
In 2010, worldwide biofuel production reached 105 billion liters (28 billion gallons US), up 17% from 2009, and biofuels provided 2.7% of the world's fuels for road transport, a contribution largely made up of ethanol and biodiesel. Global ethanol fuel production reached 86 billion liters (23 billion gallons US) in 2010, with the United States and Brazil as the world's top producers, accounting together for 90% of global production. The world's largest biodiesel producer is the European Union, accounting for 53% of all biodiesel production in 2010. As of 2011, mandates for blending biofuels exist in 31 countries at the national level and in 29 states or provinces. The International Energy Agency has a goal for biofuels to meet more than a quarter of world demand for transportation fuels by 2050 to reduce dependence on petroleum and coal. The production of biofuels also led into a flourishing automotive industry, where by 2010, 79% of all cars produced in Brazil were made with a hybrid fuel system of bioethanol and gasoline.
There are various social, economic, environmental and technical issues relating to biofuels production and use, which have been debated in the popular media and scientific journals. These include: the effect of moderating oil prices, the "food vs fuel" debate, poverty reduction potential, carbon emissions levels, sustainable biofuel production, deforestation and soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, impact on water resources, rural social exclusion and injustice, shantytown migration, rural unskilled unemployment, and nitrous oxide (NO2) emissions.
Liquid fuels for transportation
Most transportation fuels are liquids, because vehicles usually require high energy density. This occurs naturally in liquids and solids. High energy density can also be provided by an internal combustion engine. These engines require clean-burning fuels. The fuels that are easiest to burn cleanly are typically liquids and gases. Thus, liquids meet the requirements of being both energy-dense and clean-burning. In addition, liquids (and gases) can be pumped, which means handling is easily mechanized, and thus less laborious.
First-generation biofuels
"First-generation" or conventional biofuels are made from sugar, starch, or vegetable oil.
Ethanol
Biologically produced alcohols, most commonly ethanol, and less commonly propanol and butanol, are produced by the action of microorganisms and enzymes through the fermentation of sugars or starches (easiest), or cellulose (which is more difficult). Biobutanol (also called biogasoline) is often claimed to provide a direct replacement for gasoline, because it can be used directly in a gasoline engines.
Ethanol fuel is the most common biofuel worldwide, particularly in Brazil. Alcohol fuels are produced by fermentation of sugars derived from wheat, corn, sugar beets, sugar cane, molasses and any sugar or starch from which alcoholic beverages such as whiskey, can be made (such as potato and fruit waste, etc.). The ethanol production methods used are enzyme digestion (to release sugars from stored starches), fermentation of the sugars, distillation and drying. The distillation process requires significant energy input for heat (sometimes unsustainable natural gas fossil fuel, but cellulosic biomass such as bagasse, the waste left after sugar cane is pressed to extract its juice, is the most common fuel in Brazil, while pellets, wood chips and also waste heat are more common in Europe) Waste steam fuels ethanol factory- where waste heat from the factories also is used in the district heating grid.
Ethanol can be used in petrol engines as a replacement for gasoline; it can be mixed with gasoline to any percentage. Most existing car petrol engines can run on blends of up to 15% bioethanol with petroleum/gasoline. Ethanol has a smaller energy density than that of gasoline; this means it takes more fuel (volume and mass) to produce the same amount of work. An advantage of ethanol () is that it has a higher octane rating than ethanol-free gasoline available at roadside gas stations, which allows an increase of an engine's compression ratio for increased thermal efficiency. In high-altitude (thin air) locations, some states mandate a mix of gasoline and ethanol as a winter oxidizer to reduce atmospheric pollution emissions.
Ethanol is also used to fuel bioethanol fireplaces. As they do not require a chimney and are "flueless", bioethanol fires are extremely useful for newly built homes and apartments without a flue.
The downsides to these fireplaces is that their heat output is slightly less than electric heat or gas fires, and precautions must be taken to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
Corn-to-ethanol and other food stocks has led to the development of cellulosic ethanol. According to a joint research agenda conducted through the US Department of Energy, the fossil energy ratios (FER) for cellulosic ethanol, corn ethanol, and gasoline are 10.3, 1.36, and 0.81, respectively.
Ethanol has roughly one-third lower energy content per unit of volume compared to gasoline. This is partly counteracted by the better efficiency when using ethanol (in a long-term test of more than 2.1 million km, the BEST project found FFV vehicles to be 1-26 % more energy efficient than petrol cars The BEST project), but the volumetric consumption increases by approximately 30%, so more fuel stops are required.
With current subsidies, ethanol fuel is slightly cheaper per distance traveled in the United States.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel is the most common biofuel in Europe. It is produced from oils or fats using transesterification and is a liquid similar in composition to fossil/mineral diesel. Chemically, it consists mostly of fatty acid methyl (or ethyl) esters (FAMEs). Feedstocks for biodiesel include animal fats, vegetable oils, soy, rapeseed, jatropha, mahua, mustard, flax, sunflower, palm oil, hemp, field pennycress, Pongamia pinnata and algae. Pure biodiesel (B100) currently reduces emissions with up to 60% compared to diesel Second generation B100.
Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine when mixed with mineral diesel. In some countries, manufacturers cover their diesel engines under warranty for B100 use, although Volkswagen of Germany, for example, asks drivers to check by telephone with the VW environmental services department before switching to B100. B100 may become more viscous at lower temperatures, depending on the feedstock used. In most cases, biodiesel is compatible with diesel engines from 1994 onwards, which use 'Viton' (by DuPont) synthetic rubber in their mechanical fuel injection systems. Note however, that no vehicles are certified for using neat biodiesel before 2014, as there was no emission control protocol available for biodiesel before this date.
Electronically controlled 'common rail' and 'unit injector' type systems from the late 1990s onwards may only use biodiesel blended with conventional diesel fuel. These engines have finely metered and atomized multiple-stage injection systems that are very sensitive to the viscosity of the fuel. Many current-generation diesel engines are made so that they can run on B100 without altering the engine itself, although this depends on the fuel rail design.
Since biodiesel is an effective solvent and cleans residues deposited by mineral diesel, engine filters may need to be replaced more often, as the biofuel dissolves old deposits in the fuel tank and pipes. It also effectively cleans the engine combustion chamber of carbon deposits, helping to maintain efficiency. In many European countries, a 5% biodiesel blend is widely used and is available at thousands of gas stations. Biodiesel is also an oxygenated fuel, meaning it contains a reduced amount of carbon and higher hydrogen and oxygen content than fossil diesel. This improves the combustion of biodiesel and reduces the particulate emissions from unburnt carbon. However, using neat biodiesel may increase NOx-emissions Nylund.N-O & Koponen.K. 2013. Fuel and Technology Alternatives for Buses. Overall Energy Efficiency and Emission Performance. IEA Bioenergy Task 46. Possibly the new emission standards Euro VI/EPA 10 will lead to reduced NOx-levels also when using B100.
Biodiesel is also safe to handle and transport because it is non-toxic and biodegradable, and has a high flash point of about 300 °F (148 °C) compared to petroleum diesel fuel, which has a flash point of 125 °F (52 °C).
In the USA, more than 80% of commercial trucks and city buses run on diesel. The emerging US biodiesel market is estimated to have grown 200% from 2004 to 2005. "By the end of 2006 biodiesel production was estimated to increase fourfold [from 2004] to more than" .
Other bioalcohols
Methanol is currently produced from natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel. In the future it is hoped to be produced from biomass as biomethanol. This is technically feasible, but the production is currently being postponed for concerns of Jacob S. Gibbs and Brinsley Coleberd that the economic viability is still pending. The methanol economy is an alternative to the hydrogen economy, compared to today's hydrogen production from natural gas.
Butanol () is formed by ABE fermentation (acetone, butanol, ethanol) and experimental modifications of the process show potentially high net energy gains with butanol as the only liquid product. Butanol will produce more energy and allegedly can be burned "straight" in existing gasoline engines (without modification to the engine or car), and is less corrosive and less water-soluble than ethanol, and could be distributed via existing infrastructures. DuPont and BP are working together to help develop butanol. E. coli strains have also been successfully engineered to produce butanol by modifying their amino acid metabolism.
Green diesel
Green diesel is produced through hydrocracking biological oil feedstocks, such as vegetable oils and animal fats. Hydrocracking is a refinery method that uses elevated temperatures and pressure in the presence of a catalyst to break down larger molecules, such as those found in vegetable oils, into shorter hydrocarbon chains used in diesel engines. It may also be called renewable diesel, hydrotreated vegetable oil or hydrogen-derived renewable diesel. Green diesel has the same chemical properties as petroleum-based diesel. It does not require new engines, pipelines or infrastructure to distribute and use, but has not been produced at a cost that is competitive with petroleum. Gasoline versions are also being developed. Green diesel is being developed in Louisiana and Singapore by ConocoPhillips, Neste Oil, Valero, Dynamic Fuels, and Honeywell UOP as well as Preem in Gothenburg, Sweden, creating what is known as Evolution Diesel.
Biofuel gasoline
In 2013 UK researchers developed a genetically modified strain of Escherichia coli (E.Coli), which could transform glucose into biofuel gasoline that does not need to be blended. Later in 2013 UCLA researchers engineered a new metabolic pathway to bypass glycolysis and increase the rate of conversion of sugars into biofuel, while KAIST researchers developed a strain capable of producing short-chain alkanes, free fatty acids, fatty esters and fatty alcohols through the fatty acyl (acyl carrier protein (ACP)) to fatty acid to fatty acyl-CoA pathway in vivo. It is believed that in the future it will be possible to "tweak" the genes to make gasoline from straw or animal manure.
Vegetable oil
Straight unmodified edible vegetable oil is generally not used as fuel, but lower-quality oil can and has been used for this purpose. Used vegetable oil is increasingly being processed into biodiesel, or (more rarely) cleaned of water and particulates and used as a fuel.
As with 100% biodiesel (B100), to ensure the fuel injectors atomize the vegetable oil in the correct pattern for efficient combustion, vegetable oil fuel must be heated to reduce its viscosity to that of diesel, either by electric coils or heat exchangers. This is easier in warm or temperate climates. MAN B&W Diesel, Wärtsilä, and Deutz AG, as well as a number of smaller companies, such as Elsbett, offer engines that are compatible with straight vegetable oil, without the need for after-market modifications.
Vegetable oil can also be used in many older diesel engines that do not use common rail or unit injection electronic diesel injection systems. Due to the design of the combustion chambers in indirect injection engines, these are the best engines for use with vegetable oil. This system allows the relatively larger oil molecules more time to burn. Some older engines, especially Mercedes, are driven experimentally by enthusiasts without any conversion, a handful of drivers have experienced limited success with earlier pre-"Pumpe Duse" VW TDI engines and other similar engines with direct injection. Several companies, such as Elsbett or Wolf, have developed professional conversion kits and successfully installed hundreds of them over the last decades.
Oils and fats can be hydrogenated to give a diesel substitute. The resulting product is a straight-chain hydrocarbon with a high cetane number, low in aromatics and sulfur and does not contain oxygen. Hydrogenated oils can be blended with diesel in all proportions. They have several advantages over biodiesel, including good performance at low temperatures, no storage stability problems and no susceptibility to microbial attack.
Bioethers
Bioethers (also referred to as fuel ethers or oxygenated fuels) are cost-effective compounds that act as octane rating enhancers."Bioethers are produced by the reaction of reactive iso-olefins, such as iso-butylene, with bioethanol." Bioethers are created by wheat or sugar beet. They also enhance engine performance, whilst significantly reducing engine wear and toxic exhaust emissions. Though bioethers are likely to replace petroethers in the UK, it is highly unlikely they will become a fuel in and of itself due to the low energy density. Greatly reducing the amount of ground-level ozone emissions, they contribute to air quality.
When it comes to transportation fuel there are six ether additives-
1. Dimethyl Ether (DME)
2. Diethyl Ether (DEE)
3. Methyl Teritiary-Butyl Ether (MTBE)
4. Ethyl ter-butyl ether (ETBE)
5. Ter-amyl methyl ether (TAME)
6. Ter-amyl ethyl Ether (TAEE)
The European Fuel Oxygenates Association (aka EFOA) credits Methyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether (MTBE) and Ethyl ter-butyl ether (ETBE) as the most commonly used ethers in fuel to replace lead. Ethers were brought into fuels in Europe in the 1970s to replace the highly toxic compound. Although Europeans still use Bio-ether additives, the US no longer has an oxygenate requirement therefore bio-ethers are no longer used as the main fuel additive.
Biogas
Biogas is methane produced by the process of anaerobic digestion of organic material by anaerobes. It can be produced either from biodegradable waste materials or by the use of energy crops fed into anaerobic digesters to supplement gas yields. The solid byproduct, digestate, can be used as a biofuel or a fertilizer.
Biogas can be recovered from mechanical biological treatment waste processing systems.
Note: Landfill gas, a less clean form of biogas, is produced in landfills through naturally occurring anaerobic digestion. If it escapes into the atmosphere, it is a potential greenhouse gas.
Farmers can produce biogas from manure from their cattle by using anaerobic digesters.
Syngas
Syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and other hydrocarbons, is produced by partial combustion of biomass, that is, combustion with an amount of oxygen that is not sufficient to convert the biomass completely to carbon dioxide and water. Before partial combustion, the biomass is dried, and sometimes pyrolysed. The resulting gas mixture, syngas, is more efficient than direct combustion of the original biofuel; more of the energy contained in the fuel is extracted.
Syngas may be burned directly in internal combustion engines, turbines or high-temperature fuel cells. The wood gas generator, a wood-fueled gasification reactor, can be connected to an internal combustion engine.
Syngas can be used to produce methanol, DME and hydrogen, or converted via the Fischer-Tropsch process to produce a diesel substitute, or a mixture of alcohols that can be blended into gasoline. Gasification normally relies on temperatures greater than 700 °C.
Lower-temperature gasification is desirable when co-producing biochar, but results in syngas polluted with tar.
Solid biofuels
Examples include wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, nonfood energy crops, and dried manure.
When raw biomass is already in a suitable form (such as firewood), it can burn directly in a stove or furnace to provide heat or raise steam. When raw biomass is in an inconvenient form (such as sawdust, wood chips, grass, urban waste wood, agricultural residues), the typical process is to densify the biomass. This process includes grinding the raw biomass to an appropriate particulate size (known as hogfuel), which, depending on the densification type, can be from , which is then concentrated into a fuel product. The current processes produce wood pellets, cubes, or pucks. The pellet process is most common in Europe, and is typically a pure wood product. The other types of densification are larger in size compared to a pellet, and are compatible with a broad range of input feedstocks. The resulting densified fuel is easier to transport and feed into thermal generation systems, such as boilers.
Industry has used sawdust, bark and chips for fuel for decades, primary in the pulp and paper industry, and also bagasse (spent sugar cane) fueled boilers in the sugar cane industry. Boilers in the range of 500,000 lb/hr of steam, and larger, are in routine operation, using grate, spreader stoker, suspension burning and fluid bed combustion. Utilities generate power, typically in the range of 5 to 50 MW, using locally available fuel. Other industries have also installed wood waste fueled boilers and dryers in areas with low cost fuel.
One of the advantages of biomass fuel is that it is often a byproduct, residue or waste-product of other processes, such as farming, animal husbandry and forestry. In theory, this means fuel and food production do not compete for resources, although this is not always the case.
A problem with the combustion of raw biomass is that it emits considerable amounts of pollutants, such as particulates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Even modern pellet boilers generate much more pollutants than oil or natural gas boilers. Pellets made from agricultural residues are usually worse than wood pellets, producing much larger emissions of dioxins and chlorophenols.
In spite of the above noted study, numerous studies have shown biomass fuels have significantly less impact on the environment than fossil based fuels. Of note is the US Department of Energy Laboratory, operated by Midwest Research Institute Biomass Power and Conventional Fossil Systems with and without CO2 Sequestration – Comparing the Energy Balance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economics Study. Power generation emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), mainly carbon dioxide (). Sequestering from the power plant flue gas can significantly reduce the GHGs from the power plant itself, but this is not the total picture. capture and sequestration consumes additional energy, thus lowering the plant's fuel-to-electricity efficiency. To compensate for this, more fossil fuel must be procured and consumed to make up for lost capacity.
Taking this into consideration, the global warming potential (GWP), which is a combination of , methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, and energy balance of the system need to be examined using a life cycle assessment. This takes into account the upstream processes which remain constant after sequestration, as well as the steps required for additional power generation. Firing biomass instead of coal led to a 148% reduction in GWP.
A derivative of solid biofuel is biochar, which is produced by biomass pyrolysis. Biochar made from agricultural waste can substitute for wood charcoal. As wood stock becomes scarce, this alternative is gaining ground. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, biomass briquettes are being marketed as an alternative to charcoal to protect Virunga National Park from deforestation associated with charcoal production.
Second-generation (advanced) biofuels
Second generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, are fuels that can be manufactured from various types of biomass. Biomass is a wide-ranging term meaning any source of organic carbon that is renewed rapidly as part of the carbon cycle. Biomass is derived from plant materials but can also include animal materials.
First generation biofuels are made from the sugars and vegetable oils found in arable crops, which can be easily extracted using conventional technology. In comparison, second generation biofuels are made from lignocellulosic biomass or woody crops, agricultural residues or waste, which makes it harder to extract the required fuel. A series of physical and chemical treatments might be required to convert lignocellulosic biomass to liquid fuels suitable for transportation.
Sustainable biofuels
Biofuels in the form of liquid fuels derived from plant materials, are entering the market, driven mainly by the perception that they reduce climate gas emissions, and also by factors such as oil price spikes and the need for increased energy security. However, many of the biofuels that are currently being supplied have been criticised for their adverse impacts on the natural environment, food security, and land use. In 2008, the Nobel-prize winning chemist Paul J. Crutzen published findings that the release of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in the production of biofuels means that overall they contribute more to global warming than the fossil fuels they replace.
The challenge is to support biofuel development, including the development of new cellulosic technologies, with responsible policies and economic instruments to help ensure that biofuel commercialization is sustainable. Responsible commercialization of biofuels represents an opportunity to enhance sustainable economic prospects in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Biofuels by region
There are international organizations such as IEA Bioenergy, established in 1978 by the OECD International Energy Agency (IEA), with the aim of improving cooperation and information exchange between countries that have national programs in bioenergy research, development and deployment. The UN International Biofuels Forum is formed by Brazil, China, India, Pakistan, South Africa, the United States and the European Commission. The world leaders in biofuel development and use are Brazil, the United States, France, Sweden and Germany. Russia also has 22% of world's forest, and is a big biomass (solid biofuels) supplier. In 2010, Russian pulp and paper maker, Vyborgskaya Cellulose, said they would be producing pellets that can be used in heat and electricity generation from its plant in Vyborg by the end of the year. The plant will eventually produce about 900,000 tons of pellets per year, making it the largest in the world once operational.
Biofuels currently make up 3.1% of the total road transport fuel in the UK or 1,440 million litres. By 2020, 10% of the energy used in UK road and rail transport must come from renewable sources – this is the equivalent of replacing 4.3 million tonnes of fossil oil each year. Conventional biofuels are likely to produce between 3.7 and 6.6% of the energy needed in road and rail transport, while advanced biofuels could meet up to 4.3% of the UK’s renewable transport fuel target by 2020.
Air pollution
Biofuels are different from fossil fuels in regard to greenhouse gases but are similar to fossil fuels in that biofuels contribute to air pollution. Burning produces airborne carbon particulates, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. The WHO estimates 3.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012 due to air pollution. Brazil burns significant amounts of ethanol biofuel. Gas chromatograph studies were performed of ambient air in São Paulo, Brazil, and compared to Osaka, Japan, which does not burn ethanol fuel. Atmospheric Formaldehyde was 160% higher in Brazil, and Acetaldehyde was 260% higher.
Debates regarding the production and use of biofuel
There are various social, economic, environmental and technical issues with biofuel production and use, which have been discussed in the popular media and scientific journals. These include: the effect of moderating oil prices, the "food vs fuel" debate, poverty reduction potential, carbon emissions levels, sustainable biofuel production, deforestation and soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, impact on water resources, the possible modifications necessary to run the engine on biofuel, as well as energy balance and efficiency. The International Resource Panel, which provides independent scientific assessments and expert advice on a variety of resource-related themes, assessed the issues relating to biofuel use in its first report Towards sustainable production and use of resources: Assessing Biofuels. "Assessing Biofuels" outlined the wider and interrelated factors that need to be considered when deciding on the relative merits of pursuing one biofuel over another. It concluded that not all biofuels perform equally in terms of their impact on climate, energy security and ecosystems, and suggested that environmental and social impacts need to be assessed throughout the entire life-cycle.
Another issue with biofuel use and production is the US has changed mandates many times because the production has been taking longer than expected. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) set by congress for 2010 was pushed back to at best 2012 to produce 100 million gallons of pure ethanol (not blended with a fossil fuel).
Current research
Research is ongoing into finding more suitable biofuel crops and improving the oil yields of these crops. Using the current yields, vast amounts of land and fresh water would be needed to produce enough oil to completely replace fossil fuel usage. It would require twice the land area of the US to be devoted to soybean production, or two-thirds to be devoted to rapeseed production, to meet current US heating and transportation needs.
Specially bred mustard varieties can produce reasonably high oil yields and are very useful in crop rotation with cereals, and have the added benefit that the meal left over after the oil has been pressed out can act as an effective and biodegradable pesticide.
The NFESC, with Santa Barbara-based Biodiesel Industries, is working to develop biofuels technologies for the US navy and military, one of the largest diesel fuel users in the world.
A group of Spanish developers working for a company called Ecofasa announced a new biofuel made from trash. The fuel is created from general urban waste which is treated by bacteria to produce fatty acids, which can be used to make biofuels.
Ethanol biofuels
As the primary source of biofuels in North America, many organizations are conducting research in the area of ethanol production. The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) is a research division of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville dedicated solely to ethanol-based biofuel research projects.
On the federal level, the USDA conducts a large amount of research regarding ethanol production in the United States. Much of this research is targeted toward the effect of ethanol production on domestic food markets. A division of the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has also conducted various ethanol research projects, mainly in the area of cellulosic ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol commercialization is the process of building an industry out of methods of turning cellulose-containing organic matter into fuel. Companies, such as Iogen, POET, and Abengoa, are building refineries that can process biomass and turn it into bioethanol. Companies, such as Diversa, Novozymes, and Dyadic, are producing enzymes that could enable a cellulosic ethanol future. The shift from food crop feedstocks to waste residues and native grasses offers significant opportunities for a range of players, from farmers to biotechnology firms, and from project developers to investors.
As of 2013, the first commercial-scale plants to produce cellulosic biofuels have begun operating. Multiple pathways for the conversion of different biofuel feedstocks are being used. In the next few years, the cost data of these technologies operating at commercial scale, and their relative performance, will become available. Lessons learnt will lower the costs of the industrial processes involved.
In parts of Asia and Africa where drylands prevail, sweet sorghum is being investigated as a potential source of food, feed and fuel combined. The crop is particularly suitable for growing in arid conditions, as it only extracts one seventh of the water used by sugarcane. In India, and other places, sweet sorghum stalks are used to produce biofuel by squeezing the juice and then fermenting into ethanol.
A study by researchers at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) found that growing sweet sorghum instead of grain sorghum could increase farmers incomes by US$40 per hectare per crop because it can provide fuel in addition to food and animal feed. With grain sorghum currently grown on over 11 million hectares (ha) in Asia and on 23.4 million ha in Africa, a switch to sweet sorghum could have a considerable economic impact.
Algae biofuels
From 1978 to 1996, the US NREL experimented with using algae as a biofuels source in the "Aquatic Species Program". A self-published article by Michael Briggs, at the UNH Biofuels Group, offers estimates for the realistic replacement of all vehicular fuel with biofuels by using algae that have a natural oil content greater than 50%, which Briggs suggests can be grown on algae ponds at wastewater treatment plants. This oil-rich algae can then be extracted from the system and processed into biofuels, with the dried remainder further reprocessed to create ethanol. The production of algae to harvest oil for biofuels has not yet been undertaken on a commercial scale, but feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the above yield estimate. In addition to its projected high yield, algaculture — unlike crop-based biofuels — does not entail a decrease in food production, since it requires neither farmland nor fresh water. Many companies are pursuing algae bioreactors for various purposes, including scaling up biofuels production to commercial levels. Prof. Rodrigo E. Teixeira from the University of Alabama in Huntsville demonstrated the extraction of biofuels lipids from wet algae using a simple and economical reaction in ionic liquids.
Jatropha
Several groups in various sectors are conducting research on Jatropha curcas, a poisonous shrub-like tree that produces seeds considered by many to be a viable source of biofuels feedstock oil. Much of this research focuses on improving the overall per acre oil yield of Jatropha through advancements in genetics, soil science, and horticultural practices.
SG Biofuels, a San Diego-based jatropha developer, has used molecular breeding and biotechnology to produce elite hybrid seeds that show significant yield improvements over first-generation varieties. SG Biofuels also claims additional benefits have arisen from such strains, including improved flowering synchronicity, higher resistance to pests and diseases, and increased cold-weather tolerance.
Plant Research International, a department of the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, maintains an ongoing Jatropha Evaluation Project that examines the feasibility of large-scale jatropha cultivation through field and laboratory experiments.
The Center for Sustainable Energy Farming (CfSEF) is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit research organization dedicated to jatropha research in the areas of plant science, agronomy, and horticulture. Successful exploration of these disciplines is projected to increase jatropha farm production yields by 200-300% in the next 10 years.
Fungi
A group at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, in a 2008 paper, stated they had isolated large amounts of lipids from single-celled fungi and turned it into biofuels in an economically efficient manner. More research on this fungal species, Cunninghamella japonica, and others, is likely to appear in the near future.
The recent discovery of a variant of the fungus Gliocladium roseum points toward the production of so-called myco-diesel from cellulose. This organism was recently discovered in the rainforests of northern Patagonia, and has the unique capability of converting cellulose into medium-length hydrocarbons typically found in diesel fuel.
Animal gut bacteria
Microbial gastrointestinal flora in a variety of animals have shown potential for the production of biofuels. Recent research has shown that TU-103, a strain of Clostridium bacteria found in Zebra feces, can convert nearly any form of cellulose into butanol fuel. Microbes in panda waste are being investigated for their use in creating biofuels from bamboo and other plant materials.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Some scientists have expressed concerns about land-use change in response to greater demand for crops to use for biofuel and the subsequent carbon emissions. The payback period, that is, the time it will take biofuels to pay back the carbon debt they acquire due to land-use change, has been estimated to be between 100 and 1000 years, depending on the specific instance and location of land-use change. However, no-till practices combined with cover-crop practices can reduce the payback period to three years for grassland conversion and 14 years for forest conversion.
A study conducted in the Tocantis State, in northern Brazil, found that many families were cutting down forests in order to produce two conglomerates of oilseed plants, the J. curcas (JC group) and the R. communis (RC group). This region is composed of 15% Amazonian rainforest with high biodiversity, and 80% Cerrado forest with lower biodiversity. During the study, the farmers that planted the JC group released over 2193 Mg CO2, while losing 53-105 Mg CO2 sequestration from deforestation; and the RC group farmers released 562 Mg CO2, while losing 48-90 Mg CO2 to be sequestered from forest depletion. The production of these types of biofuels not only led into an increased emission of carbon dioxide, but also to lower efficiency of forests to absorb the gases that these farms were emitting. This has to do with the amount of fossil fuel the production of fuel crops involves. In addition, the intensive use of monocropping agriculture requires large amounts of water irrigation, as well as of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. This does not only lead to poisonous chemicals to disperse on water runoff, but also to the emission of nitrous oxide (NO2) as a fertilizer byproduct, which is three hundred times more efficient in producing a greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide (CO2).
Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. Biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands incur little to no carbon debt.
Water Use
In addition to water required to grow crops, biofuel facilities require significant process water.
See also
Aviation biofuel
Sustainable aviation fuel
BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport
Biofuels Center of North Carolina
Biofuelwatch
Biogas powerplant
Bioheat, a biofuel blended with heating oil.
Biomass briquettes
Cellulosic ethanol
Clean Cities
Biomass to liquid bio-oil
Dimethyl ether
Energy forestry
Ecological sanitation
Energy content of biofuel
Environmental impact of aviation
Green crude
IRENA
Life cycle assessment
List of biofuel companies and researchers
List of emerging technologies
List of vegetable oils section on oils used as biodiesel
Low-carbon economy
Sustainable transport
Syngas
Table of biofuel crop yields
Vegetable oil economy
References
Further reading
Fuel Quality Directive Impact Assessment
Biofuels Journal
GA Mansoori, N Enayati, LB Agyarko (2016), Energy: Sources, Utilization, Legislation, Sustainability, Illinois as Model State
External links
Alternative Fueling Station Locator (EERE)
Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources: Assessing Biofuels by the United Nations Environment Programme, October 2009.
Biofuels guidance for businesses, including permits and licences required on NetRegs.gov.uk
How Much Water Does It Take to Make Electricity?—Natural gas requires the least water to produce energy, some biofuels the most, according to a new study.
International Conference on Biofuels Standards - European Union Biofuels Standardization
International Energy Agency: Biofuels for Transport - An International Perspective
Biofuels from Biomass: Technology and Policy Considerations Thorough overview from MIT
The Guardian news on biofuels
The U.S. DOE Clean Cities Program - links to all of the Clean Cities coalitions that exist throughout the U.S. (there are 87 of them)
Biofuels Factsheet by the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems
Learn Biofuels - Educational Resource for Students
Category:Anaerobic digestion
Category:Biodegradable waste management
Category:Bioenergy
Category:Emerging technologies
Category:Sustainable technologies
Category:Fuels
Category:Biomass
Category:Renewable fuels
Category:Renewable energy |
2016-01 | Angry_Video_Game_Nerd-697381459 | Angry_Video_Game_Nerd | Angry Video Game Nerd
Angry Video Game Nerd (abbreviated as AVGN, and formerly known as Angry Nintendo Nerd) is an American comedy retrogaming web series, created by and starring James Rolfe. The series centers on Rolfe's character, "The Nerd", a short-tempered and foul-mouthed video game fanatic who delivers commentary and sketches on retro video games he considers to be of poor quality. The show would later encompass reviews of gaming consoles, peripherals, and short lectures about video game history and culture.
A starting independent filmmaker, Rolfe's earliest videos of the Nerd character was intended as a joke privately shown to his friends. With collaboration from his friend Mike Matei, Rolfe put the Angry Nintendo Nerd videos on his website, Cinemassacre.com, in 2004. In 2006, Matei persuaded Rolfe to put his work on YouTube, where it went viral. In 2007, the series became a program on ScrewAttack and GameTrailers, where it was renamed Angry Video Game Nerd to prevent trademark issues with Nintendo, and to allow Rolfe to also review games from non-Nintendo consoles.
Angry Video Game Nerd was a success and has gained a cult following, as well as the character appearing in various other media such as a feature-length film, various video games, and public appearances. Considered as one of the pioneering internet reviewers in its history, the Nerd was highly influential in bringing online video reviews to the mainstream public.
Premise
The show revolves around the Nerd's commentary of retro video games which he deems to be of particularly low quality, unfair difficulty, or poor design. Rolfe's character, "the Nerd", is a short-tempered and foul-mouthed video game fanatic who satirically reviews old video games in the form reminiscent of insult comedies such as Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Nerd plays the game while talking about its various problems, technicalities and imperfection, mixed mostly with profanity and bad language volition, in an effort to warn people against playing the game, and sometimes with a short lecture about the gaming era's history.
Dressed up as a stereotypical nerd in his basement, the Nerd reviews the game with his trademark eyeglasses and white collared shirt with a pocket full of pens, high khaki pants and white socks and loafers, while sometimes being bombarded by guest characters from video games and popular culture as well. These guests often provide additional commentary on the games, mock the Nerd's anguish, and act as parodies of the characters from which they had been derived. In response to them and to the games, the Nerd derives comic appeal from excessive and surrealistic use of fantasy scenarios, anger, and consumption of Rolling Rock while reviewing video games. His anger and profanity over these bad games would sometimes climax in him destroying whole game cartridges, or defecating, burning and sometimes even crushing entire video game consoles.
In many cases, the Nerd would dress up as other popular characters while reviewing their games, such as Batman. Other characters in the show include Shit Pickle (an earlier character created by Rolfe), Guitar Guy (who made the AVGN theme and played by Kyle Justin), the Game Glitch Gremlin, Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 B.C. Version 4.0 Beta, and an assortment of others, while also the occasional guest appearance by other video game reviewers such as Pat the NES Punk.
Production
James Rolfe's first videos were intended as "just a joke", with no intentions of making them public, showing them only to his friends. In May 2004, Rolfe created his first on-camera game reviews just for fun; utilizing insult commentary with exaggerated bewilderment to two games; Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde under the title of "Bad NES Games", which would later become the signature of the Nerd character. Rolfe explained later in an interview for Daily News that the joke was just how one obsessive gamer was upset to these games that were already 20 years old. Although the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review was intended to be the last, Rolfe’s friends, who enjoyed the previous “Bad NES games” reviews, encouraged him to create another. Collaborative friend Mike Matei helped producing and publishing the videos online on Cinemassacre, and released outside of the website as "The Quickies" tape, part of a four VHS tape set called the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection".
In 2006, Rolfe began making the episodes available to a wider audience. Soon, Rolfe released a review of The Karate Kid game which was the first episode where Rolfe’s character is introduced as “The Angry Nintendo Nerd.” Naming these videos “The Angry Nintendo Nerd Trilogy”, Rolfe posted them on Cinemassacre. The success of the show made Rolfe branch out into other gaming systems, and would later change the title into the Angry Video Game Nerd to prevent trademark issues with Nintendo. Rolfe diversified the reviews of platforms and products such as the Atari 2600, Super NES, Sega Master System and Sega Genesis video game consoles, the Power Glove and U-Force peripherals, films such as The Wizard, and the Nintendo Power magazine.
On September 12, 2006, Rolfe's series received mainstream attention when his review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went viral on YouTube. In an article by writer Alex Carlson, he explained that before 2004, video gaming criticism was mostly reserved for the larger game magazines and websites. These already established names were made up mostly of professional writers and journalists that were seldom challenged, and doesn't entirely correspond to the opinions of the average gamers. Video portals and online videos were at its infancy. Carlson stated that the Nerd popularized independent viral video reviews made from the perspective of an average gamer. It was a purely independent in nature, from the simple and old-school cinematography right down to the camcorder-based video editing. He stated that afterwards, "everyone with a webcam and Fraps can now become a critic and don a characterized mentality, spouting profanities at will without getting censored." Since then, the show has increased substantially in quantity, production value, and fandom. Rolfe began infusing various episodes with emphasis on home-made special effects and narratives. The first of these cinematic episodes was review of Friday the 13th game in October 2006, featuring expressive lighting and camera angles to emphasize its horror film-themed narrative in which the Nerd is attacked by Jason Voorhees for disliking the game. Later episodes have alternated from straightforward game reviews to those with a narrative focus resembling a documentary, with Rolfe pointing out information about the game or gaming console under review. When asked if the Nerd is going to make reviews in the current generation of video games, Rolfe replied that the “show is all about nostalgia,” adding that he's “mostly a retro gamer."
In late 2007, Rolfe halted the production of the series after suffering from a break in his voice. On March 17, 2010, he publicly announced that he was suffering from burnout as a result of stress from his constant work, and that the show would be entering a brief hiatus. The show was resumed a month later; however, only one episode is released each month, as opposed to two episodes per month due to Rolfe's other projects. By 2013, the show garnered more 900,000 subscribers and over 400 million views on YouTube. By 2014, Cinemassacre already had 1.5 million subscribers. Rolfe stated that the show "got popular right around when YouTube got popular." However, in January 2013, the YouTube channel was suddenly shut down due to claims of severe violations of YouTube terms of service. YouTube later reinstated the channel.
Videography
Other media
Rolfe's review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was reported in an MTV segment called "Viral Videos Infect the Mainstream". On November 2, 2008, his videos and personality were featured on the nationally syndicated radio show Opie and Anthony. The Nerd has also become the subject of Howard Stern and David Arquette in an episode of Stern's Sirius XM show, in which Stern commented negatively on the show's format as well as the gaming community in general during a TooManyGames 2011 convention in Philadelphia. James Rolfe himself appeared as the Nerd in various gaming and internet conventions.
In September 24, 2008, Rolfe collaborated with another famous internet reviewer Doug Walker, to create a fictional feud between the two's most famous characters; the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic. The feud began when the Nostalgia Critic posted a video online where he expressed his disgruntlement towards the Angry Video Game Nerd due to their similarities. He objected to comments, supposedly written by the Nerd's fans, that made "unfair comparisons between the two of them." This would later escalate into a series of tongue-in-cheek video responses between The Nostalgia Critic and Angry Video Game Nerd, with the two daring each other to review certain materials. The feud culminated when the Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic crossed paths in person in a video game store in Clifton, New Jersey called Digital Press. This feud, which would be released as a special for both shows, was a huge hit. Both characters would finally fight their last battle in October 10, featuring a lengthy fight scene, parodying popular films and cliches, such as The Matrix Reloaded and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. In ThatGuyWithTheGlasses's first anniversary special, the Critic and the Nerd begin to settle their score once and for all, eventually joined by other contributors to the website, in which gamers sided with the Nerd and reviewers sided with the Critic. The two sides called for a truce and the two finally put their differences aside. The Nerd would later guest star in various Channel Awesome shows, even appearing to review the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie with the Nostalgia Critic. The Angry Video Game Nerd along with the Nostalgia Critic, made a background cameo appearance in the anime Zettai Karen Children: The Unlimited.
Together with Pat the NES Punk, the Angry Video Game Nerd has collaboratively hosted Cinemassacre's yearly NES marathon; a charity event to raise money for children's hospitals.
Film
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is an independent film based on the series. James Rolfe serves as director, producer and co-writer and reprises his on-screen role of The Nerd. The film was released July 21, 2014 in limited theatrical releases and was released online, on DVD and Blu-ray by the end of the year. Development of the film began in late 2006, following the popularity of The Angry Video Game Nerd web series, with the completion of the screenplay by 2008. Like the web-series, the film was made independently, as such the film's budget of more than came entirely from crowdfunding. The movie was also created as a homage to the Nerd finally reviewing one of the worst videogames of all time; E.T. During filming the movie, Rolfe had to balance his schedule with the ongoing show. Rolfe asked for the show's fanbase to provide webcam footage of themselves fictionally reacting to the Nerd's webseries, to be used as an intro to the film featuring the Angry Video Game Nerd character.
The story centers around the alleged burial of over 1 million copies of the proclaimed "worst video game of all time", E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, as The Nerd embarks on a quest to prove that there is nothing buried there after being pressured by fans to review the video game, while being pursued by federal authorities who believe he is investigating Area 51 and the crash of an unidentified flying object.
Video Game
In 2013, an official video game titled Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures was announced. Developed by FreakZone Games (creators of Manos: The Hands of Fate), it was released on September 20, 2013 on Steam. The game follows the Nerd attempting to rescue his friends, all of whom were sucked into the Nerd's television set (done in a Cheetahmen-esque style). The Nerd uses a NES Zapper as his main weapon, and a character known as Naggi the Patronizing Firefly, a parody of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, guides him through the tutorial. Throughout the game, he faces zombies, Mr. Hyde, Custer, The Giant Claw, Fred "Fucks" (Fred Fuchs), both Jason Voorhees and an oversized version of Freddy Krueger's right arm (references to the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street games respectively but their names where changed to Bimmy (Freddy Krueger) and Jimmy (Jason Voorhees) (referencing the infamous typo from Double Dragon III) to avoid copyright) and more. On July 12, 2014, it was announced that the game would also be released on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The Wii U version was released in North America on April 2, 2015, and released in Europe on December 10, 2015. On June 4, 2015, a 3DS version became available for download in the Nintendo eShop.
On July 17 of the same year, during ScrewAttack's annual SGC convention, Freakzone announced a sequel, Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation, due for release in Winter 2015.
There have also been some unofficial Angry Video Game Nerd games including Angry Video Game Nerd's Angry Video Game, Angry Video Game Nerd in Pixel Land Blast, AVGN Game Over, AVGN Game Over 2, and AVGN Planet. There is also the Angry Video Game Nerd and AVGN K.O. Boxing, both for the Atari 2600. The Nerd touched upon these games in the episode AVGN Games. The Nerd also appeared as a playable character in the game Texting of the Bread produced by ScrewAttack.
Music
The opening song of the show, simply entitled The Angry Video Game Nerd Theme Song, is a staple of the series since its earliest conception. The song was written by Kyle Justin, and over the years had different variations to correspond with specials. Programmer and musician Lachlan Barclay published soundtrack album based on the web-series in 2011. This earliest compilation of the show was created by Barclay due to demands from fans after he played the song on Video XYZ. Another compilation album was released in 2013 containing the music derived from the Nerd's video game. Developed also by FreakZone, the album was released by ScrewAttack Entertainment LLC as a digital download. An album based from the movie was released in 2014 composed by Bear McCreary, who had previously worked with Rolfe on the webseries Christmas special. The film's music was composed of rock-and-roll, heavy metal, a symphonic orchestra, and synthesized musical elements from various gaming systems such as NES, SNES, and SEGA Genesis. The album features two remixes by McCreary as well.
Reception and legacy
The Angry Video Game Nerd show is a huge success, creating a cult following, and making James Rolfe one of the most popular and pioneering internet celebrities in its history, before the advent of YouTube. The Angry Video Game Nerd was voted Best Online Web Series in Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards on December 16, 2009. Watchmojo listed the Nerd as #10 in its Top 10 YouTube Celebrities, describing him as that "one guy playing video games in his parents’ basement who made it a career." Academy Award-winning producer Peggy Rajski describes the origin of the show's success stemming from the correct use of the internet as well as the crowd funding system. Rajski further said that "[Rolfe] already cultivated an audience that cared about his prior work. When he asked them to step up, clearly they were willing to." Fellow film-maker and internet celebrity, Doug Walker, dubbed the Nerd as the "Greatest Video Game Critic of All Time." Jacob Rich of Michigan Daily described the Nerd as the "pioneering internet “gamer” show," adding that "pretty much every major game review show online today has “AVGN” to thank for establishing its format."
Writer from the University of Florida, Zach Whalen, described the show's presentation of retro gaming into contemporary gamers as “a process of looking back to an unattainable past and trying to bring that past into the present.” Indeed, Rolfe also commented during an interview with The Guardian of the show's impact in the current generation of the video game industry, saying that they "still relate to it and they like learning of the past." In the same article, reporter Luke Langlands also noted the show's influence of inspiring the creation of other independent online shows. The Nerd's success as an independent celebrity outside of the commercial mainstream of pop culture, popularized the notion of making lifelong careers online. In a survey published by Mediscape, a number of people admitted to being inspired by the Nerd to create and submit their own content in various online spaces, including YouTube, deviantART, SourceForge, GameFAQs, and ScrewAttack. Watchmojo also called the Nerd as a "trendsetter" for other gamers and amateur reviewers online, influencing the likes of those such as the Nostalgia Critic, Angry Joe and others.
In his analysis of the show and the character, writer Alex Carlson of Hardcore Gamer, dubbed Rolfe's character as "The Nerd Who Changed Gaming Culture Forever". In his written article, he described the Angry Video Game Nerd as "one of the most recognizable figures in gaming culture." Adding that "if you’re a gamer, it’s nearly guaranteed that you've browsed YouTube and seen at least a couple of videos from the series. Nearly a decade after the series’ humble inception, James Rolfe’s frequently sailor-mouthed alter-ego is still spreading influence. With each new gaming channel appearing on YouTube, there’s some level of inspiration coming straight from The Nerd. From the very beginning, The Angry Video Game Nerd was a giant leap forward. Whether James Rolfe knew it or not, the rise of The Nerd was a moment that changed gaming critique and entertainment forever".
See also
Video game collecting
References
External links
Category:2004 American television series debuts
Category:2004 web series debuts
Category:Cinemassacre
Category:American Internet celebrities
Category:American web series
Category:Fictional characters from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Category:Fictional characters introduced in 2004
Category:Fictional characters from New Jersey
Category:Comedy web series
Category:Retrocomputing
Category:Video game critics
Category:Video game podcasts
Category:Video game review websites
Category:Viral videos
Category:YouTube series
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2016-01 | John_Cabot-697355268 | John_Cabot | John Cabot
John Cabot (, ; c. 1450 – c. 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is commonly held to have been the first European exploration of the mainland of North America since the Norse Vikings' visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the Canadian celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, the Canadian and British governments have both accepted a widely held conclusion that the landing site was at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland. However, alternative theories have also been proposed.
Name and origins
Giovanni Caboto was born in Italy, the son of Giulio Caboto and his wife; he had a brother Piero. He is known today as Giovanni Caboto in Italy (as Zuan Chabotto in Venetian), in English as John Cabot, in French as Jean Cabot, and in Spanish as Juan Caboto. The non-Italian forms are derived from how his name was recorded in related 15th-century documents. In Venice he signed his names as "Zuan Chabotto", "Zuan" being a form of "John" typical to Venice. He continued to use this form in England, at least among Italians. He was referred to by his Italian banker in London as 'Giovanni Chabbote', in the only known contemporary document to use this version of his first name.
Gaeta (in the Province of Latina) and Castiglione Chiavarese (in the Province of Genoa) have both been proposed as birthplaces.<ref> (TECHNICAL DOCUMENTARY "CABOTO": I and Catalan origins have been proved to be without foundation.</ref> The main evidence for Gaeta are records of a Caboto family residing there until the mid-15th century, but ceasing to be traceable after 1443. Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish envoy and Cabot's contemporary in London, described him in a letter to the Spanish Crown in 1498 as "another Genoese like Columbus". John Cabot's son, Sebastian, said his father originally came from Genoa. In 1476 Cabot was made a citizen of the Republic of Venice, which required a minimum of fifteen years' residency in the city; thus he had lived in Venice since at least 1461.
Early life
In 1471 Caboto was accepted into the religious confraternity of St John the Evangelist. Since this was one of the city's prestigious confraternities, this suggests that he was already a respected member of the community. He may have been born slightly earlier than 1450, which is the approximate date most commonly given for his birth.
Following his gaining full Venetian citizenship in 1476 (after having lived there for 15 years), Caboto would have been eligible to engage in maritime trade, including the trade to the eastern Mediterranean that was the source of much of Venice's wealth. He presumably entered this trade shortly thereafter. A 1483 document refers to his selling a slave in Crete whom he had acquired while in the territories of the Sultan of Egypt, which then comprised most of what is now Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. This is not sufficient to prove Cabot's later assertion that he had visited Mecca, which he said in 1497 to the Milanese ambassador in London. In this Mediterranean trade, he may have acquired better knowledge of the origins of the oriental (West Asian) merchandise he would have been dealing in (such as spices and silks) than most Europeans at that time.
"Zuan Cabotto" (i.e. John Cabot) is mentioned in a variety of Venetian records of the 1480s. These indicate that by 1484 he was married to Mattea and already had at least two sons. Cabot's sons are Ludovico, Sebastian, and Sancto. The Venetian sources contain references to Cabot's being involved in house building in the city. He may have relied on this experience when seeking work later in Spain as a civil engineer.
Cabot appears to have gotten into financial trouble in the late 1480s and left Venice as an insolvent debtor by 5 November 1488. He moved to Valencia, Spain, where his creditors attempted to have him arrested by sending a lettera di raccomandazione a giustizia ("a letter of recommendation to justice") to the authorities. While in Valencia, "John Cabot Montecalunya" (as he is referred to in local documents) proposed plans for improvements to the harbour. These proposals were rejected, however. Early in 1494 he moved on to Seville, where he proposed, was contracted to build and, for five months, worked on the construction of a stone bridge over the Guadalquivir river. This project was abandoned following a decision of the City Council on 24 December 1494. After this Cabot appears to have sought support from the Iberian crowns of Seville and Lisbon for an Atlantic expedition, before moving to London to seek funding and political support. He likely reached England around the middle of 1495.
Sponsorship
Like other Italian explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Cabot led an expedition on commission to another European nation, in his case, England. Cabot planned to depart to the west from a northerly latitude where the longitudes are much closer together, and where, as a result, the voyage would be much shorter. He still had an expectation of finding a route to China.
Historians had thought that, on arrival in England, Cabot went to Bristol, a major maritime center, to seek financial backers. This was the only English city to have had a prior history of undertaking exploratory expeditions into the Atlantic. Cabot's royal patent (issued by the Crown in 1496) stated that all expeditions should be undertaken from Bristol, so his primary financial supporters likely were based in that city.
In the late 20th century, British historian Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found documentation that Cabot went first to London, where he received some financial backing from its Italian community. She suggested one patron was Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to Adriano Castellesi, the papal tax collector. Dr Ruddock suggested that Carbonariis accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition. She also suggested that the friar, on good terms with the King, introduced the explorer to King Henry VII. Beyond this, Ruddock claimed that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London. As Ruddock ordered the destruction of all her research notes on her death in 2005, scholars have had to duplicate her research and rediscover documents. The Cabot Project was formed at the University of Bristol in 2009 to research Cabot and the Bristol expeditions. Dr Francesco Guidi Bruscoli (University of Florence) found documentation that Cabot received money in March 1496 from the Bardi family banking firm of Florence. The bankers located in London provided fifty nobles (£16 13s. 4d.) to support Cabot's expedition to "go and find the new land". This payment from the Florentine merchants would have represented a substantial contribution, although it was not enough to completely finance the expedition.
On 5 March 1496 Henry VII gave Cabot and his three sons letters patent with the following charge for exploration:
Primary Sources: "First Letters Patent granted by Henry VII to John Cabot, 5 March 1496", The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol Those who received such patents had the right to assign them to third parties for execution. His sons are believed to have still been minors.
Explorations
Cabot went to Bristol to arrange preparations for his voyage. Bristol was the second-largest seaport in England. From 1480 onwards it had supplied several expeditions to look for Hy-Brazil. According to Celtic legend, this island lay somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. There was widespread belief among merchants in the port that Bristol men had discovered the island at earlier date but then lost track of it. Note: Ruddock had contended in a private 1988 letter to a colleague, Quinn, that she had found evidence in Italian archives that Bristol men had discovered North America pre-1470. As the island was believed to be a source of brazilwood (from which a valuable red dye could be obtained), merchants had economic incentive to find it.
First voyage
Cabot's first voyage was little recorded. A winter 1497/98 letter from John Day (a Bristol merchant) to an addressee believed to be Christopher Columbus refers briefly to it, but writes mostly about the second, 1497 voyage. He notes, "Since your Lordship wants information relating to the first voyage, here is what happened: he went with one ship, his crew confused him, he was short of supplies and ran into bad weather, and he decided to turn back." Since Cabot received his royal patent in March 1496, it is believed that he made his first voyage that summer.
Second voyage
Information about the 1497 voyage comes mostly from four short letters and an entry in a 1565 chronicle of the city of Bristol. The chronicle entry for 1496/7 says in full:
"This year, on St. John the Baptist's Day [24 June 1497], the land of America was found by the Merchants of Bristow in a shippe of Bristowe, called the Mathew; the which said the ship departed from the port of Bristowe, the second day of May, and came home again the 6th of August next following." -
G.E. Weare, Cabot's Discovery of North America, (London, 1897), p. 116
What is known as the "John Day letter" provides considerable information about Cabot's second voyage. It was written during the winter of 1497/8 by Bristol merchant John Day (alias Hugh Say of London) to a man who is likely Christopher Columbus. Day is believed to have been familiar with the key figures of the expedition and thus able to report on it. If the lands Cabot had discovered lay west of the meridian laid down in the Treaty of Tordesillas, or if he intended to sail further west, Columbus would likely have believed that these voyages challenged his monopoly rights for westward exploration.
In addition to these letters, Dr Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found another, written on 10 August 1497 by the London-based bankers of Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis. This letter has yet to be found. From various written comments made by Ruddock, the letter did not appear to contain a detailed account of the voyage. Ruddock said the letter contained "new evidence supporting the claim that seamen of Bristol had already discovered land across the ocean before John Cabot's arrival in England." She contended that Bristol seamen had reached North America two decades before Cabot's expedition.
The known sources do not agree with each other on all aspects of the events, and none can be assumed to be entirely reliable. Cabot was described as having one "little ship", of 50 tons burden, called the Matthew of Bristol (according to the 1565 chronicle). It was said to be laden with sufficient supplies for "seven or eight months". The ship departed in May with a crew of 18 to 20 men. They included an unnamed Burgundian and a Genoese barber, who presumably accompanied the expedition as the ship's surgeon.
It is likely that two ranking Bristol merchants were part of the expedition. One was probably William Weston, who had not been identified as part of Cabot's expedition before the find of a new document in the late 20th century. His participation was confirmed by a document found in the early 21st century noting his reward from the King in January 1498 after the ship returned. More importantly, in 2009 historian Evan Jones confirmed that Weston had undertaken an independent voyage to the New Found Land in 1499, probably under Cabot's patent, as the first Englishman to lead an expedition to North America.
Leaving Bristol, the expedition sailed past Ireland and across the Atlantic, making landfall somewhere on the coast of North America on 24 June 1497. The exact location of the landfall has long been disputed, with different communities vying for the honor. Historians have proposed Cape Bonavista and St. John's in Newfoundland; Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia; and Labrador in Canada; and Maine in the United States as possibilities. For the 500th-anniversary celebrations, the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom designated Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland as the "official" landing place. Here in 1997 Queen Elizabeth II, along with members of the Italian and Canadian governments, greeted the replica Matthew of Bristol, following its celebratory crossing of the Atlantic. Cabot's expedition is believed to be the first by Europeans to mainland North America since the Vikings five hundred years before.
Cabot is reported to have landed only once during the expedition and did not advance "beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow". Pasqualigo and Day both state that the expedition made no contact with any native people; crew found the remains of a fire, a human trail, nets and a wooden tool. The crew appeared to have remained on land just long enough to take on fresh water; they also raised the Venetian and Papal banners, claiming the land for the King of England and recognising the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Church. After this landing, Cabot spent some weeks "discovering the coast," with most "discovered after turning back."
Final voyage
On return to Bristol, Cabot rode to London to report to the King. On 10 August 1497, he was given a reward of £10 – equivalent to about two years' pay for an ordinary labourer or craftsman. The explorer was feted; Soncino wrote on 23 August that Cabot "is called the Great Admiral [note: as Christopher Columbus had been] and vast honour is paid to him and he goes dressed in silk, and these English run after him like mad". Such adulation was short-lived, for over the next few months the King's attention was occupied by the Second Cornish Uprising of 1497, led by Perkin Warbeck. Once Henry's throne was secure, he gave more thought to Cabot. On 26 September, just a few days after the collapse of the revolt, the King made an award of £2 to Cabot. In December 1497 the explorer was awarded a pension of £20 per year, and in February 1498 he was given a patent to help him prepare a second expedition. In March and April, the King also advanced a number of loans to Lancelot Thirkill of London, Thomas Bradley and John Cair, who were to accompany Cabot's new expedition.
The Great Chronicle of London (1189-1512) reports that Cabot departed with a fleet of five ships from Bristol at the beginning of May 1498, one of which had been prepared by the King. Some of the ships were said to be carrying merchandise, including cloth, caps, lace points and other "trifles". This suggests that Cabot intended to engage in trade on this expedition. The Spanish envoy in London reported in July that one of the ships had been caught in a storm and been forced to land in Ireland, but that Cabot and the other four ships had continued on.
For centuries no other records were found (or at least published) that relate to this expedition; it was long believed that Cabot and his fleet was lost at sea. But at least one of the men scheduled to accompany the expedition, Lancelot Thirkill of London, is recorded as living in London in 1501.
The historian Alwyn Ruddock worked on Cabot and his era for 35 years. She had suggested that Cabot and his expedition successfully returned to England in the Spring of 1500. She claimed their return followed an epic two-year exploration of the east coast of North America, south into the Chesapeake Bay area and perhaps as far as the Spanish territories in the Caribbean. Ruddock suggested Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis and the other friars who accompanied the 1498 expedition had stayed in Newfoundland and founded a mission. If Carbonariis founded a settlement in North America, it would have been the first Christian settlement on the continent, and may have included a church, the only medieval church to have been built there.
The Cabot Project at the University of Bristol was organized in 2009 to search for the evidence on which Ruddock's claims rest, as well as to undertake related studies of Cabot and his expeditions. The lead researchers on the project, Evan Jones and Margaret Condon, claim to have found further evidence to support aspects of Ruddock's case, particularly in relation to the successful return of the 1498 expedition to Bristol. They have located documents that appear to place John Cabot in London by May 1500 but have yet to publish their documentation.
The Project is collaborating on an archaeological excavation at the community of Carbonear, Newfoundland, located at Conception Bay and believed the likely location for Carbonariis' mission settlement. The Archaeology of Historic Carbonear Project, carried out by Memorial University of Newfoundland, has conducted summer fieldwork each season since 2011. So far, it has found evidence of planter habitation since the late 17th century and of trade with Spain through Bilbao, including a Spanish coin minted in Peru.Mark Rendell, "17th-century coins unearthed in Carbonear", The Telegram, 17 April 2014, accessed 24 April 2015
Additional English voyages
Ruddock claimed that William Weston of Bristol, a supporter of Cabot, undertook an independent expedition to North America in 1499, sailing north from Newfoundland up to the Hudson Strait. If correct, this was probably the first North West Passage expedition. In 2009, Jones confirmed that William Weston (who was not previously known to have been involved) led an expedition from Bristol [with royal support] to the "new found land" in 1499 or 1500, making him the first Englishman to lead exploration of North America. This find has changed the understanding of English roles in exploration of that continent.Evan T. Jones and M. M. Condon, "Weston, William (d. in or before 1505)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, May 2010
King Henry VII continued to support exploration from Bristol. The king granted Hugh Eliot, Robert Thorne and his son a bounty of ₤20 in January 1502 for purchasing the Gabriel, a ship for an expedition voyage that summer. Later in 1502 or early 1503 he paid Eliot a reward of ₤100 for a voyage, or voyages, in "2 ships to the Isle of new finding," as Newfoundland was called. This amount was larger than any previously accounted for in royal support of the explorations.
Sebastian Cabot's voyages
Sebastian Cabot, one of John's sons, also became an explorer, later making at least one voyage to North America. In 1508 he was searching for the Northwest Passage. Nearly two decades later, he sailed to South America for Spain to repeat Ferdinand Magellan's voyage around the world. He became diverted by searching for silver along the Río de la Plata (1525–8) in Argentina.
Legacy and honors
Giovanni Caboto (1762), painting at Ducal Palace, Venice.
Cabot Tower (1897) in St. John's, Newfoundland, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Cabot's voyage.
Cabot Tower, in Bristol, England. A 30-metre tall red sandstone tower begun in 1897 to mark the 400th anniversary.
Denis William Eden painting: John Cabot and his sons receive the charter from Henry VII to sail in search of new lands (1910), at Houses of Parliament
Giovanni Caboto Club (est. 1925), an Italian club located in Windsor, Ontario.
A 1952 statue of the explorer is at Bristol's Council House.Photograph: Statue of John Cabot / Elizabethan Seaman
John Cabot University is a United States-affiliated university established in 1972 in Rome, Italy.
A 1985 bronze statue of the explorer by Stephen Joyce, is located at Bristol Harbourside.
A replica of the Matthew of Bristol built to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the 1497 voyage, docked in Bristol.
A second replica of the Matthew is located at Cape Bonavista
The scenic Cabot Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands is named after the explorer.
John Cabot Academy is an independent school in Bristol.
Cabot Links – a golf course in Inverness, Nova Scotia
Cabot Ward is an electoral district in Bristol, indirectly named for the explorer and directly after the local Cabot Tower
Cabot Squares in London and Montreal.
Cabot Circus, a 2008 shopping mall in Bristol, named as a result of a city-wide poll
John Cabot Road in north Phoenix, Arizona.
Cabot Street in St. John's, Newfoundland.
A bronze statue of the explorer stands at the Confederation Building, St. John's.
A bronze statue of the explorer is located at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland. Plaques in English, French and Italian commemorate the historic voyage.
John Cabot Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga, Canada is named after the explorer.
Sources
Evan T. Jones, "Alwyn Ruddock: 'John Cabot and the Discovery of America' ", Historical Research Vol 81, Issue 212 (2008), pp. 224–254. Provides updated information on new discoveries of documents related to Cabot and his voyage, and claims made in the late 20th century by Alwyn Ruddock.
Evan T. Jones, "Henry VII and the Bristol expeditions to North America: the Condon documents", Historical Research, 27 Aug 2009, relates primarily to newly discovered documents related to William Weston's 1499 voyage.
Francesco Guidi-Bruscoli, 'John Cabot and his Italian Financiers', Historical Research (Published online, April 2012).
J.A. Williamson, The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 120, CUP, 1962). Considered the essential source-book for Cabot and his voyages. Numerous documents have been discovered in the Italian, Spanish and English archives that provide new insights into these events and era.
A short introduction; it has been updated based on material published related to The Cabot Project at the University of Bristol.
H.P. Biggar (ed.), The Precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497–1534: A Collection of Documents Relating to the Early History of the Dominion of Canada (Ottawa, 1911). Contains transcriptions of many of the original documents in their original languages – i.e. Latin, Spanish and Italian.
P. D'Epiro, M.D. Pinkowish, Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World, 1st Anchor Book Edition, 2001, pp. 179–180.
Further reading
Douglas Hunter, The Race to the New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and a Lost History of Discovery (New York: Macmillan, 2011). He uses findings from The Cabot Project of the University of Bristol as part of his research. This is described by archeologist Peter Pope as "the first substantial book on Cabot since the batch that observed the quincentennial of 1997 and the most detailed comparison to date of the careers of Columbus and Cabot."
References
External links
John Cabot: A Man of the Renaissance, National Film Board of Canada
John Cabot, Historica Canada
The Cabot Project, research project at University of Bristol, led by Dr Evan Jones.
O. Hartig, "John and Sebastian Cabot", The Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent, 1908). Very dated.
Primary sources, hosted by University of Bristol
Introduction and Source: "Salazar's account of Bristol's discovery of the Island of Brasil (pre 1476)", The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol
Sources: "First Letters Patent granted by Henry VII to John Cabot, 5 March 1496", The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol
Primary Sources: "Lorenzo Pasqualigo to his brothers at Venice, 23 August 1497", The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol
Primary Sources: "Raimondo de Raimondi de Soncino, Milanese Ambassador in England, to Ludovico Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, 18 December 1497, The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol
Primary Source: Letter, author unknown: "News sent from London to the Duke of Milan, 24 August 1497", The Smugglers' City'', Dept. of History, University of Bristol, briefly notes Cabot's voyage
Category:1450s births
Category:1499 deaths
Category:Age of Discovery
Category:Explorers of Canada
Category:History of Bristol
Category:Italian Roman Catholics
Category:Lost explorers
Category:Navigators
Category:People from Chioggia
Category:People lost at sea
Category:Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Category:Slave traders
Category:Explorers from the Republic of Venice
Category:Year of death unknown |
2016-01 | Miss_Universe_2010-696763063 | Miss_Universe_2010 | Miss Universe 2010
Miss Universe 2010, the 59th Miss Universe pageant, was held on 23 August 2010 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Paradise, Nevada, USA. Ximena Navarrete of Mexico crowned by Stefanía Fernández of Venezuela. 83 contestants competed in this year.
Results
Placements
Special awards
Semi-final scores
Winner
First runner-up
Second runner-up
Third runner-up
Fourth runner-up
Top 10 finalist
Top 15 semi-finalist
(#) Rank in each round of competition
Order of announcements
Top 15
Puerto Rico
Ukraine
Mexico
Belgium
Ireland
South Africa
France
Australia
Jamaica
Russia
Albania
Colombia
Guatemala
Czech Republic
Philippines
Top 10
Ireland
Albania
Philippines
Jamaica
Mexico
Ukraine
Puerto Rico
South Africa
Guatemala
Australia
Top 5
Mexico
Australia
Jamaica
Ukraine
Philippines
Background music
Opening: "Commander" by Kelly Rowland featuring David Guetta
Swimsuit Competition: "Burning Love" and "Viva Las Vegas" Medley from "Viva Elvis" by Cirque du Soleil (Live Performance)
Evening Gown Competition: "Save Room", "I Love Every Little Thing About You" and "Shine" by John Legend and The Roots (Live Performance)
Crowning Moment: "Go That Far" by Bret Michaels
Judges
Preliminary competition
These were the judges for the preliminary competition:
Basim Shami – President of Farouk Systems
BJ Coleman – Publicist, Journalist & Television Personality
Carlos Bremer – CEO and General Director of Value Grupo Financiero
Corinne Nicolas – President of Trump Model Management
Louis Burgdorf – Talent Producer for MSNBC's Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski
Natalie Rotman – Television Host and Fashion Expert www.NatalieRotman.com
Sadoux Kim& – Television producer
Final telecast
The following celebrities judged the final competition:
Niki Taylor – Model
William Baldwin – Actor, producer, and writer
Chynna Phillips – Singer and actress
Evan Lysacek – Olympic Gold Medal Figure Skater and Dancing with the Stars finalist
Tamron Hall – MSNBC anchor
Chazz Palminteri – Actor and writer
Jane Seymour – Actress and Dancing with the Stars participant
Criss Angel – Illusionist and musician
Sheila E. – Musician
Contestants
Notes
Returns
Last competed in 1989:
Last competed in 2002:
Last competed in 2004:
Last competed in 2007:
Last competed in 2008:
Replacements
– Alejandra Barillas was Miss Universe Guatemala 2010 until she injured her left foot in an accident. This stopped her from participating in the pageant. She was replaced by one of her runners-up, Jessica Scheel. She competed 1 year later at Miss Universe 2011.
– Alexandra Catalina Filip was Miss Universe Romania 2010 but 1st runner-up, Oana Paveluc, represented Romania instead.
– Turkey sent Miss Turkey World 2010, Gizem Memic, because its Miss Universe 2010, Serenay Sarikaya, was below 18 and did not meet the age requirement.
Withdrawals
– The Miss Bulgaria Organization did not send a representative to compete in Miss Universe 2010.
– On 8 September 2009, it was announced that the Miss Cayman Islands 2009 contest would not take place due to lack of funding and sponsorship. Since the winner of that contest also competes in Miss World, there was no Caymanian representative to Miss World 2009 either.
– Valeri Kirss, Estonia's national director, was selling the Eesti Miss Estonia pageant.
– Original contestant Nikolina Lončar was not allowed to participate because she was only 16 at the time of her crowning. She later participated in Miss Universe 2011.
– Miss Namibia 2010, Odile Gertze, was crowned on 31 July 2010. Since that was only one week from the official start of Miss Universe 2010, national director Connie Maritz decided not to send the winner to Miss Universe but to Miss World 2010 instead.
– Vietnam did not have a representative this year. They officially withdrew from the pageant.
Crossovers
The following contestants previously competed at notable national and international beauty pageants:
Miss World
2007: – Yendi Phillipps (Semi-finalist)
2009: – Kim Joo-ri (Semi-finalist, Queen of Asia & Oceania)
2010: – Braneka Basset (Semi-finalist)
2010: – Cilou Annys
2010: – Asselina Kuchukova
2010: – Rahaf Abdallah
2010: – Dalysha Doorga
2010: – Desirée van den Berg (Semi-finalist)
2010: – Nicole Flint (Semi-finalist)
2010: – Gizem Memiç
2011: – Donia Hamed
2012: – Giuliana Zevallos
Miss International
2008: – Yésica Di Vincenzo
2008: – Elena Semikina
2014: – Lidija Kocić
Miss Earth
2007: – Jessica Scheel
2008: – Giuliana Zevallos
2008: – Adriana Reverón (Semi-finalist)
2010: – Desirée van den Berg (Semi-finalist)
Miss Intercontinental
2005: – Sarodj Bertin
2010: – Nanuka Gogichaishvili
Miss Tourism Queen International
2013: – Lidija Kocić
Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International
2011: – Asselina Kuchukova
Miss Oriental Tourism
2012: – Desirée van den Berg
World Miss University
2011: – Débora Lyra (Miss Peace)
Beauty of the World
2009: – Tania Lim Kim Suan (Best in Evening Gown)
2010: – Desirée van den Berg (Beauty of Eurasia)
Miss Bikini International
2010: – Elena Semikina (Semi-finalist)
Miss Continente Americano
2010: – Giuliana Zevallos (Winner, Best Face, Best National Costume)
2010: – Lady Mina
2010: – Sonia Cruz
2010: – Scharllette Allen Moses
2011: – Anyolí Ábrego (Semi-finalist)
Reina Hispanoamericana
2010: – Yésica Di Vincenzo (6th runner-up, Best Face)
2010: – Lady Mina (Best National Costume)
2010: – Stephany Ortega (5th runner-up)
2012: – Sarodj Bertin (Winner, Best Body)
Reinado Internacional del Café
2008: – Elena Semikina
Miss Italia nel Mondo
2006: – Yésica Di Vincenzo (Semi-finalist)
Top Model of the World
2008: – Débora Lyra (Winner)
Miss Model of the World
2009: – Anyolí Ábrego (Semi-finalist)
Miss America
2008: – Janeisha John
Prizes
The Miss Universe 2010 prize package includes:
Miss Universe 2010
The official Crown of Miss Universe 2010 designed by Diamond Nexus Labs
Jewelry package designed by Diamond Nexus Labs
Year-long salary as Miss Universe
Luxurious New York City apartment for one year
Hair care products from Farouk Systems
A designer swimwear collection from Dar Be Dar by Tala Raassi
One-year scholarship from New York Film Academy
Sherri Hill Eveningwear
Shoe wardrobe from Nina Footwear
Modeling portfolio by Fadil Berisha
Hair, dental and skin services
Professional health and nutrition consultation
Membership to fitness club
Miss Photogenic
Award was voted by online viewers who went to NBC.com to vote for their favorite contestant.
$1000 cash prize
Gift from Diamond Nexus Lab
Miss Congeniality
Award was voted by the 83 participating delegates.
$1000 cash prize
Gift from Diamond Nexus Lab
Best National Costume
Award was decided by online voters who went to Club Universe, an exclusive membership club on the Miss Universe website.
International broadcasters
These are some of the networks outside the United States (telecasted on NBC and Telemundo) that showed the 2010 Miss Universe pageant live (or recorded earlier) in their respective countries and territories:
: STAR World
: RTV21
: KKHJ-LP
: TNT
: ATV
: 7TWO, STAR One
: ZNS-TV
: STAR World
: TNT
: Star! Benelux
: VSB-TV
: Unitel, TNT
: Rede Bandeirantes, TNT Latin America
: WNBC
: Citytv
: TNT Latin America
: Star World
: Caracol TV, TNT
: Teletica
: Star! Scandinavia
: Telemundo, Colorvision, TNT
: Gama TV, TNT
: MBC 3
: TCS
: Star!, Viasat Baltics
: MTV3, Star! Scandinavia, Showtime Scandinavia
: Paris Première
: Das Vierte
: ANT1
: Sisimiut TV
: KUAM-TV
: TNT
: Canal 11, TNT
: TVB Pearl, Star World
: Star! Scandinavia, Showtime Scandinavia
: Star World
: Indosiar, Star World
: STAR One
: Channel 9
: Stream
: TVJ
: TV Asahi, WOWOW
: RTV21
: Star!, Viasat Baltics
: LBC, MBC 3
: STAR World, Canal Macau
: STAR World
: STAR World
: Televisa, TNT
: STAR World
: Star! Benelux
: STAR World
: Vibe
: Televicentro
: WSZE
: TV2, Showtime Scandinavia, Star! Scandinavia
: STAR World
: Telemetro, TNT
: STAR World
: SNT, TNT
: ATV, TNT
: ABS-CBN, Star World
: Telemundo
: TVR
: C1R
: MBC 3
: MediaCorp Channel 5, STAR World
: STAR World
: Star! Scandinavia
: CTS, STAR World
: Channel 7, Star World
: NBC Caribbean New Media Group, TNT
: CNBC-e, NTV
: MBC 3
: STAR One
: TNT
: NBC, Telemundo
: WVGN-LP
: Venevisión, TNT
: STAR World, VTCHD VIP 1
References
External links
Miss Universe official website
2010
Category:2010 beauty pageants
Category:Beauty pageants in the United States
Category:2010 in the United States
Category:2010 in Nevada |
2016-01 | The_Beatles_album-697539902 | The_Beatles_album | The Beatles (album)
The Beatles, also known as the White Album, is the ninth studio album by English rock group the Beatles, released on 22 November 1968. A double album, its plain white sleeve has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed, and was intended as a direct contrast to the vivid cover artwork of the band's earlier Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Although no singles were issued from The Beatles in Britain and the United States, the songs "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" originated from the same recording sessions and were issued on a single in August 1968. The album's songs range in style from British blues and ska to tracks influenced by the Beach Boys and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Most of the songs on the album were written during March and April 1968 at a Transcendental Meditation course in Rishikesh, India. The group returned to EMI Studios in May with recording lasting through to October. During these sessions, arguments broke out among the Beatles, and witnesses in the studio saw band members quarrel over creative differences. The feuds intensified when Lennon's new partner, Yoko Ono, started attending the sessions. After a series of problems, including producer George Martin taking a sudden leave of absence and engineer Geoff Emerick quitting, Ringo Starr left the band briefly in August. The same tensions continued throughout the following year, leading to the eventual break-up of the Beatles in April 1970.
On release, The Beatles received mixed reviews from music journalists. Most critics found its satirical songs unimportant and apolitical amid a turbulent political and social climate, although some praised Lennon and McCartney's writing. The band and Martin have since debated whether the group should have released a single album instead. Nonetheless, The Beatles reached number one on the charts in both the United Kingdom and the United States and has since been viewed by some critics as one of the greatest albums of all time.
Background
By 1968, the Beatles had commercial and critical success. The group's previous album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was number one in the UK the previous year and charted for 27 weeks, selling 250,000 copies in the first week after release. Time magazine had written in 1967 that Sgt. Pepper's constituted a "historic departure in the progress of music – any music" while the American writer Timothy Leary thought that the band were prototypes of "evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species". The band received a negative critical response for the film Magical Mystery Tour, but fan response was nevertheless positive.
Most of the songs for The Beatles were written during a Transcendental Meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India, between February and April 1968. The retreat involved long periods of meditation, conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavours – a chance, in John Lennon's words, to "get away from everything". Both Lennon and Paul McCartney quickly re-engaged themselves in songwriting, often meeting "clandestinely in the afternoons in each other's rooms" to review their new work. "Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing," Lennon would later recall, "I did write some of my best songs there." Beatles author Ian MacDonald said Sgt Pepper was "shaped by LSD", but the Beatles took no drugs with them to India aside from marijuana, and their clear minds helped the group with their songwriting. The stay in Rishikesh proved especially fruitful for George Harrison as a songwriter, coinciding with his re-engagement with the guitar after two years studying the sitar. The musicologist Walter Everett likens Harrison's development as a composer in 1968 to that of Lennon and McCartney five years before, although he notes that Harrison became "privately prolific", given his customary junior status in the group.
The Beatles left Rishikesh before the end of the course. Ringo Starr was the first to leave, as he could not stomach the food; McCartney departed in mid-March, while Harrison and Lennon were more interested in Indian religion and remained until April. According to the author Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon left Rishikesh because he felt personally betrayed after hearing rumours that the Maharishi had behaved inappropriately towards women who accompanied the Beatles to India, though McCartney and Harrison later discovered this to be untrue and Lennon's wife Cynthia reported there was "not a shred of evidence or justification".
Collectively, the group wrote around 40 new compositions in Rishikesh, 26 of which would be recorded in very rough form at Kinfauns, Harrison's home in Esher, in May 1968. Lennon wrote the bulk of the new material, contributing 14 songs. Lennon and McCartney brought home-recorded demos to the session, and worked on them together. Some home demos and group sessions at Kinfauns were later released on the 1996 compilation Anthology 3.
Recording
The Beatles was recorded between 30 May and 14 October 1968, largely at Abbey Road Studios in London, with some sessions at Trident Studios. The group block-booked time at Abbey Road through to July, and their times at Rishikesh were soon forgotten in the atmosphere of the studio, with sessions occurring at irregular hours. The group's self-belief that they could do anything led to the formation of a new multimedia business corporation Apple Corps, an enterprise that drained the group financially with a series of unsuccessful projects. The open-ended studio time led to a new way of working out songs. Instead of tightly rehearsing a backing track, as had happened in previous sessions, the group would simply record all the rehearsals and jamming, then add overdubs to the best take. Harrison's song "Not Guilty" was left off the album despite recording 102 takes.
The sessions for The Beatles marked the first appearance in the studio of Lennon's new domestic and artistic partner, Yoko Ono, who accompanied him to Abbey Road to work on "Revolution 1" and who would thereafter be a more or less constant presence at all Beatles sessions. Ono's presence was highly unorthodox, as prior to that point, the Beatles had generally worked in isolation. McCartney's girlfriend at the time, Francie Schwartz, was also present at some sessions, as were the other two Beatles' wives, Pattie Harrison and Maureen Starkey.
During the The Beatles sessions, the band upgraded from 4-track recording to 8-track. As work began, Abbey Road Studios possessed, but had yet to install, an 8-track machine that had supposedly been sitting in a storage room for months. This was in accordance with EMI's policy of testing and customising new gear extensively before putting it into use in the studios. The Beatles recorded "Hey Jude" and "Dear Prudence" at Trident because it had an 8-track recorder. When they learned that EMI also had one, they insisted on using it, and engineers Ken Scott and Dave Harries took the machine (without authorisation from the studio chiefs) into Abbey Road Studio 2 for the band's use.
The author Mark Lewisohn reports that the Beatles held their first and only 24-hour session at Abbey Road near the end of the creation of The Beatles, which occurred during the final mixing and sequencing for the album. The session was attended by Lennon, McCartney and producer George Martin. Unlike most LPs, there was no customary three-second gap between tracks, and the master was edited so that songs segued together, via a straight edit, a crossfade, or an incidental piece of music.
Personal issues
The studio efforts on The Beatles captured the work of four increasingly individualised artists who frequently found themselves at odds. Lewisohn notes that several backing tracks do not feature the full group, and overdubs tended to be limited to whoever wrote the song. Sometimes McCartney would record in one studio for prolonged periods of time, while Lennon would record in another, each man using different engineers. Late in the sessions, Martin, whose influence over the band had waned, spontaneously left to go on holiday, leaving Chris Thomas in charge of production. Lennon's devotion to Ono over the other Beatles, and the pair's addiction to heroin, made working conditions difficult as he became prone to bouts of temper.
The recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with the group since Revolver in 1966, had become disillusioned with the sessions. At one point, while recording "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", Emerick overheard Martin criticising McCartney's lead vocal performance, to which McCartney replied, "Well you come down and sing it". On 16 July Emerick announced that he was no longer willing to work with them and left.
Within the band, according to the author Peter Doggett, "the most essential line of communication ... between Lennon and McCartney" had been broken by Ono's presence on the first day of recording. While echoing this view, Beatles biographer Philip Norman comments that, from the start, the group's two principal songwriters shared a mutual disregard for the other's new compositions: Lennon found McCartney's songs "cloyingly sweet and bland", while McCartney viewed Lennon's as "harsh, unmelodious and deliberately provocative". In a move that Lewisohn highlights as unprecedented in the Beatles' recording career, Harrison and Starr chose to distance themselves part-way through the project, flying to California on 7 June so that Harrison could film his scenes for the Ravi Shankar documentary Raga. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's involvement in individual musical projects outside the band during 1968 was further evidence of the group's fragmentation. In Lennon's case, the cover of his experimental collaboration with Ono, Two Virgins, featured the couple fully naked – a gesture that his bandmates found bewildering and unnecessary.
On 20 August, Lennon and Starr, working on overdubs for "Yer Blues" in Studio 3, visited McCartney in Studio 2, where he was working on "Mother Nature's Son". The positive spirit of the session disappeared immediately, and the engineer Ken Scott later claimed: "you could cut the atmosphere with a knife." On 22 August, during the session for "Back in the U.S.S.R.", Starr abruptly left the studio, feeling that his role in the group was peripheral compared to the other members, and was upset at McCartney's constant criticism of his drumming on the track. Abbey Road staff later commented that Starr frequently turned up to the sessions and sat waiting in the reception area for the others to turn up. In his absence, McCartney played the drums on "Dear Prudence". Lewisohn also reports that, in the case of "Back in the U.S.S.R.", the three remaining Beatles each made contributions on bass and drums, with the result that those parts may be composite tracks played by Lennon, McCartney and/or Harrison.
Lennon, McCartney and Harrison pleaded with Starr to reconsider. He duly returned on 5 September to find his drum kit decorated with flowers, a welcome-back gesture from Harrison. McCartney described the sessions for The Beatles as a turning point for the group, saying "there was a lot of friction during that album. We were just about to break up, and that was tense in itself", while Lennon later said "the break-up of the Beatles can be heard on that album." Of the album's 30 tracks, only 16 have all four band members performing.
Songs
The Beatles contains a wide range of musical styles, which the authors Barry Miles and Gillian Gaar each view as the most diverse of any of the group's albums. These styles include rock and roll, blues, folk, country, reggae, avant-garde, hard rock and music hall. The production aesthetic ensured that the album's sound was scaled-down and less reliant on studio innovation, relative to all the Beatles' releases since Revolver. The author Nicholas Schaffner viewed this as reflective of a widespread departure from the LSD-inspired psychedelia of 1967, an approach that was initiated by Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys and similarly adopted in 1968 by artists such as the Rolling Stones and the Byrds.
The only western instrument available to the group during their Indian visit was the acoustic guitar, and thus many of the songs on The Beatles were written and first performed on that instrument. Some of these songs remained acoustic on The Beatles and were recorded solo, or only by part of the group (including "Wild Honey Pie", "Blackbird", "Julia", "I Will" and "Mother Nature's Son").
Side one
McCartney wrote "Back in the U.S.S.R." as a surreal parody of Chuck Berry's song "Back in the U.S.A." A field recording of an aeroplane taking off and landing was used at the start of the track, and intermittently throughout it, while the backing vocals were sung by Lennon and Harrison in the style of the Beach Boys at the request of Mike Love, who had accompanied the group to India. The track became widely bootlegged in the Soviet Union and became an underground hit. McCartney subsequently recorded a cover album, Снова в СССР, based on a transliteration on the Russian version of the title.
"Dear Prudence" was one of the songs recorded at Trident. The style is typical of the acoustic songs written in Rishikesh, using guitar arpeggios. Lennon wrote the track about Mia Farrow's sister Prudence, who rarely left her room during the stay in commitment to the meditation.
"Glass Onion" was the first backing track recorded as a full band since Starr's brief departure. MacDonald claimed Lennon deliberately wrote the lyrics to mock fans who claimed to find "hidden messages" in songs, and referenced other songs in the Beatles catalogue – "The Walrus was Paul" refers back to "I Am The Walrus" (which itself refers to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"). McCartney, in turn, overdubbed a recorder part after the line "I told you about the Fool on the Hill", as a deliberate parody of the earlier song. A string section was added to the track in October.
{{quotebox|width=30%|quote=Lennon went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they'd done it before, and said "This is it! Come on!"|source=Recording engineer Richard Lush on "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"}}
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was written by McCartney as a pastiche of ska music. The track took a surprising amount of time to complete, with McCartney demanding perfectionism that annoyed his colleagues. Jimmy Scott, a friend of McCartney, suggested the title and played bongos on the initial take. He demanded a cut of publishing when the song was released, but the song was credited to "Lennon-McCartney". After working for three days on the backing track, the work was scrapped and replaced with a new recording. Lennon hated the song, calling it "granny music shit", while engineer Richard Lush recalled that Starr disliked having to record the same backing track repetitively, and pinpoints this session as a key indication that the Beatles were going to break up. McCartney attempted to remake the backing track for a third time, but this was abandoned after a few takes and the second version was used as the final mix. The group, save for McCartney, had lost interest with the track by the end of recording, and refused to release it as a single. Marmalade recorded a version that became a number one hit. In 2004, an online poll by Mars ranked the song as the worst ever.
McCartney recorded "Wild Honey Pie" on 20 August at the end of the session for "Mother Nature's Son". It is typical of the brief snippets of songs he recorded between takes during the album sessions.
"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" was written by Lennon after an American visitor to Rishikesh left for a few weeks to hunt tigers. It was recorded as an audio vérité exercise, featuring vocal performances from almost everyone who happened to be in the studio at the time. Ono sings one line and co-sings another, while Chris Thomas played the mellotron, including improvisations at the end of the track.
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was written by Harrison during a visit he made to his parents' home in Cheshire. He first recorded the song as a solo performance, on acoustic guitar, on 25 July – a version that remained unreleased until Anthology 3. He was unhappy with the group's first attempt to record the track, and so invited his friend Eric Clapton to come and play on it. Clapton was unsure about guesting on a Beatles record, but Harrison said the decision was "nothing to do with them. It's my song." Clapton's solo was treated with automatic double tracking to attain the desired effect; he gave Harrison the guitar he used, which Harrison later named "Lucy".
"Happiness Is A Warm Gun" evolved out of song fragments that Lennon wrote in Rishikesh. According to MacDonald, this working method was inspired by the Incredible String Band's songwriting. The basic backing track ran to 95 takes, due to the irregular time signatures and variations in style throughout the song. The final version consisted of the best half of two takes edited together. Lennon later described the song as one of his favourites, while the rest of the band found the recording rejuvenating, as it forced them to re-hone their skills as a group playing together to get it right. Apple's press officer Derek Taylor made an uncredited contribution to the song's lyrics.
Side two
McCartney got the title of "Martha My Dear" from his sheepdog, but the lyrics are otherwise unrelated. The entire track is played by him backed with session musicians, and features no other Beatles. Martin composed a brass band arrangement for the track.
"I'm So Tired" was written in India when Lennon was having difficulty sleeping. It was recorded at the same session as "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill". The lyrics make reference to Walter Raleigh, calling him a "stupid get" for introducing tobacco to Europe; while the track ends with Lennon mumbling "Monsieur, monsieur, how about another one?" This became part of the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory, when fans claimed that when the track was reversed, they could hear "Paul is dead man, miss him miss him".
"Blackbird" features McCartney solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. According to Lewisohn, the ticking in the background is a metronome, although Emerick recalls capturing the sound via a microphone placed beside McCartney's shoes. The birdsong on the track was taken from the Abbey Road sound effects collection, and was recorded on one of the first EMI portable tape recorders.
Harrison wrote "Piggies" as an attack on greed and materialism in modern society. His mother and Lennon helped him complete the lyrics. Thomas played harpsichord on the track, while Lennon supplied a tape loop of pigs grunting.
"Rocky Raccoon" evolved from a jam session between Lennon and Donovan in Rishikesh. The song was taped in a single session, and was one of the tracks that Martin felt was "filler" and only put on because the album was a double.
"Don't Pass Me By" was Starr's first solo composition for the band, who had been toying with the idea of writing a self-reflective song for some time, possibly as far back as 1963. It went by the working titles of "Ringo's Tune" and "This Is Some Friendly". The basic track consisted of Starr drumming while McCartney played piano. Martin composed an orchestral introduction to the song but it was rejected as being "too bizarre" and left off the album. Instead, Jack Fallon played a bluegrass fiddle part.
"Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" was written by McCartney in India after he saw two monkeys copulating in the street and wondered why humans were too civilised to do the same. He played all the instruments except drums, which were contributed by Starr. The simple lyric was very much in Lennon's style, and Lennon was annoyed about not being asked to play on it. McCartney suggested it was "tit for tat" as he had not contributed to "Revolution 9".
"I Will" was written and sung by McCartney, with Lennon and Starr accompanying on percussion. In between numerous takes, the three Beatles broke off to busk some other songs. A snippet of a track known as "Can You Take Me Back?" was put between "Cry Baby Cry" and "Revolution 9", while recordings of Cilla Black's hit "Step Inside Love" and a joke number, "Los Paranoias", were released on Anthology 3.
"Julia" was the last track to be recorded for the album and features Lennon on solo acoustic guitar which he played in a style similar to McCartney's on "Blackbird". This is the only Beatles song on which Lennon performs alone and it was a tribute to his late mother Julia Lennon, who was killed in 1958 in a road accident while Lennon was only seventeen, and the lyrics deal with the loss of his mother and his relationship with Ono, the "ocean child" referred to in the lyrics. Ono helped with the lyrics, but the song was still credited to Lennon-McCartney as expected.
Side three
According to McCartney, the authorship of "Birthday" was "50-50 John and me, made up on the spot and recorded all on the same evening". He and Lennon were inspired to write the song after seeing the first UK showing of the rock-n-roll film The Girl Can't Help It on television, and sang the lead vocal in the style of the film's musical star, Little Richard. After the Beatles had taped the track, Ono and Pattie Harrison added backing vocals.
"Yer Blues" was written by Lennon in India. Despite meditating and the tranquil atmosphere, he still felt unhappy, which was reflected in the lyrics. The style was influenced by the British Blues Boom of 1968, which included groups such as Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack. The backing track was recorded in a small room next to Studio 2 at Abbey Road. Unusually for a Beatles recording, the four track source tape was edited directly, resulting in an abrupt cut-off at 3'17" into the start of another take (which ran into the fade out). The song was one of the few late-era Beatles songs that Lennon performed live. The first run-through was with a supergroup of Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell on 11 December 1968 at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and later with the Plastic Ono Band on 13 September 1969 (as captured on the live album Live Peace in Toronto).
McCartney wrote "Mother Nature's Son" in India, and worked on it in isolation from the other members of the band. He performed the track solo alongside a Martin-scored brass arrangement.
"Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" evolved from a jam session, and was originally untitled. The final mix was sped up by mixing the tape running at 43 hertz instead of the usual 50. Harrison claimed the title came from one of the Maharishi's sayings (with "and my monkey" added later).
"Sexy Sadie" was written as "Maharishi" by Lennon, shortly after he decided to leave Rishikesh. In a 1980 interview, Lennon acknowledged that the Maharishi was the inspiration for the song: "I just called him 'Sexy Sadie'."
"Helter Skelter" was written by McCartney and was initially recorded in July as a blues number. The initial takes were performed by the band live and included long passages during which the group jammed on their instruments. Because these takes were too long to practically fit on an LP, the song was shelved until September, when a new, shorter, version was made. By all accounts, the session was chaotic, but nobody dared suggest to any of the Beatles that they were out of control. Harrison reportedly ran around the studio while holding a flaming ashtray above his head, "doing an Arthur Brown". The stereo version of the LP includes almost an extra minute of music compared to the mono, which culminates in Starr infamously shouting "I've got blisters on my fingers!" According to MacDonald, Charles Manson was unaware that "Helter Skelter" is the British name for a spiral slide found on a playground or funfair, and assumed the track had something to do with hell. This was one of the key tracks that led Manson to believe the album had coded messages referring to apocalyptic war, and led to his movement of the same name.
The final song on side three is Harrison's "Long, Long, Long". He based the song's structure on Dylan's "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". The recording session for the track was one of the longest the Beatles ever undertook, running from the afternoon of 7 October through the night until 7 am the next day, and then completed in a further session nine hours later. McCartney played Hammond organ on the track, and the effect at the end was made by a particular note on the instrument causing a wine bottle on top of the organ's Leslie speaker to resonate.
Side four
"Revolution 1" was the first track recorded for the album, with sessions for the backing track starting on 30 May. The initial takes were recorded with aim of it being a possible single, but as the session progressed, the arrangement became slower, with more of a laid-back groove. The group ended the chosen take with a six-minute improvisation that had further overdubs added, before being cut to the length heard on the album. The brass arrangement was added later.
"Honey Pie" was written by McCartney as a pastiche of the flapper dance style from the 1920s. The opening section of the track had the sound of an old 78 RPM record overdubbed while Martin arranged a saxophone and clarinet part in the same style. Lennon played the guitar solo on the track, but later said he hated the song, calling it "beyond redemption".
"Savoy Truffle" was named after one of the types of chocolate found in a box of Mackintosh's Good News, which Clapton enjoyed eating. The track featured a saxophone sextet arranged by Thomas, who also played keyboards. Harrison later said that Derek Taylor helped him finish the lyrics.
Lennon began writing "Cry Baby Cry" in late 1967 and the lyrics were partly derived from a tagline for an old television commercial. Martin played harmonium on the track.
"Revolution 9" evolved from the overdubs from the "Revolution 1" coda. Lennon, Harrison and Ono added further tape collages and spoken word extracts, in the style of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The track opens with an extract from a Royal Schools of Music examination tape, and ends with Ono's infamous comment, "you become naked". Ono was heavily involved in the production, and advised Lennon on what tape loops to use. McCartney did not contribute to the track, and was reportedly unhappy on it being included, though he had led similar tape experiments such as "Carnival of Light" in January 1967. The track has attracted both interest and disapproval from fans and music critics over the years.
"Good Night" was a lullaby written by Lennon for his son Julian, and he specifically wanted Starr to sing it. The early takes featured just Lennon on acoustic guitar and Starr singing. Martin scored an orchestral and choral arrangement that replaced the guitar in the final mix, and also played the celesta.
Singles
"Hey Jude" was recorded at the end of July 1968 during the sessions for The Beatles, but was issued separately as a single nearly three months before the album's release. (It would, however, make its LP debut in the US two years later as the title cut of the compilation album Hey Jude) The B-side, "Revolution", was a different version of the album's "Revolution 1". Lennon had wanted the original version of "Revolution" to be released as a single, but the other three Beatles objected on the grounds that it was too slow. Instead, the single featured a new, faster version, with heavily distorted guitar and an electric piano solo from Nicky Hopkins. This was the first release on Apple Records and went on to be the band's most successful single, with world sales of over 5 million by the end of 1968 and 7.5 million by October 1972.
The convention amongst record companies in the 1960s was that singles and albums were distinct entities and should not duplicate songs. However, though no singles were taken from The Beatles in either Britain or America, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" backed with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", was a commercial success in several countries, including Australia (where it spent five weeks at number one in the Go Set charts), Japan, Austria, and Switzerland.
Unreleased material
Some songs that the Beatles were working on individually during this period were revisited for inclusion on the group's subsequent albums, while others were eventually released on the band members' solo albums. According to the bootlegged album of the demos made at Kinfauns, the last of these two categories include Lennon's "Look at Me" and "Child of Nature" (eventually reworked as "Jealous Guy"); McCartney's "Junk"; and Harrison's "Not Guilty" and "Circles". In addition, Harrison gave "Sour Milk Sea" to the singer Jackie Lomax, whose recording, produced by Harrison, was released in August 1968 as Lomax's debut single on Apple Records. Lennon's "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" would be used for the medley on Abbey Road the following year.
The Lennon-written "What's the New Mary Jane" was demoed at Kinfauns and recorded formally (by Lennon, Harrison and Ono) during the 1968 album sessions. McCartney taped demos of two compositions at Abbey Road – "Etcetera" and "The Long and Winding Road" – the last of which the Beatles recorded in 1969 for their album Let It Be. The White Album versions of "Not Guilty" and "What's the New Mary Jane", and a demo of "Junk", were ultimately released on Anthology 3.
"Revolution (Take 20)", a previously uncirculated recording, surfaced in 2009 on a bootleg. This ten-minute take was later edited and overdubbed to create two separate tracks: "Revolution 1" and the avant-garde "Revolution 9".
ReleaseThe Beatles was issued on 22 November 1968 in Britain, with a US release following three days later. The album's working title, A Doll's House, had been changed when the English progressive rock band Family released the similarly titled Music in a Doll's House earlier that year. Schaffner wrote in 1977 of the name that was adopted for the Beatles' double album: "From the day of release, everybody referred to The Beatles as 'the White Album.'"The Beatles was the third album to be released by Apple Records, following Harrison's Wonderwall Music, and Two Virgins. Martin has said that he was against the idea of a double album at the time and suggested to the group that they reduce the number of songs to form a single album featuring their stronger work, but that the band decided against this. Interviewed for the Beatles Anthology television series in the 1990s, Starr said that he now felt that it should have been released as two separate albums (that he nicknamed "The White Album" and "The Whiter Album"). Harrison felt on reflection that some tracks could have been released as B-sides, but "there was a lot of ego in that band." He also supported the idea of the double album, to clear out the backlog of songs that the group had at the time. By contrast, McCartney said that it was fine as it was, adding: "It's the bloody Beatles' White Album. Shut up!"
Mono versionThe Beatles was the last Beatles album to be mixed separately for stereo and mono, though the mono version was only issued in the UK and a few other countries. All but one track exist in official mono mixes; the exception is "Revolution 9", which was a direct reduction of the stereo master. The Beatles had not been particularly interested in stereo until this album, but after receiving mail from fans stating they bought both stereo and mono mixes of earlier albums, they decided to make the two different. Several mixes have different track lengths; the mono mix/edit of "Helter Skelter" eliminates the fade-in at the end of the song (and Starr's ending scream), and the fade out of "Yer Blues" is 11 seconds longer on the mono mix.
In the US, mono records were already being phased out; the US release of The Beatles was the first Beatles LP to be issued in stereo only. In the UK, the following album, Yellow Submarine, was the last to be shipped in mono. The mono version of The Beatles was made available worldwide on 9 September 2009, as part of The Beatles in Mono CD boxed set. A reissue of the original mono LP was released worldwide in September 2014.
Packaging
The album's sleeve was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton, in collaboration with McCartney. Hamilton's design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake's vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band's name was discreetly embossed slightly below the middle of the album's right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped serial number, "to create", in Hamilton's words, "the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies". In 2008, an original pressing of the album with serial number 0000005 sold for £19,201 on eBay. In 2015, Ringo Starr's personal copy number 0000001 sold for world record $790,000 on auction.
Later vinyl record releases in the US showed the title in grey printed (rather than embossed) letters. The album included a poster comprising a montage of photographs, with the lyrics of the songs on the back, and a set of four photographic portraits taken by John Kelly during the autumn of 1968 that have themselves become iconic. The photographs for the poster were assembled by Hamilton and McCartney, and sorted them in a variety of ways over several days before arriving at the final result.
Tape versions of the album did not feature a white cover. Instead, cassette and 8-track versions (issued on two cassettes/cartridges in early 1969) contained cover artwork that featured high contrast black and white (with no grey) versions of the four Kelly photographs. A reel-to-reel tape release of the album by Ampex (in two separate volumes, and again using the Kelly cover artwork) features edits on eight tracks.
During 1978 and 1979, for the album's tenth anniversary, EMI reissued the album pressed on limited edition white vinyl in several countries. In 1981, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) issued a unique half-speed master variation of the album using the sound from the original master recording. The discs were pressed on high-quality virgin vinyl.
The album was reissued, along with the rest of the Beatles catalogue, on compact disc in 1987. it was reissued again on CD in 1998 as part of a 30th anniversary series for EMI, featuring a scaled-down replication of the original artwork. This was part of a reissue series from EMI that included albums from other artists such as the Rolling Stones and Roxy Music.
A painting of the band by John Byrne was at an earlier point under consideration to be used as the album's cover. The piece was later used for the sleeve of the compilation album The Beatles' Ballads, released in 1980. In 2012 the original artwork was put up for auction.
Critical receptionThe Beatles has generated a wide range of critical responses. Upon its original release in 1968, it received mixed reviews from music critics, most of whom viewed its mild, playful satire as unimportant and conservative. Time magazine wrote that it showcases the "best abilities and worst tendencies" of the Beatles, as it is skilfully performed and sophisticated, but lacks a "sense of taste and purpose". In his review for The New York Times, Nik Cohn considered the album "boring beyond belief" and said that over half of its songs are "profound mediocrities". Critics also complained about a lack of unity among the songs and the New Left criticised the Beatles for using eclecticism and pastiche as a means of avoiding important issues during a turbulent political and social climate. Jon Landau, writing for the Liberation News Service, argued that the band uses parody because they are "afraid of confronting reality" and "the urgencies of the moment". In a 1971 column, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice said that the album is both "their most consistent and probably their worst", and referred to its songs as a "pastiche of musical exercises". Nonetheless, he ranked it as the tenth best album of 1968 in his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll.
In a positive contemporary review for The Observer, Tony Palmer wrote that, "if there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest songwriters since Schubert," the album "should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making". Richard Goldstein of The New York Times considered the double album to be "a major success" and "far more imaginative" than Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour due to the band's improved songwriting and their relying less on the studio tricks of those earlier works. In The Sunday Times, Derek Jewell hailed it as "the best thing in pop since Sgt. Pepper" and concluded: "Musically, there is beauty, horror, surprise, chaos, order. And that is the world; and that is what The Beatles are on about. Created by, creating for, their age." The NMEs Alan Smith derided "Revolution #9" as a "pretentious" example of "idiot immaturity", but declared "God Bless You, Beatles!" to the majority of the album. Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone called it "the history and synthesis of Western music", and the group's best album yet. Wenner contended that they were allowed to appropriate other styles and traditions into rock music because their ability and identity were "so strong that they make it uniquely theirs, and uniquely the Beatles. They are so good that they not only expand the idiom, but they are also able to penetrate it and take it further."The Beatles has since been regarded favourably by critics. A 2004 BBC News report ranked the album as one of the best ever made. The Daily Telegraphs Neil McCormick also viewed it as such and wrote in a retrospective review that even its worst songs work within the context of such an eclectic and unconventional album. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that because the songs are so assorted, The Beatles can be "a frustratingly scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience, depending on your view". Rob Sheffield wrote in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) that despite "loads of self-indulgent filler", listeners often pick different highlights, which is "part of the fun". Slant Magazines Eric Henderson claimed that The Beatles remains one of the band's few albums that "resists reflexive canonisation, which, along with society's continued fragmentation, keeps the album fresh and surprising". In his review for The A.V. Club, Chuck Klosterman felt that the album found the band at their best and called it a masterpiece. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it at number 10 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. On the 40th anniversary of the album's release, Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano wrote that it "remains a type of magical musical anthology: 30 songs you can go through and listen to at will, certain of finding some pearls that even today remain unparalleled." In 2011, Kerrang! put the album at number 49 on a list of "The 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time". The magazine praised the guitar work in "Helter Skelter".
Cultural responses
According to MacDonald, the lyrics on The Beatles progressed from being vague to open-ended and prone to misinterpretation, such as "Glass Onion" (e.g., "the walrus was Paul") and "Piggies" ("what they need's a damn good whacking"). Other artists had been suspected of having hidden meanings in lyrics, but the counterculture of the 1960s analysed The Beatles above and beyond earlier releases. The sociologist Michael A. Katovich writes that the album's release "engendered a collective appreciation of it as a 'state-of-the-art' rendition of the current pop, rock, and folk-rock sounds". According to Ian Inglis, the wide range of styles on The Beatles has led to the work being recognised as "popular music's first postmodern album".
Lennon's lyrics on "Revolution 1" were misinterpreted with messages he did not intend. In the album version, he advises those who "talk about destruction" to "count me out". As MacDonald notes, however, Lennon then follows the sung word "out" with the spoken word "in". At the time of the album's release – which followed, chronologically, the up-tempo single version of the song, "Revolution" – that single word "in" was taken by the radical political left as Lennon's endorsement of politically motivated violence, which followed the May 1968 Paris riots. However, the album version was recorded first.
Charles Manson first heard the album not long after it was released. He had already claimed to find hidden meanings in songs from earlier Beatles albums, but in The Beatles he interpreted prophetic significance in several of the songs, including "Blackbird", "Piggies" (particularly the line "what they need's a damn good whacking"), "Helter Skelter", "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9", and interpreted the lyrics as a sign of imminent violence or war. He played the album repeatedly to his followers, the Manson family, and convinced them that it was an apocalyptic message predicting an uprising of oppressed races, drawing parallels with chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation.
In early 2013, the Recess Gallery in New York City's SoHo neighbourhood presented We Buy White Albums, an installation by artist Rutherford Chang. The piece was in the form of a record store in which nothing but original pressings of the LP was on display. Chang created a recording in which the sounds of one hundred copies of side one of the LP were overlaid.
Commercial performance
As it was their first studio album in almost eighteen months (and coming after the success of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) expectations were high at the time of the release of The Beatles. The album debuted at number 1 in the UK on 7 December 1968. It spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts (including the entire competitive Christmas season), until it was replaced by the Seekers' Best of the Seekers on 25 January 1969, dropping to number 2. However, the album returned to the top spot the next week, spending an eighth and final week at number 1. The album was still high in the charts when the Beatles' follow-up album, Yellow Submarine was released, which reached number 3. In all, The Beatles spent 22 weeks on the UK charts, far fewer than the 149 weeks for Sgt. Pepper. In September 2013 after the British Phonographic Industry changed their sales award rules, the album was declared as having gone platinum, meaning sales of at least 300,000 copies.
In the United States, the album achieved huge commercial success. Capitol Records sold over 3.3 million copies of the White Album to stores within the first four days of the album's release. It debuted at number 11 on 14 December 1968, jumped to number 2, and reached number 1 in its third week on 28 December, spending a total of nine weeks at the top. In all, The Beatles spent 155 weeks on the Billboard 200. The album has sold over 9.5 million copies in the United States alone and according to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is the Beatles' most-certified album at 19-times platinum.
Track listing
Personnel
The Beatles
John Lennon – lead, harmony and background vocals; acoustic, lead, rhythm and bass guitars; piano, Hammond organ, harmonium, Mellotron; harmonica, tenor saxophone; extra drums and assorted percussion (tambourine, handclaps and vocal percussion), tapes, tape loops and sound effects (electronic and home-made)
Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and background vocals; acoustic, lead, rhythm and bass guitars; acoustic and electric pianos, Hammond organ; assorted percussion (timpani, tambourine, cowbell, hand shake bell, handclaps, foot taps and vocal percussion); drums (on "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Dear Prudence", "Wild Honey Pie" and "Martha My Dear"); recorder and flugelhorn;
George Harrison – lead, harmony and background vocals; lead, rhythm, acoustic and bass guitars; Hammond organ (on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"); extra drums and assorted percussion (tambourine, handclaps and vocal percussion) and sound effects
Ringo Starr – drums and assorted percussion (tambourine, bongos, cymbals, maracas and vocal percussion); piano and sleigh bell (on "Don't Pass Me By"); lead vocals (on "Don't Pass Me By" and "Good Night") and backing vocals (on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill")
Guest musicians
Eric Clapton – lead guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
Mal Evans – backing vocals and handclaps on "Dear Prudence", handclaps on "Birthday", trumpet on "Helter Skelter"
Jack Fallon – violin on "Don't Pass Me By"
Pattie Harrison – backing vocals on "Birthday"
Jackie Lomax – backing vocals and handclaps on "Dear Prudence"
Maureen Starkey – backing vocals on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
Yoko Ono – backing vocals, lead vocals and handclaps on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", backing vocals on "Birthday", speech, tapes and sound effects on "Revolution 9"
Session musicians
Ted Barker – trombone on "Martha My Dear"
Leon Calvert – trumpet and flugelhorn on "Martha My Dear"
Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman and Ronald Thomas – violin on "Glass Onion"
Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Soufier and Les Maddox – violin on "Martha My Dear"
Reginald Kilby – cello on "Glass Onion" and "Martha My Dear"
Eldon Fox – cello on "Glass Onion"
Frederick Alexander – cello on "Martha My Dear"
Harry Klein – saxophone on "Savoy Truffle" and "Honey Pie"
Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chest and Rex Morris – saxophone on "Honey Pie"
Raymond Newman and David Smith – clarinet on "Honey Pie"
Art Ellefson, Danny Moss and Derek Collins – tenor sax on "Savoy Truffle"
Ronnie Ross and Bernard George – baritone sax on "Savoy Truffle"
Alf Reece – tuba on "Martha My Dear"
The Mike Sammes Singers – backing vocals on "Good Night"
Stanley Reynolds and Ronnie Hughes – trumpet on "Martha My Dear"
Chris Shepard – stumpf fiddle on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
Tony Tunstall – French horn on "Martha My Dear"
John Underwood and Keith Cummings – viola on "Glass Onion"
Leo Birnbaum and Henry Myerscough – viola on "Martha My Dear"
Production team
Geoff Emerick – engineer, speech on "Revolution 9"
George Martin – producer, executive producer; string, brass, clarinet, orchestral arrangements and conducting; piano on "Rocky Raccoon"
Ken Scott – engineer and mixer
Barry Sheffield – engineer (Trident Studio)
Chris Thomas – producer; Mellotron on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", harpsichord on "Piggies", piano on "Long, Long, Long", electric piano, organ and saxophone arrangement on "Savoy Truffle"
Certifications
Charts
Weekly charts
Original release
1987 reissue
2009 reissue
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Release history
See also
List of best-selling albums in the United States
Karlheinz Stockhausen
References
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
External links
The Beatles White Album (Website dedicated to The Beatles'')
The Beatles on The Beatles Bible
Category:1968 albums
Category:Albums produced by George Martin
Category:Albums recorded at Abbey Road Studios
Category:Albums recorded at Trident Studios
Category:Apple Records albums
Category:The Beatles albums
Category:Capitol Records albums
Category:English-language albums
Category:Albums arranged by George Martin
Category:Albums conducted by George Martin |
2016-01 | Detroit_Pistons-697679507 | Detroit_Pistons | Detroit Pistons
The Detroit Pistons are an American professional basketball team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Metro Detroit. The Pistons compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Eastern Conference Central Division. The team plays its home games at The Palace of Auburn Hills. In 1941, the team was founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana as the Fort Wayne (Zollner) Pistons, a member of the National Basketball League (NBL). The Pistons joined the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1948. In 1949, the NBL and BAA merged to become the NBA, and the Pistons became part of the merged league. Since moving to Detroit in 1957, the Pistons have won three (3) NBA championships: in 1989, 1990 and 2004.
Franchise history
1941–1957: The Fort Wayne (Zollner) Pistons
The Detroit Pistons' franchise was founded as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, a National Basketball League (NBL) team, playing in the gym of North Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Owners Fred Zollner and his sister Janet's Zollner Corporation was a foundry, manufacturing pistons, primarily for car, truck and locomotive engines. Fred Zollner, who currently owns a professional softball team known as the Zollner Piston softball team, was eventually persuaded to start a basketball team due to the fact that Indiana was so basketball minded. The Zollner Pistons were NBL champions in 1944 and 1945. They also won the World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1944, 1945 and 1946.
In 1948, the team became the Fort Wayne Pistons, competing in the Basketball Association of America (BAA). In 1949, Fred Zollner brokered the formation of the National Basketball Association from the BAA and the NBL at his kitchen table.
There are suggestions that Pistons players conspired with gamblers to shave points and throw various games during the 1953–54 and 1954–55 seasons. In particular, there are accusations that the team may have intentionally lost the 1955 NBA Finals to the Syracuse Nationals. In the decisive Game 7, the Pistons led Syracuse 41–24 early in the second quarter, then the Nationals rallied to win the game. Syracuse won on a free throw by George King with twelve seconds left in the game. The closing moments included a palming turnover by the Pistons' George Yardley with 18 seconds left, a foul by Frankie Brian with 12 seconds left that enabled King's winning free throw, and a turnover by the Pistons' Andy Phillip with three seconds left which cost Fort Wayne a chance to attempt the game-winning shot.
1957–1979: Decades of struggle
Though the Pistons enjoyed a solid local following, Fort Wayne's small size made it difficult for them to be profitable, especially as other early NBA teams based in smaller cities started folding or relocating to larger markets. After the 1956-57 season, Zollner decided that Fort Wayne was too small to support an NBA team and announced the team would be playing elsewhere in the coming season. He ultimately settled on Detroit. Although it was the fifth largest city in the United States at the time, Detroit had not seen professional basketball in a decade. In 1947, they had lost the Detroit Gems of the NBL (whose remnants became the Minneapolis Lakers), and the Detroit Falcons of the BAA. Zollner decided to keep the Pistons name, believing it made sense given Detroit's status as the center of the automobile industry.
The new Detroit Pistons played in Olympia Stadium (home of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings at the time) for their first four seasons, then moved to Cobo Arena. The franchise was a consistent disappointment, struggling both on the court and at the box office.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Pistons were characterized by very strong individuals and weak teams. In fact, in their first 27 years in Detroit, they only had three winning seasons. Some of the superstars who played for the team included Dave DeBusschere, Dave Bing, Jimmy Walker, and Bob Lanier.
At one point DeBusschere was the youngest player-coach in the history of the NBA. Unfortunately, an ill-timed trade during the 1968 season sent the popular home grown DeBusschere to the New York Knicks for Howard Komives and Walt Bellamy, both of whom were in the later stages of their careers. DeBusschere became the key player that then led the Knicks to two NBA titles. The Dave Bing and Bob Lanier era did have some solid and exciting years but they were handicapped by being in the same division as the Milwaukee Bucks, which had a young Lew Alcindor and the Chicago Bulls, which likewise had some very strong players.
In 1974, Zollner sold the team to glass magnate Bill Davidson, who remained the team's principal owner until his death on March 14, 2009. Davidson was displeased with Cobo Arena, but opted not to follow the NHL's Detroit Red Wings to the under-construction Joe Louis Arena. Instead, Davidson moved them to the suburb of Pontiac in 1978, where they played in the mammoth Silverdome, a structure built for professional football (and the home of the Detroit Lions at the time).
1979–1994: The Bad Boys era
The Pistons stumbled their way out of the 1970s and into the 1980s, beginning with a 16–66 record in 1979–80 and following up with a 21–61 record in 1980–81. The 1979–80 team lost its last 14 games of the season which, when coupled with the seven losses at the start of the 1980–81 season, comprised a then-NBA record losing streak of 21 games (since broken).
The franchise's fortunes finally began to turn in 1981, when it drafted point guard Isiah Thomas from Indiana University. In early 1982, the Pistons acquired center Bill Laimbeer in a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers and guard Vinnie Johnson from the Seattle SuperSonics. The three would remain together for a decade, forming much of the core of a team that would rise to the top of the league.
Initially the Pistons had a tough time moving up the NBA ladder. In 1984, the Pistons lost a tough five-game series to the underdog New York Knicks, three games to two. In the 1985 playoffs, Detroit won its first-round series and faced the defending champion Boston Celtics in the conference semifinals. Though Boston would prevail in six games, Detroit's surprise performance promised that a rivalry had begun. In the 1985 NBA draft, the team selected Joe Dumars 18th overall, a selection that would prove very wise. They also acquired Rick Mahorn in a trade with the Washington Bullets. However, the team initially took a step backward, losing in the first round of the 1986 playoffs to the more athletic Atlanta Hawks. After the series, Coach Chuck Daly and team captain Thomas decided that their best chance to seize control of the Eastern Conference would be through a more aggressive style of play.
Prior to the 1986–87 season, the Pistons acquired more key players: John Salley (drafted 11th overall), Dennis Rodman (drafted 27th) and Adrian Dantley (acquired in a trade with the Utah Jazz). The team adopted a physical, defense-oriented style of play, which eventually earned them the nickname "Bad Boys". In 1987, the team reached the Eastern Conference Finals—the first time it had advanced that far since 1961—against the Celtics. After pushing the defending champions to a 2–2 tie, the Pistons were on the verge of winning Game 5 at the Boston Garden with seconds remaining. After a Celtics' turnover, Thomas attempted to quickly inbound the ball and missed Daly's timeout signal from the bench (the NBA had not yet instituted the rule that allowed coaches to call timeout themselves). Larry Bird stole the inbound pass and passed it to Dennis Johnson for the game-winning layup. While the Pistons would win Game 6 in Detroit, they would lose the series in a tough Game 7 back in Boston.
Motivated by their loss to the Celtics, the 1988 Pistons, aided by midseason acquisition James Edwards, improved to a then-franchise-record 54 victories and the franchise's first division title in 33 years. In the postseason, the Pistons avenged their two previous playoff losses to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, defeating them in six games and advancing to the NBA Finals for the first time since the franchise moved to Detroit.
The Pistons' first trip to the Finals in 33 years saw them face the Los Angeles Lakers, who were led by Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After taking a 3–2 series lead back to Los Angeles, Detroit appeared poised to win their first NBA title in Game 6. In that game, Isiah Thomas scored an NBA Finals record 25 points in the third quarter while playing on a severely sprained ankle. However, the Lakers won the game, 103–102, on a pair of last-minute free throws by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar following a controversial foul called on Bill Laimbeer, referred to by many Piston supporters, and Laimbeer himself, as a "phantom foul". With Isiah Thomas unable to compete at full strength, the Pistons narrowly fell in Game 7, 108–105.
Prior to the 1988–89 season, the Pistons moved to Auburn Hills to play at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The 1989 Pistons completed the building of their roster by trading Dantley for Mark Aguirre, a trade that Piston fans would criticize heavily initially, but later praise. The team won 63 games, shattering their one-year-old franchise record, and steamrolled through the playoffs and into an NBA Finals rematch with the Lakers. This time the Pistons came out victorious in a four-game sweep to win their first NBA championship. Joe Dumars was named NBA Finals MVP.
The Pistons successfully defended their title in 1990, despite losing Mahorn to the Timberwolves in the expansion draft. After winning 59 games and a third straight division title, the Pistons cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs before playing a tough Eastern Conference Finals series against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Facing each other for the third straight season, the Pistons and Bulls split the first six games before the Pistons finished the series with a decisive 93–74 victory in Game 7. Advancing to their third consecutive NBA Finals, the Pistons faced the Portland Trail Blazers. After splitting the first two games at The Palace, the Pistons went to Portland, where they had not won a game since 1974, to play Games 3, 4 and 5. The Pistons summarily won all three games in Portland, becoming the first NBA team to sweep the middle three games on the road. The decisive game came down to the final second. Trailing 90–83 with two minutes remaining, the Pistons rallied to tie the game, then took a 92–90 lead when Vinnie Johnson sank an 18-foot jumper with 00.7 seconds left in the game; this shot earned Johnson a new nickname in Detroit, "007", to go with his original, "The Microwave". Isiah Thomas was named NBA Finals MVP.
The Pistons' championship run came to an end in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, as the Pistons were swept by the eventual NBA champion Chicago Bulls, 4 games to 0. The most critical Piston injury belonged to Isiah Thomas who had surgery on his wrist just prior to the NBA Playoffs. The Conference Finals were best remembered for the Pistons walking off court in the last game just before it ended, unwilling to shake hands with the Bulls. After the series, Jordan said he was "shocked that Isiah didn't play as hard". Following this, the franchise went through a lengthy transitional period, as key players either retired (Laimbeer in 1993 and Thomas in 1994) or were traded (Edwards, Johnson, Salley and Rodman among others). The team quickly declined, bottoming out in the 1993–94 season when they finished 20–62.
1994–2000: The Grant Hill era
The team's fortunes improved after that season, but the rebuilding process soon sputtered. As a result of the poor finish in the 1994 season, the Pistons were able to draft Grant Hill, a promising small forward. However, this period also saw the team make numerous questionable personnel decisions, such as the loss of free agent Allan Houston to the New York Knicks, the signing of free agent wash-outs Christian Laettner, Loy Vaught, Cedric Ceballos, and Bison Dele; and head coaching changes from Ron Rothstein to Don Chaney to Doug Collins to Alvin Gentry to George Irvine in an eight-year span. Of those coaches, only Collins had any sort of success with the Pistons, winning 54 games in the 1996–97 season. The franchise even changed its team colors in 1996 from its traditional red, white, and blue to teal, burgundy, gold and black in what proved to be a highly unpopular move with fans. This period has become known, often derisively, as the "teal era".
2000–2008: Return to championship contention
2000–2002: Building a contender
After being swept by the Miami Heat in the 2000 playoffs, Joe Dumars (who had retired following the 1999 season) was hired as the team's president of basketball operations. He quickly faced what appeared to be a setback for the franchise, as Grant Hill elected to leave the team for the Orlando Magic. However, Dumars managed to work a sign and trade with Orlando that brought the Pistons Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins in exchange for Hill. Both quickly entered the Pistons' starting lineup, and Wallace would develop into an All-Star in the coming years. Conversely, Hill would play only 47 games in the following four seasons due to a recurring ankle injury.
The Pistons suffered through another tough season in 2000–01, going 32–50 despite Jerry Stackhouse averaging 29.8 points a game. After the season, Dumars fired Irvine and hired Rick Carlisle, a widely respected assistant coach who had been a tough substitute contributor for the Celtics during the mid-1980s. In 2001, the franchise also adopted a modified version of its traditional red-white-and-blue scheme.
Carlisle helped lead the Pistons to their first 50-win season since 1997, and their first playoff series victory since 1991 by defeating the Toronto Raptors in five games, they would however lose to the Boston Celtics five games.
2003–2008: Six consecutive Eastern Conference Finals
In the 2002 offseason, Dumars revamped the Pistons' roster by signing free agent Chauncey Billups, acquiring Richard "Rip" Hamilton from the Washington Wizards, and by drafting Tayshaun Prince from Kentucky. The Pistons posted consecutive 50-win seasons and advanced to the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals, for the first time since 1991. There, however, they were swept in four games by the New Jersey Nets.
Despite the team's improvement, Carlisle was fired in the 2003 off-season. There were believed to be five reasons for the firing: first, that Carlisle had appeared reluctant to play some of the team's younger players, such as Prince and Mehmet Okur, during the regular season, which had upset Dumars; second, that some of the players (notably Wallace) had not gotten along with Carlisle; third, that Carlisle's offense was thought to be conservative; fourth, that Hall of Famer Larry Brown had become available; and finally fifth, that Carlisle was rumored to be interested in the Pacers head coaching job during the Pistons' 2003 playoff run. Brown accepted the job that summer and Carlisle landed the job in Indiana as expected.
The Pistons' transformation into a championship team was completed with the February 2004 acquisition of Rasheed Wallace. The Pistons now had another big man to pose a threat from all parts of the court. The Pistons finished the season 54–28, recording their best record since 1997. In the 2004 playoffs, after defeating the Milwaukee Bucks in five games, they defeated the defending Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Nets in seven games after coming back from a 3–2 deficit. Detroit then defeated the Pacers, coached by Carlisle, in six tough games to advance to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1990. Many analysts gave the Pistons little chance to win against their opponents, the Los Angeles Lakers, who had won three out of the previous four NBA championships, and who fielded a star-studded lineup that included Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Gary Payton and Karl Malone. However, the Pistons won the series in dominating fashion, defeating Los Angeles in five games for the team's third NBA Championship. The Pistons posted double-digit wins in three of their four victories, and held the Lakers to a franchise-low 68 points in Game 3. Chauncey Billups was named NBA Finals MVP. With the win, Bill Davidson became the first (and to this date, the only) owner to win both NBA and NHL championships in the same year, having won the Stanley Cup as owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Despite losing key members of their bench during the off-season (including Okur, Mike James and Corliss Williamson), the Pistons were considered a strong contender to win a second consecutive title in 2005. They won 54 games during the regular season, their fourth consecutive season of 50 or more wins. During the 2005 playoffs, they easily defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 4–1 and then rallied from a 2–1 deficit to finish off the Indiana Pacers, 4–2. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons faced the Miami Heat. Once again, Detroit fell behind, but won the Eastern Conference Championship in seven games. In the NBA Finals, the Pistons faced the San Antonio Spurs. In the first NBA Finals Game 7 since 1994, the Pistons lost a hard-fought game with the Spurs, who won their third NBA championship since 1999.
The Pistons' 2004–05 season was marked by a major controversy, as well as distracting issues involving Larry Brown. In the first month of the season, a Pacers–Pistons brawl erupted, one of the largest fan-player incidents in the history of American sports. It resulted in heavy fines and suspensions for several players, and a great deal of NBA and media scrutiny. Meanwhile, Brown was forced to leave the team on two occasions due to health concerns, and also became involved in a series of rumors linking him to other job openings. Concerned about Brown's health, and angered over his alleged pursuit of other jobs during the season, the Pistons bought out his contract soon after the 2005 NBA Finals. Brown was promptly named head coach of the New York Knicks, and the Pistons hired Flip Saunders, formerly of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
During the 2005–06 season, the Pistons recorded the NBA's best overall record. Their 37–5 start exceeded the best start for any Detroit sports franchise in history and tied for the second-best 42-game start in NBA history. Four of the five Piston starters, Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace, were named to the All-Star team, and Flip Saunders served as the Eastern Conference All-Star team coach. The Pistons finished the regular season with a record of 64–18, setting new franchise records for both overall and road victories (27). In addition, the team set an NBA record by starting the same lineup in 73 consecutive games from the start of the season.
The top-seeded Pistons defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 4–1 in the first round of the 2006 NBA Playoffs, but struggled in the second round against the Cleveland Cavaliers, falling behind 3–2 before winning in seven games. Things did not improve against second-seeded Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. Miami defeated the Pistons in six games en route to the 2006 NBA championship.
During the 2006 off-season, the Pistons offered Ben Wallace a four-year, $48 million contract which would have made him the highest-paid Piston ever. However, Wallace agreed to a 4-year, $60 million contract with the Chicago Bulls.
To replace Ben Wallace, the Pistons signed Nazr Mohammed as a center. He struggled to fill the team's void at center, however, and the team began looking for additional help. On January 17, the Pistons signed Chris Webber, who had become a free agent. The Pistons quickly began playing better basketball and, according to Newsday, started "to get their swagger back". The Pistons were only 21–15 before Webber was acquired; with him, the team went 32–14. On April 11, the Pistons clinched the best record in the Eastern Conference, which guaranteed them home-court advantage for first three rounds of the playoffs.
The Pistons opened the 2007 NBA Playoffs with a 4–0 victory over the Orlando Magic, their first playoff series sweep since 1990. The team advanced to face the Chicago Bulls, marking the first time that the Central Division rivals had met in the postseason since 1991. After winning the first two games by 26 and 21 points, the Pistons overcame a 19-point deficit to win Game 3, 81–74. Chicago avoided elimination by winning Games 4 and 5, but the Pistons closed out the series, 95–85, in Game 6. They advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for the fifth consecutive time (equaling their streak from 1987–1991)— three short of the NBA record set by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons won games 1 and 2, but lost 4 in a row to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In the 2007 NBA draft the Pistons selected Rodney Stuckey as the 15th overall pick and Arron Afflalo as the 27th overall pick. They also re-signed Chauncey Billups to a long-term contract, as well as re-signing top prospect Amir Johnson and key reserve Antonio McDyess. This season marked the 50th anniversary of the franchise in Detroit.
At the start of the 2008 season, Rasheed Wallace became the Pistons' new center. Upon entering his third season as Pistons coach, Saunders became the longest-tenured Pistons coach since Chuck Daly's nine-year tenure (1983–92). Detroit finished the season 59–23, with the second-best record in the league. The Boston Celtics held the first seed, and many speculated that Boston was their main competition in the Eastern Conference. In the 2008 NBA Playoffs, Detroit started out poorly with a Game 1 loss to the seventh-seeded Philadelphia 76ers and found themselves in a 2-games-to-1 deficit. But the Pistons rallied to defeat the Sixers in six games.
Meanwhile, in the 2008 NBA Playoffs, Detroit rolled out to a Game 1 romp of the Orlando Magic, and won a tight Game 2 amid mild controversy. At the very end of the third quarter, Chauncey Billups hit a three-point field goal that gave the Pistons a three-point lead. However, the clock had stopped shortly into the play. League rules currently prohibit officials from using both instant replay and a timing device to measure how much time has elapsed when a clock malfunctions, nor is a replay from the time of the malfunction onward allowed. The officials estimated that the play took 4.6 seconds, and since there were 5.1 seconds remaining when it began, the field goal was counted. The NBA later admitted that the play actually took 5.7 seconds and the basket should not have counted.
In addition to losing Game 3 badly, 111–86, the Pistons also lost all-star point guard and team leader Chauncey Billups to a hamstring injury. Despite his absence, the Pistons rallied from 15 down in the third quarter to win Game 4 90–89, on a field goal by Tayshaun Prince with just 8.9 seconds to play, taking a 3–1 series lead. Again with Billups sitting on the sideline, they then proceeded to win Game 5 in Detroit, winning the series 4 games to 1.
Detroit advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth straight season, squaring off against the Boston Celtics. This put the Pistons second on the all-time list of most consecutive conference final appearances, only behind the Los Angeles Lakers who appeared in 8 straight conference finals from the 1981–82 to 1988–89 seasons. They lost Game 1 88–79, but won in game two on the road, 103–97 (marking Boston's first home court loss in the 2008 postseason). Immediately following that, the Celtics won their first road playoff game of the post-season, 94–80, in game three. Game four saw the Pistons win 94–75. In the pivotal fifth game, they lost 106–102, despite rallying from 18 points down late in the game. In Game 6, the Pistons entered the fourth quarter leading 70–60, but a lack of focus, a poor game from Rasheed Wallace, and a rally-killing turnover by Tayshaun Prince ultimately led to their demise; the Pistons ended their season with an 89–81 loss. The postgame interview was notable for Wallace, possibly knowing Dumars would soon break up the core of the team, saying simply, "It's over, man." After that, the Celtics went on to win the 2008 NBA Finals. On June 3, 2008, the Pistons announced that head coach Flip Saunders would not return as head coach for the 2008–09 regular season.
2008–2011: Failed express rebuilding
In November 2008, the Pistons traded its key members Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess for Allen Iverson. McDyess was later waived on November 10 and rejoined the Pistons on December 9, 2008. This Billups/Iverson trade was marked as a start of a new rebuilding process because of Iverson's free agent status at the end of the season.
The season was marked with many controversies and injuries. As a result of that, and poor play, the Pistons dropped down the standings, only clinching a playoff berth on April 10, 2009, good for the #8 seed at 39–43, their first losing season in 7 years. The Pistons were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games in the first round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs. It was the first time the Pistons had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs since 2000. Iverson left the team at the end of the season.
In the 2009/2010 offseason, Dumars reached an agreement with the former Bulls guard Ben Gordon on a 5 year/$55 million contract, as well as an agreement with former Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva on a 5-year contract worth $35 million. That same month, the Pistons lost their two key members during the last few years, veterans Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess. On July 8, 2009, Dumars hired former Cavaliers assistant coach John Kuester to be the Pistons new head coach. Kuester was, same as his predecessor Michael Curry, a debutant on the NBA head coach position.
The Pistons signed back their former player and former defensive player of the year, center Ben Wallace, before the 2009–2010 season.
Despite these changes, the team regressed even further, hampered by injuries to key players. On March 23, 2010, the Pistons were eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the Indiana Pacers, assuring their first Draft Lottery appearance and their first 50-loss season since 2001. The Pistons finished with a 27–55 record, and were last in the Central Division. It was their worst record since 1994. Another 50-loss season, this time finishing at 30–52, led to the firing of Kuester at the end of the 2010–11 season.
2011–present: New ownership; more struggling
On April 7, 2011, the Detroit Pistons reached a long awaited agreement to sell the NBA franchise to billionaire Tom Gores. The deal was granted by NBA in June and also included The Palace of Auburn Hills and DTE Energy Music Theatre. According to Crain's Detroit Business, the final sale price was $325 million, far lower than expected.
Prior to the 2011–12 season, the team decided to hire a new coach, Lawrence Frank, former head coach of the New Jersey Nets and an assistant coach of the Boston Celtics. The 2011–12 season was an improvement from previous years for the Pistons, although they still posted a losing record. While they started the season 4–20, they managed to win half their remaining games to finish a lockout-shortened season with a record of 25–41. The team continued to build its young core with the drafting of the talented center Andre Drummond.
Following the 2012–13 season, coach Lawrence Frank was fired on April 18, 2013, after two losing seasons, and on June 10, 2013, the Pistons hired former player and coach, Maurice Cheeks. His tenure lasted for just a bit more than half a season, and he was replaced with interim coach John Loyer. In April the Detroit Pistons announced that Joe Dumars would step down as President of Basketball Operations, yet remain as an advisor to the organization and its ownership team, and on May 14, 2014, Stan Van Gundy was hired. The former Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic coach, signed a 5-year, $35 million contract to become the head coach and President of Basketball Operations for the team.
After starting the 2014–15 season with a 5–23 record, the Pistons waived Josh Smith, who was acquired in summer of 2013. The team went on a lengthy winning streak, but would only finish the season with the 32-50 record after Brandon Jennings' Achilles injury.
Media coverage
Radio
The Pistons flagship radio station is WMGC-FM Detroit Sports 105.1 FM. They took over from WXYT-FM starting with the 2014-15 season. There are several affiliate stations throughout Michigan.
The regular radio announcers are Mark Champion with play-by-play and Rick Mahorn with color commentary.
TV
The Pistons' current exclusive local television rights holder is Fox Sports Detroit.
The regular TV announcers are George Blaha with play-by-play, Greg Kelser with color commentary, Mateen Cleaves with studio analysis and Matt Shepard with sideline reports.
Uniforms
After moving from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Detroit in 1957, the Pistons' uniforms remained largely unchanged for two decades, featuring the word "Pistons" in blue block lettering. In the 1978–79 season, the team featured a uniform with lightning bolts on the sides and in the wordmark on the front of the jerseys. The team ditched the lightning bolt theme and returned to its classic block lettering and simple side panel pattern in 1981, staying with this look until 1996. That year, the Pistons changed its colors to teal, black, yellow and red, and unveiled a new logo with a horse's head and flaming mane. This uniform pattern lasted until 2001, when the team returned to the traditional red, white and blue colors, and a uniform pattern taking cues from the 1981–96 threads.
On August 14, 2013, the Pistons unveiled a new alternate uniform, with navy blue and red colors. It featured the words "Motor City" across the front and mark the club’s first alternative look since the 2005-06 NBA season. The uniforms are the first of their kind, designed to celebrate the pride and character of metro Detroit while paying homage to the region’s automotive roots. The team said in its press release that it "worked in consultation with adidas and the NBA in development of the uniforms. Lettering and numbering style on the jersey is consistent with the team’s current home and away uniforms. To contrast the navy blue and red accents, lettering and numbers on the jerseys and shorts are white with hair-line red and blue trim. The club’s secondary logo appears on the shorts – similar to the primary home and away uniforms."
On October 4, 2015, the Pistons unveiled a new alternate pride uniform, intended to be worn during the 2015–16 NBA season. The team said in a press release that "the inspiration for the Detroit Chrome jerseys came about as a way to honor our coolest cars from the past and the cars of the future. Detroit is universally known as the auto capitol of the world, where chrome leaves an indelible mark on the cars we create. The uniforms feature a matte chrome base color with clean simple lines inspired by the classic muscle cars that have roared up and down Woodward Avenue for decades. The navy trim and Detroit emblazoned across the chest represent the blue collar work ethic that the auto industry and region was built on."
Mascots
Season-by-season records
Home arenas
When based in Fort Wayne, Indiana:
North Side High School Gym (1948–1952)
Allen County War Memorial Coliseum (1952–1957)
In the Detroit area:
Olympia Stadium (1957–1961)
Cobo Arena (1961–1978)
Pontiac Silverdome (1978–1988)
The Palace of Auburn Hills (1988–present)
Notes:
March 12, 1960, the Pistons hosted a playoff game against the Minneapolis Lakers at Grosse Pointe High School when no other facility was available.
April 27, 1984, the Pistons played Game 5 of their playoff series against New York in Joe Louis Arena due to a scheduling conflict.
During the 1984–85 season, the Silverdome's roof collapsed, causing the team to temporarily relocate to Joe Louis Arena (for 15 home games) and back to Cobo Arena (for one game).
Players
Current roster
Recent NBA draft selections
2015: Stanley Johnson (Round 1, pick 8); Darrun Hilliard (Round 2, pick 38)
2014: Spencer Dinwiddie (Round 2, pick 38)
2013: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Round 1, pick 8); Tony Mitchell (Round 2, pick 37); Peyton Siva (Round 2, pick 56)
2012: Andre Drummond (Round 1, pick 9); Khris Middleton (Round 2, pick 39); Kim English (Round 2, pick 44)
2011: Brandon Knight (Round 1, pick 8); Kyle Singler (Round 2, pick 33); Vernon Macklin (Round 2, pick 52)
2010: Greg Monroe (Round 1, pick 7); Terrico White (Round 2, pick 36)
2009: Austin Daye (Round 1, pick 15); DaJuan Summers (Round 2, pick 35); Jonas Jerebko (Round 2, pick 39); Chase Budinger (Round 2, pick 44)
Note: The rights to Budinger were traded to the Houston Rockets in exchange for the rights to future second round draft pick and cash considerations
2008: D. J. White (Round 1, pick 29); Deron Washington (Round 2, pick 59)
Note: The rights to White were traded to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for the rights to Seattle's draft picks Walter Sharpe (round 2, pick 32) and Trent Plaisted (round 2, pick 46)
2007: Rodney Stuckey (Round 1, pick 15); Arron Afflalo (Round 1, pick 27); Sammy Mejia (Round 2, pick 57)
2006: Will Blalock (Round 2, pick 60)
2005: Jason Maxiell (Round 1, pick 26); Amir Johnson (Round 2, pick 56); Alex Acker (Round 2, pick 60)
Retired numbers
All of the Pistons retired numbers are currently hanging in the rafters of The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Ben Wallace will have his #3 retired on January 16, 2016 and Chauncey Billups will have his #1 retired on February 10, 2016.
1 Never played in the NBA; number represents the two NBA championship teams he coached. 2 Also President of the team from 2000–2014. 3 Banner raised to honor his 35 years with the team. 4 Banner raised to honor his 13 years as the team's general manager. 5 Greg Monroe wore the number at the time of the announcement (2010-2015).Basketball Hall of Fame members
Players
Walt Bellamy, 1993
Dave Bing, 1990
Nathaniel Clifton, 2014
Adrian Dantley, 2008
Dave DeBusschere, 1983
Joe Dumars, 2006
Harry Gallatin, 1991
Bob Houbregs, 1987
Bailey Howell, 1997
Bob Lanier, 1992
Earl Lloyd, 2003*
Bob McAdoo, 2000
Bobby McDermott, 1988
Dick McGuire, 1993
Andy Phillip, 1961
Dennis Rodman, 2011
Isiah Thomas, 2000
George Yardley, 1996Lloyd was inducted as a contributor as the first African-American player and bench coach in the NBA.Coaches
Larry Brown (head coach), 2002
Chuck Daly (head coach), 1994
Dick Vitale (head coach), 2008*Vitale was inducted as a contributor for his career as a college basketball broadcaster.''
Front Office
William Davidson (owner), 2008
Fred Zollner (founder and owner), 1999
Bing, Daly, Davidson, DeBusschere, Dumars, Lanier, Thomas, Yardley and Zollner have also been inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
Head coaches
General managers
Fred Delano (1957–58)
W. Nicholas Kerbawy (1958–61)
Fran Smith (1961–64)
Don Wattrick (1964–66)
Edwin Coil (1966–75)
Oscar Feldman (1975–79)
Jack McCloskey (1979–92)
Billy McKinney (1992–95)
Rick Sund (1995–2000)
Joe Dumars (2000–14)
Jeff Bower (2014–)
Records
Franchise leaders
Career leaders
Games: Joe Dumars, 1,018
Minutes played: Isiah Thomas, 35,516
Field goals made: Isiah Thomas, 7,194
Field-goal attempts: Isiah Thomas, 15,904
3-point field goals made: Joe Dumars, 990
3-point field-goal attempts: Joe Dumars, 2,592
Free throws made: Isiah Thomas, 4,036
Free-throw attempts: Isiah Thomas, 5,316
Offensive rebounds: Bill Laimbeer, 2,429
Defensive rebounds: Bill Laimbeer, 7,001
Total rebounds: Bill Laimbeer, 9,430
Assists: Isiah Thomas, 9,061
Steals: Isiah Thomas, 1,861
Blocked shots: Ben Wallace, 2,001
Turnovers: Isiah Thomas, 3,682
Personal fouls: Bill Laimbeer, 3,131
Points: Isiah Thomas, 18,822
Per-game averages
Minutes played: Gene Shue, 39.52
Field goals made: Bob Lanier, 9.22
Field-goal attempts: Dave Bing, 19.44
3-point field goals made: Chauncey Billups, 2.01
3-point field-goal attempts: Chauncey Billups, 4.88
Free throws made: Jerry Stackhouse, 6.71
Free-throw attempts: Jerry Stackhouse, 8.13
Offensive rebounds: Dennis Rodman, 4.36
Defensive rebounds: Ben Wallace, 8.97
Total rebounds: Ben Wallace, 12.87
Assists: Kevin Porter, 10.11
Steals: Alvin Robertson, 2.13
Blocked shots: Ben Wallace, 2.76
Turnovers: Bob McAdoo, 4.00
Personal fouls: Walter Dukes, 4.21
Points: Bob Lanier, 22.74
Per 48 minutes
Field goals made: Bob Lanier, 12.23
Field-goal attempts: Don Kojis, 25.35
3-point field goals: Jon Barry, 2.89
3-point field-goal attempts: Chucky Atkins, 7.39
Free throws: Adrian Dantley, 9.93
Free-throw attempts: Adrian Dantley, 11.89
Offensive rebounds: Dennis Rodman, 7.03
Defensive rebounds: Ben Wallace, 11.80
Total rebounds: Walter Dukes, 20.78
Assists: Kevin Porter, 15.37
Steals: Ron Lee, 4.29
Blocked shots: Chuck Nevitt, 5.79
Turnovers: Greg Kelser, 5.57
Personal fouls: Chuck Nevitt, 12.70
Points: Bob Lanier, 30.17
Individual awards
NBA Finals MVP
Joe Dumars – 1989
Isiah Thomas – 1990
Chauncey Billups – 2004
NBA Defensive Player of the Year
Dennis Rodman – 1990, 1991
Ben Wallace – 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006
NBA Rookie of the Year
Don Meineke – 1953
Dave Bing – 1967
Grant Hill – 1995
NBA Sixth Man of the Year
Corliss Williamson – 2002
NBA Coach of the Year
Ray Scott – 1974
Rick Carlisle – 2002NBA Executive of the Year
Joe Dumars – 2003
All-NBA First Team
Larry Foust – 1955
George Yardley – 1958
Gene Shue – 1960
Dave Bing – 1968, 1971
Isiah Thomas – 1984, 1985, 1986
Grant Hill – 1997
All-NBA Second Team
Fred Schaus – 1950
Larry Foust – 1952
George Yardley – 1957
Gene Shue – 1961
Bailey Howell – 1963
Dave Debusschere – 1969
Dave Bing – 1974
Isiah Thomas – 1983, 1987
Joe Dumars – 1993
Grant Hill – 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000
Ben Wallace – 2003, 2004, 2006
Chauncey Billups – 2006
All-NBA Third Team
Joe Dumars – 1990, 1991
Dennis Rodman – 1992
Ben Wallace – 2002, 2005
Chauncey Billups – 2007
NBA Eastern All-Star Game head coach
Chuck Daly – 1990
Doug Collins – 1997
Flip Saunders – 2006
NBA All-Defensive First Team
Joe Dumars – 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993
Dennis Rodman – 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993
Ben Wallace – 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
NBA All-Defensive Second Team
M.L. Carr – 1979
Joe Dumars – 1991
Clifford Robinson – 2002
Chauncey Billups – 2005, 2006
Tayshaun Prince – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
NBA All-Rookie First Team
Dave Debusschere – 1963
Joe Caldwell – 1965
Tom Van Arsdale – 1966
Dave Bing – 1967
Bob Lanier – 1971
Terry Tyler – 1979
Isiah Thomas – 1982
Kelly Tripucka – 1982
Joe Dumars – 1986
Grant Hill – 1995
Brandon Knight – 2012
NBA All-Rookie Second Team
Lindsey Hunter – 1994
Željko Rebrača – 2002
Rodney Stuckey – 2008
Jonas Jerebko – 2010
Greg Monroe – 2011
Andre Drummond – 2013
Kyle Singler – 2013
Rivalries
Chicago Bulls
Boston Celtics
Los Angeles Lakers
References
Further reading
Profile at sportsecyclopedia
Profile at thedraftreview
Profile at nbahoopsonline
External links
Category:National Basketball Association teams
Category:Sports in Detroit, Michigan
Category:Basketball clubs established in 1941
Category:1941 establishments in Indiana |
2016-01 | Toronto_Raptors-696970058 | Toronto_Raptors | Toronto Raptors
The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto, Ontario. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. The team was established in 1995, along with the Vancouver Grizzlies, as part of the NBA's expansion into Canada. When the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis, Tennessee to become the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001, the Raptors became the only Canadian-based team in the NBA. They originally played their home games at the SkyDome (since renamed Rogers Centre in 2005), before moving eastward along Bremner Boulevard to the Air Canada Centre in 1999.
Like most expansion teams, the Raptors struggled in their early years, but after the acquisition of Vince Carter through a draft day trade in 1998, the team set league-attendance records and made the NBA playoffs in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Carter was instrumental in leading the team to a then-franchise high 47 wins and their first playoff series win in 2001, where they advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. During the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons, they failed to make significant progress and he was traded in 2004 to the New Jersey Nets.
After Carter left, Chris Bosh emerged as the team leader. In 2006–07, Bryan Colangelo's first full season as President and General Manager, a combination of Bosh, 2006 first overall NBA draft pick Andrea Bargnani and a revamp of the roster helped the Raptors qualify for their first playoff berth in five years, capturing the Atlantic Division title with 47 wins. In the 2007–08 season, they advanced to the playoffs again, but failed to make the playoffs in each of the next five seasons. In a bid to persuade Bosh to stay, Colangelo overhauled the team roster for the 2009–10 season, but Bosh signed with the Miami Heat in July 2010, ushering in yet another era of rebuilding for the Raptors.
After Masai Ujiri was brought in as the new General Manager in 2013, he traded Bargnani to the New York Knicks. With a backcourt led by Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors returned to the playoffs, won their second Atlantic Division title, and won a then-franchise record 48 games in the 2013–14 season. However, they failed for a fourth consecutive time to advance beyond the first round of the playoffs. In the 2014–15 season, they won a franchise record 49 games, but failed for a second consecutive year to advance beyond the first round of the playoffs, getting swept by the Washington Wizards, 4–0.
Franchise history
Creation
The Toronto Raptors were established on November 4, 1993, when the NBA, as part of its expansion into Canada, awarded its 28th franchise to a group headed by Toronto businessman John Bitove for a then-record expansion fee of $125 million US. Bitove and Allan Slaight of Slaight Communications each owned 44%, with the Bank of Nova Scotia (10%), David Peterson (1%), and Phil Granovsky (1%) being minority partners. Wagering on NBA games in Ontario nearly cost Toronto the expansion franchise, due to strict league rules at the time which prohibited gambling. However, an agreement was reached whereby the provincial lottery corporation agreed to stop offering wagering on all NBA games in exchange for a donation by the Raptors of $5 million in its first three years and $1 million annually afterwards to its charitable foundation to compensate the provincial lottery corporation for its loss of revenue. The Raptors, along with the Vancouver Grizzlies, played their first game in 1995, and were the first NBA teams based in Canada since the 1946–47 Toronto Huskies, though the Buffalo Braves had played a total of 16 regular season games at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto from 1971 to 1975.
Initial sentiment was in favour of reviving the Huskies nickname, but team management realized it would be nearly impossible to design a logo that did not substantially resemble that of the Minnesota Timberwolves. As a result, a nationwide contest was held to help name the team and develop their colours and logo. Over 2,000 entries were narrowed down to ten prospects: Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Raptors, Scorpions, T-Rex, Tarantulas, and Terriers. The final selection—Toronto Raptors—was unveiled on Canadian national television on May 15, 1994: the choice was influenced by the popularity of the 1993 film Jurassic Park. The name "Raptor" is a common informal name for the velociraptor, a swift medium-sized dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur. On May 24, 1994, the team's logo and first General Manager, Isiah Thomas were revealed at a press conference. As part of the deal, Thomas received an option to purchase part of the team, reportedly for under market value. He would purchase 4.5% in May 1995 and a further 4.5% in December 1995, half each from Bitove and Slaight, decreasing their share to 39.5%. The team's colours of bright red, purple, black, and silver were also revealed; "Naismith" silver was chosen as an ode to Canadian James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. The team originally competed in the Central Division, and before the inaugural season began, sales of Raptors merchandise ranked seventh in the league, marking a successful return of professional basketball to Canada.
As General Manager, Isiah Thomas quickly staffed the management positions with his own personnel, naming long-time Detroit Pistons assistant Brendan Malone as the Raptors' head coach. The team's roster was then filled as a result of an expansion draft in 1995. Following a coin flip, Toronto was given first choice and selected Chicago Bulls point guard and three-point specialist B. J. Armstrong. Armstrong refused to report for training and Thomas promptly traded him to the Golden State Warriors for power forwards Carlos Rogers and Victor Alexander. Thomas then selected a wide range of players in the expansion draft, including veterans Jerome Kersey, Willie Anderson and his former Pistons teammate John "Spider" Salley.
Subsequent to the expansion draft, the Raptors landed the seventh pick in the NBA draft lottery, behind their fellow 1995 expansion club, the Vancouver Grizzlies. Thomas selected Damon Stoudamire, a point guard out of Arizona, around whom the franchise would seek to construct its near future. Yet, the selection of Stoudamire was met with boos from fans at the 1995 NBA draft at SkyDome in Toronto, many of whom wanted Ed O'Bannon of UCLA, an NCAA Final Four Most Valuable Player.
1995–99: Struggles of a new franchise
In the team's first official NBA game, Alvin Robertson scored the first NBA points in Raptors history, while Stoudemire recorded 10 points and 10 assists in a 94–79 victory over the New Jersey Nets. The Raptors concluded their inaugural season with a 21–61 win–loss record, although they were one of the few teams to defeat the Chicago Bulls, who set an all-time NBA best 72–10 win–loss regular season record. With averages of 19.0 points and 9.3 assists per game, Stoudemire also won the 1995–96 Rookie of the Year Award.
In November of the 1996–97 season, Bitove sold his ownership interest in the team to Slaight for $65 million after Slaight had activated a shotgun clause in their partnership agreement, giving Slaight 79% control of the team, and remaining minority partner of the Bank of Nova Scotia (10%), Thomas (9%) Peterson (1%) and Granovsky (1%). Slaight subsequently acquired the 1% which had been owned by both Peterson and Granovsky, who had died a year earlier. The team improved on its win record by nine games. They selected centre Marcus Camby with the second overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft. By the end of the season, Camby earned a berth on the NBA's All-Rookie Team while Stoudamire continued to play well, averaging 20.2 points and 8.8 assists per game. As in the previous season, the Raptors were one of only 11 teams to topple the eventual 1997 Champions, the Chicago Bulls. The Raptors also defeated the Houston Rockets, Utah Jazz and Miami Heat, all of whom were eventual Conference finalists. However, the Raptors struggled against teams who were not of championship calibre, including three losses to the 15–67 Boston Celtics.
In the 1997–98 season, the team suffered numerous injuries and slid into a 17-game losing streak. After Thomas' attempts to execute a letter of intent with Slaight to purchase the team failed, he resigned his position with the team in November and sold his 9% stake in the team to Slaight. This left Slaight with 90% and the Bank of Nova Scotia with 10%. Thomas was replaced by Glen Grunwald as GM. With Thomas gone, Stoudamire immediately sought a trade. On February 13, 1998, he was shipped to the Portland Trail Blazers along with Walt Williams and Carlos Rogers for Kenny Anderson, Alvin Williams, Gary Trent, two first-round draft choices, a second-round draft choice and cash. Anderson refused to report to Toronto and was traded to the Celtics with Žan Tabak and Popeye Jones for Chauncey Billups, Dee Brown, Roy Rogers and John Thomas. When the trading deadline was over, the Raptors became the youngest team in the league with an average age of 24.6. They had five rookies on their roster, including the 18-year-old Tracy McGrady, who at the time was the youngest player in the NBA. The inexperienced Raptors struggled throughout the season and their regular season record regressed to 16–66.
On February 12, 1998, Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., the owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs, purchased 100% of the Raptors and the arena the team was building, Air Canada Centre, from Slaight and the Bank of Nova Scotia. MLSE paid a reported $467 million, made up of $179 million for the team and $288 million for the arena. During the 1998 NBA draft, in what became a defining move for the franchise, Grunwald traded the team's 4th overall pick Antawn Jamison to the Golden State Warriors for Vince Carter, who was selected 5th overall. To bring further credibility to the Raptors, Grunwald traded Marcus Camby to the New York Knicks for Charles Oakley, a veteran with playoff experience. Kevin Willis, another veteran acquired from the trade, solidified the centre position, while the coaching staff temporarily rotated Brown, Williams and Doug Christie to play point guard. Both Christie and Williams became talented players in their own right; Christie developed into one of the elite defenders in the NBA, while Williams improved his play on the offensive end. New coach Butch Carter was also credited with much of the team's turnaround during the lockout shortened 1998–99 season. Although the team did not make the playoffs, many were optimistic with the impressive performances of Rookie of the Year Carter and a much improved McGrady.
1999–2002: The Vince Carter era
During the 1999 NBA draft, believing that the Raptors still lacked a strong frontcourt presence, Grunwald traded first-round draft pick Jonathan Bender for power forward Antonio Davis of the Indiana Pacers. Davis quickly entered the Raptors starting lineup and he would develop into an All-Star in the coming years. Conversely, Bender would only play 9 seasons and would be out of the league by age 29. In the backcourt, Carter, Christie and Dell Curry played at the shooting guard position and Alvin Williams and Muggsy Bogues at point guard. The rotation of Davis, Oakley and Willis in the frontcourt and Carter's and McGrady's improvement helped the team make its first ever playoff appearance, fulfilling a promise Carter had made to fans in the previous season. Lacking significant post-season experience, Toronto was defeated 3–0 by the New York Knicks in the first round. Nonetheless, team improvements and the rise of Carter—who emphatically won the 2000 NBA Slam Dunk Contest—attracted many fans around Toronto, many of whom were previously not basketball fans. The season was also the first full year played at the Air Canada Centre, after having played four years at the cavernous SkyDome, which was better suited to baseball and Canadian football. Overall, the Raptors concluded the season with a 45–37 record.
Still, playoff failures and Butch Carter's media altercations surrounding Camby led Grunwald to replace Carter prior to the 2000–01 season with Lenny Wilkens, a Hall of Fame coach and player with more than 30 years of coaching experience. The team roster was also largely revamped, including the signing of veteran playmaker Mark Jackson on a four-year contract. When Alvin Williams later emerged as a clutch performer, Jackson was traded to allow Williams more playing time. In the 2000 off-season, free agent McGrady opted to leave the Raptors in a sign-and-trade deal worth $67.5 million over six years, while giving a conditional draft pick as part of the agreement to the Orlando Magic, for a first-round draft pick.
As predicted by analysts, the team easily secured a berth in the 2001 NBA playoffs with a franchise high 47 wins. The Raptors won their first ever playoff series as they defeated New York 3–2, advancing to the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the first time in franchise history. Wilkens was praised for having Williams defend shooting guard Allan Houston and Carter defend small forward Latrell Sprewell, the two major Knicks offensive threats. The series with Philadelphia 76ers was a landmark for the Raptors in terms of performance and entertainment value. The Sixers relied on Allen Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo for their respective offensive and defensive abilities, along with steady help from Aaron McKie. Toronto was the more balanced team with Carter, Alvin Williams and Davis providing much of the offensive game and Chris Childs and Jerome Williams on defence. The series came down to the last few seconds of Game 7, when Carter's potential series-winning shot rolled off the rim. Carter was later widely criticized for attending his graduation ceremony at the University of North Carolina on the morning of Game 7, as he scored only 20 points on 6-for-18 shooting, after a 39-point performance in Game 6. Despite the loss, the season is generally considered a watermark for the franchise, given the Raptors' franchise high of 47 wins and advancing beyond the first round of the playoffs.
The relocation of the Vancouver Grizzlies to Memphis, Tennessee in 2001, as the Memphis Grizzlies, left Toronto as the NBA's only Canadian team. In the summer of 2001, long-term contracts were given to Alvin Williams, Jerome Williams and Davis, while former NBA MVP centre Hakeem Olajuwon was signed to provide Carter with good support. The Raptors appeared to be on their way to another competitive season, with a 29–21 record going into the All-Star break and with Carter the top vote-getter for the All-Star game for the third consecutive year. Carter then suffered a bout of patellar tendinitis (also known as "jumper's knee") forcing him to miss the All-Star game and the rest of the season, and without their franchise player, Toronto lost 13 consecutive games. However, they were able to win 12 of their last 14 games, clinching a playoff spot on the last day of the regular season. The comeback featured some of the Raptors' best defence of the season, along with inspired performances by Davis and Keon Clark.
Despite Toronto's improved defensive performances, Carter's offence was sorely missed in the first-round series against the second-seeded Detroit Pistons. In the first game, Detroit overwhelmed Toronto 83–65, largely due to Ben Wallace's strong performance of 19 points, 20 rebounds, 3 blocks and 3 steals. Detroit also won Game 2, but Toronto won the next two games at home to force a deciding and tightly contested Game 5 in Detroit. With 10.7 seconds left in the game, and the Raptors down 85–82 with possession of the ball, Childs raced down the court and shot a three-pointer that missed badly, apparently trying to draw a foul on the play, instead of passing to a wide-open Curry. In a post-game locker room interview, Childs repeatedly insisted that the Raptors had been down four points, not three. The Raptors' late-season surge was thus marred by a disappointing playoff exit; the Olajuwon experiment was also a bust, with the 39-year-old averaging career lows in minutes, points and rebounds. Furthermore, Childs, Clark, and Curry left the team, ensuring a new-look team for the next season.
2002–06: Another period of struggle
The 2002–03 season began with the same optimism that the Raptors exhibited in three consecutive playoff seasons, although it faded early. Carter, while voted as a starter in the 2003 All-Star Game, suffered a knee injury, while Davis expressed disinterest in Toronto, and Wilkens' laissez-faire attitude created a team that lacked the motivation and spirit of the previous years' teams. The team was ravaged with injuries, losing an NBA record number of player games due to injury. Furthermore, the Raptors recorded the dubious honour of being the only team in NBA history to not dress 12 players for a single game in a season. Wilkens was criticized heavily by the Toronto media for his inability to clamp down on his players when necessary, especially given this was the year that Wilkens overtook Bill Fitch for the most losses by an NBA coach, with his loss total getting dangerously close to his win total. The Raptors ended the season with a 24–58 record and Wilkens was fired. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, when the Raptors were given the 4th overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft and brought another star to Toronto in Chris Bosh.
Canadian country singer Shania Twain helped launch the new red Raptors alternate road uniform at the start of the 2003–04 season, and the jerseys made their debut in a 90–87 season-opening victory on October 29, 2003 against the defending Conference Champion New Jersey Nets. Davis and Jerome Williams were traded early in the season for Jalen Rose and Donyell Marshall. After 50 games, Toronto was 25–25 and in a position to make the playoffs, but injuries to key players sent the Raptors plummeting down the standings. Rose, Carter, and Alvin Williams all suffered injuries as the Raptors struggled to a record of 8–24 in their remaining games. The notable individual season performances were Carter's 22.5 ppg, Marshall's 10.7 rpg and rookie Bosh, a 6–10 forward-centre who averaged 11.5 ppg and 7.4 rpg and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team. Williams' knee injury turned out to be career-ending.
For the 2004–05 season, the team moved into the Atlantic Division and the Raptors decided to revamp the team. Raptors President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Richard Peddie fired Grunwald on April 1, 2004, after the team ended the season three games short of the eighth and final playoff spot in the previous season. Head coach Kevin O'Neill and his four assistant coaches were also dismissed immediately after Grunwald's termination. Toronto interim manager Jack McCloskey said: "While the blame for that certainly does not rest on O'Neill and his staff alone, we need a change." Rob Babcock was named General Manager on June 7, 2004, alongside the appointments of Wayne Embry as senior advisor and Alex English as director of player development. Sam Mitchell, a former NBA forward and assistant coach of the Milwaukee Bucks was hired as new head coach of the Raptors.
Babcock's first move as GM was drafting centre Rafael Araújo—selected eighth overall—in the 2004 NBA draft, in a move that was criticized by fans and analysts, considering highly touted swingman Andre Iguodala was drafted with the next pick. Babcock signed point guard Rafer Alston to a five-year deal. After Vince Carter's annual charity game, Babcock implicitly revealed to the media that Carter's agent had asked for a trade confirming Carter was discontent. The Toronto Sun reported that Carter felt he was being misled by the Raptors' hierarchy during the General Manager search and had concluded that as long as the managerial structure at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. remained intact, the Raptors would never be an elite team. Carter was finally traded mid-season, ending his six-year tenure. Toronto received Alonzo Mourning, forwards Eric Williams and Aaron Williams and two mid-to-late future first round picks from the New Jersey Nets. Mourning chose not to report to Toronto, forcing Babcock to buy out the remainder of his contract at a reported $10 million, leaving him free to sign with the Miami Heat. Eric and Aaron Williams were supposed to add defensive toughness and rebounding, but were generally under-utilized for the entire season. Analysts had predicted Babcock got the bad end of the deal, and the trade eventually cost him his job.
Carter's departure heralded a new era for Toronto. Bosh stepped up to the role of franchise player and performed well in his sophomore campaign, ranking tenth in the league in defensive rebounds. In contrast to Bosh's emergence, Araújo struggled to keep a spot in the line-up, and became unpopular with fans and local media. Although the ACC was often well-attended due to the Raptors' 22–19 home record, their inability to win on the road (11–30) and poor defensive record made Mitchell's first year as head coach unimpressive. Additionally, Mitchell had problems dealing with Alston, who openly expressed his unhappiness with Mitchell in a post-game interview. Later in the season, Alston was suspended two games for "conduct detrimental to the team" for reportedly walking out of a scrimmage during practice. Notwithstanding the unrest, in their first season competing in the Atlantic Division, Toronto maintained the same regular season record of 33–49 as the previous season.
The Raptors continued to rebuild during the 2005 NBA draft, selecting Charlie Villanueva, Joey Graham, Roko Ukić and Uroš Slokar, with Villanueva's selection being very controversial amongst basketball pundits and Raptors fans alike. The Raptors started their training camp by trading Alston to the Houston Rockets for Mike James, and signing free agent José Calderón as a back-up for James. Despite the infusion of new players, Toronto's overall 2005–06 season was a disappointment; they set a franchise record by losing their first nine games and 15 out of their first 16 games. With losses mounting and media scrutiny intensifying, the Raptors hired ex-Purdue coach Gene Keady as an assistant off the bench to help develop the young Raptors team, as well as establish a defensive persona for the team. On January 15, 2006, the Raptors set a franchise points record in a 129–103 win over the Knicks when Villanueva hit a three-pointer late in the game, but less than a week later, the Raptors gave up an 18-point lead against the Los Angeles Lakers, and allowed Lakers star Kobe Bryant to score 81 points, the second highest single-game total in NBA history. With media scrutiny intensifying once more and the Raptors entrenched at the bottom of the league in defensive field goal percentage, Toronto fired Babcock.
The 2005–06 season was not a total disaster. Villanueva's play impressed both fans and former critics as he came in second in NBA Rookie of the Year and recorded 48 points in an overtime loss to Milwaukee Bucks, the most points scored by any rookie in franchise history and the most by a rookie in the NBA since 1997. Bosh was also named a reserve forward for the Eastern All-Star Team in the 2006 game, becoming the third Raptor after Vince Carter and Antonio Davis to appear in an All-Star Game. On February 27, 2006, the team named Bryan Colangelo, the 2004–05 NBA Executive of the Year, the President and General Manager of the Raptors. Known for his success in transforming a lottery Phoenix team into a 62-win offensive juggernaut, his hiring gave hope to many fans. Still, Toronto ended the season weakly when Bosh suffered a season-ending thumb injury. The Raptors lost 10 in a row after Bosh's injury and finished the season with the fifth worst record (27–55) in the NBA.
2006–10: The rise of Chris Bosh
The 2006–07 season represented a watershed year for the Raptors franchise. The roster was overhauled, including the selection of 2006 NBA draft number one pick Andrea Bargnani, the acquisition of point guard T. J. Ford in exchange for Villanueva, and the signing of shooting guard Anthony Parker and small forward Jorge Garbajosa. Bosh was given a three-year contract extension, while Maurizio Gherardini of Benetton Treviso was hired as the club's vice-president and assistant general manager.
The first half of the season produced mixed results as Toronto struggled towards the .500 mark. After the All-Star break, Bargnani continued to work on his defence and shooting (averaging 14.3 points per game (ppg) and 3.9 rebounds per game (rpg) in 12 games for the month of February 2007), and he was selected as the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for the second straight time on March 1, 2007. Bargnani became the third Raptor ever to win the award twice, joining Vince Carter and Damon Stoudamire. Toronto ended the regular season with a 47–35 record, securing the third seed in the Eastern Conference for the 2007 NBA Playoffs along with the Atlantic Division title, as well as homecourt advantage for the first time in franchise history. Bosh was voted to start in the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. The Raptors were also praised for their improved defence, ball-sharing and tremendous team chemistry. Colangelo, Gherardini and Mitchell were credited with Toronto's turnaround this season, which was one of the best in NBA history in terms of league standing and defensive ranking. Mitchell was subsequently named the 2006–07 NBA Coach of the Year, the first coach in Raptors history to receive the honour, while Colangelo was named 2006–07 Executive of the Year. On April 24, 2007, the Raptors won their first playoff game in five seasons, with an 89–83 victory over the New Jersey Nets, but lost the series 4–2. The series was notable for pitting ex-Raptor Vince Carter against his former team. The Nets took home court advantage in Game 1, holding off a late Raptors rally in the fourth quarter. The Raptors pulled away in another tight game to even the series at one game apiece. When the series shifted to New Jersey, the Nets took charge of the series, winning games 3 and 4 in routs. New Jersey had a chance to win the series in game 5 in Toronto, but the Raptors took a 20-point lead after one quarter. Still, New Jersey managed to chip away, and had a chance to win the game, but Boštjan Nachbar's three-pointer missed at the buzzer. Needing to win in New Jersey to force a game 7, Toronto held a one-point lead with under a minute to play in game 6, but Richard Jefferson hit a layup with eight seconds left to play. Toronto attempted to try for the game-winning shot, but Jefferson intercepted a pass to seal the series for the Nets.
Several changes to the roster were made before the 2007–08 campaign as Toronto sought to reproduce the same form as the previous campaign. Most notably, the Raptors acquired Carlos Delfino in a trade with Detroit for two second round draft picks, and signed Jamario Moon and three-point specialist Jason Kapono as free agents. On the other hand, veteran swingman Morris Peterson joined the New Orleans Hornets. Despite being defending division champions, the Raptors were widely tipped as outside contenders for the division and conference titles. However, Toronto quickly fell behind Boston in the division, as Bargnani's inability to play well consistently, along with injuries to Garbajosa (75 games), Bosh (15 games) and Ford (31 games), derailed the possibility of a smooth campaign as the Raptors finished 41-41, six fewer wins than the previous season, but still good enough for a playoff spot as the 6th seed. They were pitted against Dwight Howard and the resurgent Orlando Magic. In Game 1, Dwight Howard gave the Magic their first playoff win since 2003 as they practically led the entire game. Howard would put up a 29–20 in Game 2, as Hedo Türkoğlu scored the final four go-ahead points to give the Magic a 2–0 lead. The Raptors would respond with a strong Game 3 victory keyed by great point guard play from Ford and José Calderon. However, Jameer Nelson, Rashard Lewis and Keith Bogans keyed strong three point shooting in Game 4 and overcame Bosh's 39 points and 15 rebounds to bring the Magic out of Toronto with a 3–1 lead. Howard would finish off the series in Game 5 as impressively as he started–21 points, 21 rebounds, 3 blocks. Whereas the preceding season was considered a success, the 2007–08 campaign was considered a disappointment. Weaknesses in Toronto's game—rebounding, defence, and a lack of a swingman—were brought into sharp focus during the playoffs, and changes were expected to be made to the roster.
As it turned out, a blockbuster trade was agreed in principle before the 2008–09 campaign: six-time All-Star Jermaine O'Neal was acquired from the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Ford (who had become expendable with the emergence of Calderón), Rasho Nesterović, Maceo Baston, and Roy Hibbert, the 17th pick in the 2008 NBA draft, giving the Raptors a potential boost in the frontcourt. Meanwhile, Bargnani, who had spent the summer working on his interior game, was projected to come off the bench. The Raptors also introduced a black alternate road jersey for the season similar to the earlier purple design that was dropped a few seasons ago. It had a maple leaf featured on the back neck of the jersey, symbolizing the Raptors as "Canada's team". Despite the introduction of O'Neal, who brought home the rebounds and the blocks, and a much improved Bargnani, the Raptors were too inconsistent. Following an 8–9 start to the season, Mitchell was fired and replaced by long-time assistant Jay Triano. Triano tweaked with the starting line-up to no avail as the Raptors fell to 21–34 prior to the All-Star break. O'Neal and Moon were then traded to Miami for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks, but with the losses mounting, the Raptors soon fell out of the playoffs picture, and were eliminated from contention with seven games of the regular season remaining. The Raptors eventually finished with a 33–49 record and headed into the next season with a potential overhaul of the core: Marion could become a free agent; Bosh could become one after 2009–10; Parker would soon turn 35; and Bargnani had his breakthrough season. On May 12, 2009, Triano was given a three-year term for the position of head coach.
The inevitable roster shakeup for the 2009–10 season began when Kapono was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for the aggressive veteran forward Reggie Evans. Toronto then drafted DeMar DeRozan with the ninth pick, enabling them to fill a spot on the wings. This was followed by the signing of free agent Hedo Türkoğlu, which in turn led to a sign-and-trade agreement involving four teams, with Toronto landing wing players Devean George (later traded for Marco Belinelli) and Antoine Wright, while releasing Marion, Kris Humphries and Nathan Jawai. Around the same time, Parker headed for the Cleveland Cavaliers, while Indiana point guard Jarrett Jack was added and Nesterovič brought back to provide cover for the big men. Finally, Delfino and Ukić were moved to the Milwaukee Bucks for Amir Johnson and Sonny Weems. It became increasingly clear that Colangelo, in securing a credible nucleus for the future, was doing this to persuade Bosh to stay beyond 2010. While the Raptors were off to a sluggish start, they picked up the pace around the All-Star break, reaching a season-high seven games above .500 and standing fifth in the Eastern Conference. Bosh was recording career-highs in ppg and rpg. However, a season-ending injury to Bosh after the break coincided with Toronto's descent down the standings from the fifth seed to the eighth, and they ultimately relinquished their spot to Chicago a few games before the regular season ended.
2010–13: Rebuilding
Before the 2010–11 season began, there was much anticipation around the league over the fates of an elite pack of free agents, featuring the likes of Bosh, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Amar'e Stoudemire. Bosh and James eventually chose to converge in Miami with Wade, and the sign-and-trade transaction that ensued resulted in the Raptors receiving two first-round draft picks and a trade exception from Miami. Prior to this, Toronto had drafted Ed Davis, also a left-handed power forward like Bosh. After Bosh left, Colangelo sought to trade Calderón, Evans and the disenchanted Türkoğlu for Tyson Chandler, Leandro Barbosa, and Boris Diaw, but the trade involving Chandler collapsed at the last minute, as Chandler was traded to the Dallas Mavericks instead. Belinelli was then traded to New Orleans Hornets for Julian Wright, and 13 games into the season, Jack, David Andersen, and Marcus Banks to New Orleans for Peja Stojaković and Jerryd Bayless. Bosh's first return to Toronto was received to a chorus of boos, but not as nearly as harsh as what former Raptors Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter received upon their respective returns. Without Bosh, Toronto as a team regressed and were only able to secure 22 wins in the regular season.
Dwane Casey, an assistant coach with the Mavericks, was hired as the new head coach of Toronto before the 2011–12 season. The Raptors used their number five pick to select Jonas Valančiūnas, a centre from Lithuania in the 2011 NBA draft. The season was shortened by 16 regular season games due to the 2011 NBA lockout, and the Raptors finished the season with a 23–43 record. During the 2012 off-season, Colangelo tried to lure Canadian free agent and two-time MVP Steve Nash, who had become a free agent after playing for the Phoenix Suns, to play for the Raptors. When Nash joined the Los Angeles Lakers instead, the Raptors acquired point guard Kyle Lowry from the Houston Rockets for a future first round pick. Lowry, combined with Valančiūnas and the 8th pick in the 2012 draft Terrence Ross, represented the next phase of the re-building process. On January 30, 2013, the Raptors acquired Memphis Grizzlies star Rudy Gay and centre Hamed Haddadi as well as Pistons player Austin Daye in a three-way deal that sent Calderón to the Detroit Pistons and Davis, along with Pistons veteran Tayshaun Prince and a 2nd round pick to the Grizzlies. Haddadi was later traded, along with a second round pick, to Phoenix in exchange for guard Sebastian Telfair. The 2012–13 season was the first season since 2009–10 that the Raptors finished the season with a winning home record (21–20), despite their overall losing record (34–48).
2013–present: DeRozan and Lowry era
During the 2013 off-season, new General Manager Masai Ujiri traded Bargnani to the New York Knicks for Marcus Camby, Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson, a future first round draft pick, and two future second round picks; Camby and Richardson were both waived shortly after the trade. The Raptors also added Tyler Hansbrough, D. J. Augustin, Dwight Buycks, and Austin Daye via free agency. On December 9, 2013, the Raptors traded Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy, and Aaron Gray to the Sacramento Kings for John Salmons, Greivis Vásquez, Patrick Patterson, and Chuck Hayes, and waived Augustin. During the 2013–14 season, the Raptors were 6–12 before the Rudy Gay trade; after the trade, they went on a 10–3 run as they maintained their lead in the division, and rose above the .500 mark for the first time in almost three years.
The Raptors entered the All-Star break with a 28–24 record, and DeRozan was also selected to play in the All-Star game, being only the fourth ever Raptor to do so. On March 28, 2014, the Raptors clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2008 after beating the Boston Celtics 105–103. On April 11, 2014, the Raptors lost to the New York Knicks 108–100, but since division rival Brooklyn lost to the Atlanta Hawks the same night, the Raptors became Atlantic Division champions for the first time since 2007. They finished the regular season with a franchise-high 48 wins (.585), going 42–22 (.656) after the Rudy Gay trade, the third-best record in the Eastern Conference. The Raptors faced the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2007, when the Nets where located in New Jersey. Toronto nearly advanced to the next round, but Paul Pierce blocked a potential game-winner by Lowry in Game 7.
During the 2014–15 season, the Raptors were off to their best start in franchise history: a then-Eastern Conference leading 24–8 record by the end of 2014. On March 27, 2015, the Raptors clinched the Atlantic division title with a 94–83 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. This was the second consecutive year that the Raptors clinched the Atlantic Division title. On April 11, 2015, the Raptors beat the Miami Heat, Toronto’s first road win over the Heat since November 19, 2008, ending a ten-game slide on Miami’s home floor. The win was Toronto’s 48th of the season and 22nd on the road, both tying franchise records. Four days later, the Toronto Raptors broke their franchise record with their 49th win of the season. After the 2014–15 season, Louis Williams won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award, becoming the first ever Raptor to do so. The Raptors faced the Washington Wizards in the first round of the 2015 playoffs; the Wizards swept the Raptors, 4–0.
On June 25, 2015, the Raptors selected Delon Wright with their first round pick in the 2015 NBA draft, along with Norman Powell in the second round. On June 29, the Raptors announced their new NBA D-League team, Raptors 905, which began play in the 2015-2016 season. The Raptors added DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph, Bismack Biyombo, and Luis Scola via free agency.
Logos and uniforms
Occasionally, the Raptors would wear the Toronto Huskies throwback jersey during retro nights, given that the Huskies are the unofficial predecessor of the Raptors and the Raptors are among the newest NBA teams.
2015 redesign
On August 3, 2015, the Toronto Raptors unveiled four new uniforms. The uniforms were released in partnership with 2K Sports' NBA 2K16 video game. The team said in a press release the new uniform designs were intended to pay tribute to the city of Toronto and to Canada as a whole, noting that the Raptors were the sole Canadian club in the NBA. The main colours will remain centred on Canada’s national colours of red and white, whereas black and silver will continue to be used for trim on the home white and red road uniform. The uniforms themselves underwent changes. Most notably, the chevrons on the side panels now point up, which the team said aligns with its current slogan of "We The North". Since being introduced as a uniform accent in 1999, the chevrons had pointed downward, the team said. In addition, at the waist-level hem of the jersey is an upside-down tag with the team's “We The North” slogan. The team said the slogan on the tag will be visible to players when they tuck in their jersey. Additionally, the shorts now feature a maple leaf logo on the front of the waistband, and the letter "T" is now on the sides of the shorts, with the Raptors' basketball claw logo below it. This is a reference to the city of Toronto's "T-Dot" nickname.
Arenas
BioSteel Centre (Practice facility: to begin on 2016)
Personnel
Current roster
Retained draft rights
The Raptors hold the draft rights to the following unsigned draft picks who have been playing outside the NBA. A drafted player, either an international draftee or a college draftee who is not signed by the team that drafted him, is allowed to sign with any non-NBA teams. In this case, the team retains the player's draft rights in the NBA until one year after the player's contract with the non-NBA team ends. This list includes draft rights that were acquired from trades with other teams.
Management
General managers
1995 – March 1998: Isiah Thomas
March 1998 – April 2004: Glen Grunwald
April 2004 – June 2004 (Interim): Jack McCloskey
June 2004 – January 2006: Rob Babcock
January 2006 – February 2006 (Interim): Wayne Embry
February 2006 – May 2013: Bryan Colangelo
May 2013 – present: Masai Ujiri
Owners
1995 – 1998: John Bitove, Allan Slaight, Isiah Thomas
1998 – present: Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
Head coaches
Notes:
A running total of the number of coaches of the Raptors and thus any coach who has two or more separate terms as head coach is only counted once
Spent entire coaching career with the Raptors while in the NBA
Elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach
Basketball Hall of Famers
Notes:
1 In total, Wilkens was inducted into the Hall of Fame three times – as player, as coach and as a member of the 1992 Olympic team.
Awards and records
Since their inception in 1995, the Raptors have made the playoffs seven times (2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2014, and 2015), advancing past the first round just once (2001, when they were eliminated in the Conference Semifinals). The Raptors have won the Atlantic Division three times (2007, 2014, and 2015), and the franchise record number of wins in the regular season is 49 (2015). Five Raptors have been selected to play in the All-Star game: Vince Carter, Antonio Davis, Chris Bosh, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.
Broadcasters
Raptors games are primarily broadcast on television by TSN and Sportsnet. Through MLSE, the Raptors also operate the Canadian version of NBA TV (formerly known as Raptors NBA TV), which airs reruns of Raptors telecasts along with other news and analysis programs focusing on the team and the rest of the NBA.
Television
John Saunders (Play-by-play, 1995–2001)
Dan Shulman (Play-by-play, 1995–2001, TSN)
Rod Black (Play-by-play, 1995–2005, CTV, and TSN)
Chuck Swirsky (Play-by-play, 2001–2008)
Jack Armstrong (Colour, 1998–present, NBA TV Canada, Sportsnet, and TSN)
Leo Rautins (Colour, 1995–present)
Matt Devlin (Play-by-play, 2008–present)
Sherman Hamilton (Colour, 2008–present, NBA TV Canada)
Radio
Mike Inglis (Play-by-play, 1995–1998, CFRB 1010)
Earl Cureton (Colour, 1997–1998, CFRB 1010)
Chuck Swirsky (Play-by-play, 1998–2001, Fan 590; TV simulcast of play-by-play, 2001–2004)
Jack Armstrong (Colour, 1998–2001, Fan 590; 2013–present, TSN Radio 1050)
Leo Rautins (TV simulcast of colour, 2001–2004, Fan 590)
Paul Romanuk (Play-by-play, 2004–2005, Fan 590)
Paul Jones (Colour, 1995–1997, CFRB 1010; 2004–2005, Fan 590; Play-by-play, 2005–present, Fan 590, TSN Radio 1050)
Eric Smith (Colour, 2005–present, Fan 590)
Matt Devlin (TV simulcast of play-by-play, 2013–present, TSN Radio 1050)
Sherman Hamilton (Colour, 2013–present, TSN Radio 1050)
Fanbase and marketing
The Raptors have enjoyed a consistent fanbase throughout their history. The Toronto Raptors set NBA attendance records in their 2000, 2001, 2002 seasons when they made the playoffs. Attendance dipped slightly between 2003 and 2006. This improved during the 2006–07 regular season to an average of 18,258 fans (13th in the league), 92.2% of capacity at the ACC. Following the success of the 2006–07 season, Toronto became one of the league leaders in season ticket sales for the 2007–08 season. Their television ratings, however, are considerably lower than other more established Toronto sports teams and most other sporting events shown on Canadian television.
The value of the Raptors franchise has risen over the years. In 1998, the franchise was bought for US$125 million. With the continued popularity of the Raptors, the value of the franchise doubled from US$148 million in 2000 to $297 million in 2004. The value of the franchise grew again from $315 million in 2006 to $373 million in 2007, and $400 million in 2008, before falling to $386 million in 2009. In 2010, the value of the franchise was $399 million, according to reports by Forbes.
On game day, the fans are usually entertained by the Raptor mascot, the Raptors Dance Pak, and the 4 Korners Raptors Soundcrew during pre-game, time-outs, and intervals. During the 2013–14 season, a new "Drake Zone" was created in the lower bowl. Limited edition shirts were given away to fans sitting in the Drake Zone. Giveaways are sometimes bundled with tickets to encourage attendance. Further, whenever Toronto scores more than 100 points in a home game and wins, fans can redeem their ticket for a cheese or pepperoni pizza slice at standalone Pizza Pizza locations throughout Ontario for the business day after the game that was played. This is part of a promotion made by the Raptors' official pizza sponsor.
"We The North" re-branding
In the lead-up to the team's 20th anniversary season in 2015, and its hosting of the 2016 All-Star Game, the Raptors began the process of re-branding itself. On September 30, 2013, Toronto-based rapper Drake was announced as the new "global ambassador" for the Toronto Raptors, thereby joining the executive committee of his hometown's NBA team. In April 2014, the Raptors unveiled a new imaging campaign developed by the agency Sid Lee, "We The North", built around a manifesto that was meant to embrace the team's trait of being an "outsider" from the "north side", and the accompanying feelings of players and fans.
The "We The North" campaign was originally to be launched during the 2015-16 season; however, the launch was hastened so it would be ready in time for the 2014 playoffs, taking into account the poor performance of Canada's other pro sports teams at the time. An introductory commercial was quickly filmed, which featured the manifesto as narration, scenes of local basketball players in various outdoor locations around the city, and ended with a scene displaying a black, waving flag with the motto written on it. The campaign was immediately embraced by fans during the playoffs and following season; the launch commercial was viewed over 500,000 times in the two days following its release, "We The North"-branded shirts and flags became a common sight at games, while Ryerson University sports marketing professor Cheri Bradish compared the campaign to Molson's former "I Am Canadian" alcohol advertising campaign in how it resonated with the country.
On December 19, 2014, the Raptors soft-launched a new logo also designed by Sid Lee, which features a basketball with claw marks. The new logo was officially implemented during the 2015-2016 season. The logo's introduction was marred by a disorganized launch, which saw a black and white version initially shown before the eventual unveiling of colored versions later in the day, mixed reviews for the design itself, with some (especially on the black and white version) comparing it to that of the Brooklyn Nets, and despite teasing merchandise with the new logo, not releasing any until at least mid-2015. There were also alleged tensions between MLSE staff and Drake surrounding the new design—in particular, the performer had pushed for the team to change its primary colour from red to gold (a colour seen in one of the official variants of the logo unveiled that day). In a response on Twitter, Drake distanced himself from the "execution" of the new logo.
Rivalries
New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets
The New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets and the Raptors have been minor rivals since the trade of Vince Carter to the Nets during the 2004–05 season. The rivalry began to heat up as the two teams faced each other in the opening round of the 2007 NBA Playoffs, with the Nets winning the series 4–2 after a go-ahead shot by Richard Jefferson with 8 seconds left in Game 6 ensuring 98–97 defeat for the Raptors. The rivalry was rekindled during the 2013–14 season when the Nets and Raptors battled for the Atlantic Division. The Raptors won the division final but then they found themselves facing the Nets in the opening round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs. Prior to Game 1 of the series, Raptors GM Masai Ujiri spoke at a Raptors rally outside Air Canada Centre's Maple Leaf Square. During the rally, Ujiri yelled "F**k Brooklyn!" which found its way quickly onto social media platforms within minutes. Masai was fined $25,000 by the NBA for the quote and later apologized for the excessive language. The hard fought series lasted seven games, and was decided in the final seconds when Paul Pierce blocked Kyle Lowry's shot giving the Nets the 104–103 victory.
New York Knicks
The New York Knicks and the Raptors had a playoff rivalry in 2000 and 2001. The Raptors made their first-ever playoff appearance during the 1999–2000 season, in which they were swept by the Knicks in the first round 3–0. The following season, the Raptors redeemed themselves, defeating the Knicks in the first round 3–2; this effectively ended the Knicks' run as perennial NBA championship contenders, which began in the early 1990s.
Community service
The Raptors Foundation was the charitable arm of the Raptors, dedicated to assisting Ontario's registered charities that support programs and sports initiatives for at-risk children and youth. The Foundation strove to lift spirits and change lives for young people by supporting local and provincial organizations that provide recreational, educational and other youth-oriented activities. Through its community ties and with the help of its corporate partners, donors, Raptors players and volunteers, the Foundation has successfully raised more than $14 million between 1995 and 2007, and reached out to thousands of other charities. The Raptors Foundation was one of three parts of the Raptors' community service program. The other projects are Raptors Community Relations and Raptors Basketball Development, both of which focus on providing basketball development programs. The Toronto Raptors lead the NBA for amount of money donated to the community. In 2009, the Raptors Foundation merged with the other charitable arms of MLSE's other sports franchises to form the Team Up Foundation.
See also
Toronto Huskies, the Raptors' geographical predecessor in the NBA's predecessor league
Canada Basketball, the organization that oversees basketball in Canada
References
External links
Toronto Raptors page at basketball-reference.com
Category:Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
Category:National Basketball Association teams
Category:Basketball teams in Canada
Raptors
Category:Basketball clubs established in 1995
Category:1995 establishments in Ontario |
2016-01 | Blade_Runner-697315633 | Blade_Runner | Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is a modified film adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in which genetically engineered replicants, which are visually indistinguishable from adult humans, are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation. The use of replicants on Earth is banned and they are exclusively utilized for dangerous or menial work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and killed ("retired") by special police operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a group of recently escaped replicants hiding in L.A. and the burnt-out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film underperformed in North American theaters but has since become a cult film. Hailed for its production design, depicting a "retrofitted" future, it remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood and several later films were based on his work. Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as "probably" his most complete and personal film. In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Blade Runner is now regarded by many critics as one of the best science fiction films ever made.
Seven versions of the film have been shown for various markets as a result of controversial changes made by film executives. A Director's Cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to workprint screenings. This, in conjunction with its popularity as a video rental, made it one of the first films released on DVD, resulting in a basic disc with mediocre video and audio quality. In 2007, Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th anniversary digitally remastered version which is the only one on which Scott had complete artistic freedom and was shown in selected theaters and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray.
Plot
In Los Angeles, November 2019, ex-police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is detained by officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and brought to his former supervisor, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh). Deckard, whose job as a "Blade Runner" was to track down bioengineered beings known as replicants and "retire" (a euphemism for killing) them, is informed that four have come to Earth illegally. As Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 models, they have only a four-year lifespan and may have come to Earth to try to extend their lives.
Deckard watches a video of a Blade Runner named Holden administering the "Voight-Kampff" test designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on their emotional response to questions. The test subject, Leon (Brion James), shoots Holden after Holden asks about Leon's mother. Bryant wants Deckard to retire Leon and the other three replicants: Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), and Pris (Daryl Hannah). Deckard initially refuses, but after Bryant ambiguously threatens him, he reluctantly agrees.
Deckard begins his investigation at the Tyrell Corporation to ensure that the test works on Nexus-6 models. While there, he discovers that Dr. Eldon Tyrell's (Joe Turkel) assistant Rachael (Sean Young) is an experimental replicant who believes herself to be human. Rachael has been given false memories to provide an "emotional cushion". As a result, a more extensive test is required to determine whether she is a replicant.
Events are then set into motion that pit Deckard's search for the replicants against their search for Tyrell to force him to extend their lives. Roy and Leon investigate a replicant eye-manufacturing laboratory and learn of J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), a gifted genetic designer who works closely with Tyrell. Rachael visits Deckard at his apartment to prove her humanity by showing him a family photo, but after Deckard reveals that her memories are implants from Tyrell's niece, she leaves his apartment in tears. Meanwhile, Pris locates Sebastian and manipulates him to gain his trust.
While searching Leon's hotel room, Deckard finds a photo of Zhora and a synthetic snake scale that leads him to a strip club where Zhora works. Deckard kills Zhora and shortly after is told by Bryant to also retire Rachael, who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation. After Deckard spots Rachael in a crowd, he is attacked by Leon, but Rachael kills Leon using Deckard's dropped pistol. The two return to Deckard's apartment, and during an intimate discussion, he promises not to hunt her; as she abruptly tries to leave, Deckard physically restrains her, forcing her to kiss him.
Arriving at Sebastian's apartment, Roy tells Pris the others are dead. Sympathetic to their plight, Sebastian reveals that because of "Methuselah Syndrome", a genetic premature aging disorder, his life will also be cut short. Sebastian and Roy gain entrance into Tyrell's secure penthouse, where Roy demands more life from his maker. Tyrell tells him that it is impossible. Roy confesses that he has done "questionable things" which Tyrell dismisses, praising Roy's advanced design and accomplishments in his short life. Roy kisses Tyrell, then kills him. Sebastian runs for the elevator followed by Roy, who then rides the elevator down alone. Though not shown, it is implied by Bryant via police radio that Roy also kills Sebastian.
Upon entering Sebastian's apartment, Deckard is ambushed by Pris, but he manages to kill her just as Roy returns. As Roy's body begins to shut down, he chases Deckard through the building, ending up on the roof. Deckard tries to jump to an adjacent roof, but misses and is left hanging precariously between buildings. Roy makes the jump with ease, and as Deckard's grip loosens, Roy hoists him onto the roof, saving him. As Roy's life runs out, he delivers a monologue about how his memories "will be lost like tears in the rain"; Roy dies in front of Deckard, who watches silently. Gaff arrives and shouts across to Deckard, "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?" Deckard returns to his apartment and finds the door ajar, but Rachael is safe, asleep in his bed. As they leave, Deckard notices a small tin-foil origami unicorn on the floor, a familiar calling card that brings back to him Gaff's final words. Deckard and Rachael quickly leave the apartment block (and in an extended scene in the original theatrical release, they travel into daylight and an idyllic pastoral landscape).
Themes
Although Blade Runner is ostensibly an action film, it operates on multiple dramatic and narrative levels. It is indebted to film noir conventions: the femme fatale; protagonist-narration (removed in later versions); dark and shadowy cinematography; and the questionable moral outlook of the hero – in this case, extended to include reflections upon the nature of his own humanity. It is a literate science fiction film, thematically enfolding the philosophy of religion and moral implications of human mastery of genetic engineering in the context of classical Greek drama and hubris. It also draws on Biblical images, such as Noah's flood, and literary sources, such as Frankenstein. Linguistically, the theme of mortality is subtly reiterated in the chess game between Roy and Tyrell, based on the famous Immortal Game of 1851, though Scott has said that was coincidental.
Blade Runner delves into the implications of technology on the environment and on society by reaching to the past, using literature, religious symbolism, classical dramatic themes, and film noir. This tension between past, present, and future is mirrored in the retrofitted future of Blade Runner, which is high-tech and gleaming in places but decayed and old elsewhere. Ridley Scott described the film as: "extremely dark, both literally and metaphorically, with an oddly masochistic feel", in an interview by Lynn Barber for the British Sunday newspaper The Observer in 2002. Scott "liked the idea of exploring pain" in the wake of his brother's skin cancer death: "When he was ill, I used to go and visit him in London, and that was really traumatic for me."
An aura of paranoia suffuses the film: corporate power looms large; the police seem omnipresent; vehicle and warning lights probe into buildings; and the consequences of huge biomedical power over the individual are explored – especially the consequences for replicants of their implanted memories. Control over the environment is depicted as taking place on a vast scale, hand in hand with the absence of any natural life, with artificial animals substituting for their extinct predecessors. This oppressive backdrop explains the frequently referenced migration of humans to extra-terrestrial ("off-world") colonies.
The dystopian themes explored in Blade Runner are an early example of cyberpunk concepts expanding into film. Eyes are a recurring motif, as are manipulated images, calling into question reality and our ability to accurately perceive and remember it.
These thematic elements provide an atmosphere of uncertainty for Blade Runners central theme of examining humanity. In order to discover replicants, an empathy test is used, with a number of its questions focused on the treatment of animals – seemingly an essential indicator of someone's "humanity". The replicants appear to show compassion and concern for one another and are juxtaposed against human characters who lack empathy while the mass of humanity on the streets is cold and impersonal. The film goes so far as to put in doubt whether Deckard is human, and forces the audience to re-evaluate what it means to be human.
The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release. Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity. Ridley Scott has confirmed that in his vision Deckard is a replicant.
Deckard's unicorn dream sequence, inserted into the Director's Cut, coinciding with Gaff's parting gift of an origami unicorn is seen by many as showing that Deckard is a replicant – as Gaff could have accessed Deckard's implanted memories. The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe the unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognize their affinity, or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme. The inherent ambiguity and uncertainty of the film, as well as its textual richness, have permitted viewers to see it from their own perspectives.
Production
Casting
Casting the film proved troublesome, particularly for the lead role of Deckard. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as Deckard and wrote the character's dialogue with Mitchum in mind. Director Ridley Scott and the film's producers spent months meeting and discussing the role with Dustin Hoffman, who eventually departed over differences in vision. Harrison Ford was ultimately chosen for several reasons, including his performance in the Star Wars films, Ford's interest in the Blade Runner story, and discussions with Steven Spielberg who was finishing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the time and strongly praised Ford's work in the film. Following his success in films like Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Ford was looking for a role with dramatic depth. According to production documents, several actors were considered for the role, including Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino, and Burt Reynolds.
One role that was not difficult to cast was Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the violent yet thoughtful leader of the replicants. Scott cast Hauer without having met him, based solely on Hauer's performances in Paul Verhoeven's movies Scott had seen (Katie Tippel, Soldier of Orange and Turkish Delight). Hauer's portrayal of Batty was regarded by Philip K. Dick as, "the perfect Batty—cold, Aryan, flawless". Of the many films Hauer has done, Blade Runner is his favorite. As he explained in a live chat in 2001, "Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just [is]. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome." Hauer wrote his character's "tears in rain" speech himself and presented the words to Scott on set prior to filming.
Blade Runner used a number of then-lesser-known actors: Sean Young portrays Rachael, an experimental replicant implanted with the memories of Tyrell's niece, causing her to believe she is human; Nina Axelrod auditioned for the role. Daryl Hannah portrays Pris, a "basic pleasure model" replicant; Stacey Nelkin auditioned for the role, but was given another part in the film, which was ultimately cut before filming. Casting Pris and Rachael was challenging, requiring several screen tests, with Morgan Paull playing the role of Deckard. Paull was cast as Deckard's fellow bounty hunter Holden based on his performances in the tests. Brion James portrays Leon Kowalski, a combat replicant, and Joanna Cassidy portrays Zhora, an assassin replicant.
Edward James Olmos portrays Gaff. Olmos used his diverse ethnic background, and personal research, to help create the fictional "Cityspeak" language his character uses in the film. His initial address to Deckard at the noodle bar is partly in Hungarian and means, "Horse dick [bullshit]! No way. You are the Blade ... Blade Runner." M. Emmet Walsh plays Captain Bryant, a hard-drinking, sleazy, and underhanded police veteran typical of the film noir genre. Joe Turkel portrays Dr. Eldon Tyrell, a corporate mogul who built an empire on genetically manipulated humanoid slaves. William Sanderson was cast as J. F. Sebastian, a quiet and lonely genius who provides a compassionate yet compliant portrait of humanity. J. F. sympathizes with the replicants, whom he sees as companions, and shares their shorter lifespan due to his rapid aging disease; Joe Pantoliano was considered for the role. James Hong portrays Hannibal Chew, an elderly geneticist specializing in synthetic eyes, and Hy Pyke portrays the sleazy bar owner Taffey Lewis with ease and in a single take, something almost unheard-of with Scott whose drive for perfection resulted at times in double-digit takes.
Development
Interest in adapting Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? developed shortly after its 1968 publication. Director Martin Scorsese was interested in filming the novel, but never optioned it. Producer Herb Jaffe optioned it in the early 1970s, but Dick was unimpressed with the screenplay written by Herb's son Robert: "Jaffe's screenplay was so terribly done ... Robert flew down to Santa Ana to speak with me about the project. And the first thing I said to him when he got off the plane was, 'Shall I beat you up here at the airport, or shall I beat you up back at my apartment?
The screenplay by Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977. Producer Michael Deeley became interested in Fancher's draft and convinced director Ridley Scott to film it. Scott had previously declined the project, but after leaving the slow production of Dune, wanted a faster-paced project to take his mind off his older brother's recent death. He joined the project on February 21, 1980, and managed to push up the promised Filmways financing from US$13 million to $15 million. Fancher's script focused more on environmental issues and less on issues of humanity and faith, which had featured heavily in the novel, and Scott wanted changes. Fancher found a cinema treatment by William S. Burroughs for Alan E. Nourse's novel The Bladerunner (1974), titled Blade Runner (a movie). Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles. Eventually he hired David Peoples to rewrite the script and Fancher left the job over the issue on December 21, 1980, although he later returned to contribute additional rewrites.
Having invested over $2.5 million in pre-production, as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In 10 days Deeley had secured $21.5 million in financing through a three-way deal between The Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw, and Tandem Productions.
Philip K. Dick became concerned that no one had informed him about the film's production, which added to his distrust of Hollywood. After Dick criticized an early version of Hampton Fancher's script in an article written for the Los Angeles Select TV Guide, the studio sent Dick the David Peoples' rewrite. Although Dick died shortly before the film's release, he was pleased with the rewritten script, and with a 20-minute special effects test reel that was screened for him when he was invited to the studio. Despite his well known skepticism of Hollywood in principle, Dick enthused to Ridley Scott that the world created for the film looked exactly as he had imagined it. He said, "I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for Blade Runner on the KNBC-TV news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." He also approved of the film's script, saying, "After I finished reading the screenplay, I got the novel out and looked through it. The two reinforce each other, so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel." The motion picture was dedicated to Dick. Principal photography of Blade Runner began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.
In 1992, Ford revealed, "Blade Runner is not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley." Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a f**king nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests." "I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it."
In 2006 Scott was asked "Who's the biggest pain in the arse you've ever worked with?", he replied: "It's got to be Harrison ... he'll forgive me because now I get on with him. Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie." Ford said of Scott in 2000: "I admire his work. We had a bad patch there, and I'm over it." In 2006 Ford reflected on the production of the film saying: "What I remember more than anything else when I see Blade Runner is not the 50 nights of shooting in the rain, but the voiceover ... I was still obliged to work for these clowns that came in writing one bad voiceover after another." Ridley Scott confirmed in the summer 2007 issue of Total Film that Harrison Ford contributed to the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD, having already done his interviews. "Harrison's fully on board", said Scott.
The Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles served as a filming location, and a Warner Bros. backlot housed the LA 2019 streets. Other locations included Ennis-Brown House and the 2nd Street Tunnel. Test screenings resulted in several changes including adding a voice over, a happy ending, and the removal of a Holden hospital scene. The relationship between the filmmakers and the investors was difficult, which culminated in Deeley and Scott being fired but still working on the film. Crew members created T-shirts during filming saying, "Yes Guv'nor, My Ass" that mocked Scott's unfavorable comparison of U.S. and British crews; Scott responded with a T-shirt of his own, "Xenophobia Sucks" making the incident known as the T-shirt war.
Design
Ridley Scott credits Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and the French science fiction comic magazine Métal Hurlant ("Heavy Metal"), to which the artist Moebius contributed, as stylistic mood sources. He also drew on the landscape of "Hong Kong on a very bad day" and the industrial landscape of his one-time home in northeast England. The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of Futurist Italian architect, Antonio Sant'Elia. Scott hired Syd Mead as his concept artist who, like Scott, was influenced by Métal Hurlant. Moebius was offered the opportunity to assist in the pre-production of Blade Runner, but he declined so that he could work on René Laloux's animated film Les Maîtres du temps – a decision that he later regretted. Production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyder realized Scott's and Mead's sketches. Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich supervised the special effects for the film.
Blade Runner has numerous deep similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, including a built-up urban environment, in which the wealthy literally live above the workers, dominated by a huge building – the Stadtkrone Tower in Metropolis and the Tyrell Building in Blade Runner. Special effects supervisor David Dryer used stills from Metropolis when lining up Blade Runners miniature building shots.
"Spinner" is the generic term for the fictional flying cars used in the film. A Spinner can be driven as a ground-based vehicle, and take off vertically, hover, and cruise using jet propulsion much like vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. They are used extensively by the police to patrol and survey the population, and it is clear that despite restrictions wealthy people can acquire spinner licenses. The vehicle was conceived and designed by Syd Mead who described the spinner as an "aerodyne"—a vehicle which directs air downward to create lift, though press kits for the film stated that the spinner was propelled by three engines: "conventional internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity" Mead's conceptual drawings were transformed into 25 working vehicles by automobile customizer Gene Winfield. A Spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington.
Voight-Kampff machine
The Voight-Kampff machine (or device) is a fictional interrogation tool, originating in the book where it is spelled Voigt-Kampff. The Voight-Kampff is a polygraph-like machine used by Blade Runners to assist in the testing of an individual to determine if he or she is a replicant. It measures bodily functions such as respiration, blush response, heart rate, and eye movement in response to emotionally provocative questions. In the film two replicants take the test, Leon and Rachael, and Deckard tells Tyrell that it usually takes 20 to 30 cross-referenced questions to distinguish a replicant; in contrast with the book, where it is stated it only takes "six or seven" questions to make a determination. In the film it takes more than one hundred questions to determine that Rachael is a replicant.
Music
The Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis is a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers which mirrors the film-noir retro-future envisioned by Ridley Scott. Vangelis, fresh from his Academy Award winning score for Chariots of Fire, composed and performed the music on his synthesizers. He also made use of various chimes and the vocals of collaborator Demis Roussos. Another memorable sound is the haunting tenor sax solo "Love Theme" by British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who performed on many of Vangelis's albums. Ridley Scott also used "Memories of Green" from the Vangelis album See You Later, an orchestral version of which Scott would later use in his film Someone To Watch Over Me.
Along with Vangelis' compositions and ambient textures, the film's soundscape also features a track by the Japanese ensemble Nipponia – "Ogi No Mato" or "The Folding Fan as a Target" from the Nonesuch Records release Traditional Vocal and Instrumental Music – and a track by harpist Gail Laughton from "Harps of the Ancient Temples" on Laurel Records.
Despite being well received by fans and critically acclaimed and nominated in 1983 for a BAFTA and Golden Globe as best original score, and the promise of a soundtrack album from Polydor Records in the end titles of the film, the release of the official soundtrack recording was delayed for over a decade. There are two official releases of the music from Blade Runner. In light of the lack of a release of an album, the New American Orchestra recorded an orchestral adaptation in 1982 which bore little resemblance to the original. Some of the film tracks would, in 1989, surface on the compilation Vangelis: Themes, but not until the 1992 release of the Director's Cut version would a substantial amount of the film's score see commercial release.
These delays and poor reproductions led to the production of many bootleg recordings over the years. A bootleg tape surfaced in 1982 at science fiction conventions and became popular given the delay of an official release of the original recordings, and in 1993 "Off World Music, Ltd" created a bootleg CD that would prove more comprehensive than Vangelis' official CD in 1994. A set with three CDs of Blade Runner-related Vangelis music was released in 2007. Titled Blade Runner Trilogy, the first disc contains the same tracks as the 1994 official soundtrack release, the second features previously unreleased music from the movie, and the third disc is all newly composed music from Vangelis, inspired by, and in the spirit of the movie.
Special effects
The movie's special effects are generally recognized to be among the best of all time, using the available (non-digital) technology to the fullest. In addition to matte paintings and models, the techniques employed included multipass exposures. In some scenes, the set was lit, shot, the film rewound, and then rerecorded over with different lighting. In some cases this was done 16 times in all. The cameras were frequently motion controlled using computers. Many effects utilised techniques which had been developed during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Release
Blade Runner was released in 1,290 theaters on June 25, 1982. That date was chosen by producer Alan Ladd, Jr. because his previous highest-grossing films (Star Wars and Alien) had a similar opening date (May 25) in 1977 and 1979, making the date his "lucky day".
Blade Runner grossed reasonably good ticket sales according to contemporary reports; earning $6.1 million during its first weekend in theaters. The film was released in close proximity to The Thing, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian and, most significantly, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. These big-budget science fiction/fantasy films all released in 1982 undoubtedly glutted the market.
Critical reception
Initial reactions among film critics were mixed. Some wrote that the plot took a back seat to the film's special effects, and did not fit the studio's marketing as an action/adventure movie. Others acclaimed its complexity and predicted it would stand the test of time. Negative criticism in the United States cited its slow pace. Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times called it "Blade Crawler," and Pat Berman in The State and Columbia Record described it as "science fiction pornography". Pauline Kael praised Blade Runner as worthy of a place in film history for its distinctive sci-fi vision, yet criticized the films lack of development in "human terms".
Academics began writing analyses of the film almost as soon as it was released, in particular its dystopic aspects, its questions regarding "authentic" humanity, its ecofeminist aspects, in genre studies and in recent years, popular culture. The film has been the subject of academic interest over decades.
Since its original release, the film has become a science fiction classic. Roger Ebert praised the visuals of both the original and the Director's Cut versions and recommended it for that reason; however, he found the human story clichéd and a little thin. Critic Chris Rodley and Janet Maslin theorized that Blade Runner changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire, and subsequent influence on films. Blade Runner holds an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that rates films based on published reviews by critics, averaging a score of 8.5 out of 10 from 103 reviews. The site's main consensus reads "Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, neo-noir Blade Runner has deepened with time. A visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece." Denis Villeneuve, who is to direct the Blade Runner sequel, cites the movie as a huge influence for him and many others.
Accolades
Blade Runner has won and been nominated for the following awards:
Versions
Several different versions of Blade Runner have been shown. The original workprint version (1982, 113 minutes) was shown for audience test previews in Denver and Dallas in March 1982. Negative responses to the previews led to the modifications resulting in the U.S. theatrical version. The workprint was shown as a director's cut without Scott's approval at the Los Angeles Fairfax Theater in May 1990, at an AMPAS showing in April 1991, and in September and October 1991 at the Los Angeles NuArt Theater and the San Francisco Castro Theater. Positive responses pushed the studio to approve work on an official director's cut. A San Diego Sneak Preview was shown only once, in May 1982, and was almost identical to the U.S. theatrical version but contained three extra scenes not shown in any other version, including the 2007 Final Cut.
Two versions were shown in the film's 1982 theatrical release: the U.S. theatrical version (116 minutes), known as the original version or Domestic Cut, released on Betamax and VHS in 1983 and Laserdisc in 1987; and the International Cut (117 minutes), also known as the "Criterion Edition" or "uncut version", which included more violent action scenes than the U.S. version. Although initially unavailable in the U.S., and distributed in Europe and Asia via theatrical and local Warner Home Video Laserdisc releases, it was later released on VHS and Criterion Collection Laserdisc in North America, and re-released in 1992 as a "10th Anniversary Edition".
Scott's Director's Cut (1991, 116 minutes) was made available on VHS and Laserdisc in 1993, and on DVD in 1997. Significant changes from the theatrical version include: the removal of Deckard's voice-over; re-insertion of the unicorn sequence; and removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the Director's Cut. Scott's The Final Cut (2007, 117 minutes) was released by Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in December 2007. This is the only version over which Scott had complete editorial control.
Legacy
Cultural impact
While not initially a success with North American audiences, the film was popular internationally and garnered a cult following. The film's dark style and futuristic designs have served as a benchmark and its influence can be seen in many subsequent science fiction films, anime, video games, and television programs. For example, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the producers of the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, have both cited Blade Runner as one of the major influences for the show. Blade Runner continues to reflect modern trends and concerns, and an increasing number consider it one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. It was voted the best science fiction film ever made in a poll of 60 eminent world scientists conducted in 2004. Blade Runner is also cited as an important influence to both the style and story of the Ghost in the Shell film series, which itself has been highly influential to the future-noir genre.
The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently used in university courses. In 2007 it was named the second most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.
Blade Runner is one of the most musically sampled films of the 20th century. The 2009 album, I, Human, by Singaporean band Deus Ex Machina makes numerous references to the genetic engineering and cloning themes from the film, and even features a track titled "Replicant".
Blade Runner has influenced adventure games such as the 2012 graphical text adventure Cypher, Rise of the Dragon, Snatcher, Beneath a Steel Sky, Flashback: The Quest for Identity, Bubblegum Crisis (and its original anime films), the role-playing game Shadowrun, the first-person shooter Perfect Dark, and the Syndicate series of video games. The film is also cited as a major influence on Warren Spector, designer of the computer-game Deus Ex, which displays evidence of the film's influence in both its visual rendering and plot. The look of the film, darkness, neon lights and opacity of vision, is easier to render than complicated backdrops, making it a popular choice for game designers.
Blade Runner has also been the subject of parody, such as the comics Blade Bummer by Crazy comics, Bad Rubber by Steve Gallacci, and the Red Dwarf 2009 three-part miniseries, "Back to Earth".
Among the folklore that has developed around the film over the years has been the belief that the film was a curse to the companies whose logos were displayed prominently as product placements in some scenes. While they were market leaders at the time, Atari, Bell, Cuisinart and Pan Am experienced setbacks after the film's release. The Coca-Cola Company suffered losses during its failed introduction of New Coke in 1985, but soon afterwards regained its market share.
Media recognitions for Blade Runner include:
American Film Institute recognition
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #74
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
Roy Batty (Villain) – Nominated
Rick Deckard (Hero) – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #97
AFI's 10 Top 10 – #6 Science Fiction Film
In other media
Before the film's principal photography began, Cinefantastique magazine commissioned Paul M. Sammon to write an article about Blade Runners production which became the book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner.
The book chronicles Blade Runners evolution, focusing on film-set politics, especially the British director's experiences with his first American film crew; of which producer Alan Ladd, Jr. has said, "Harrison wouldn't speak to Ridley and Ridley wouldn't speak to Harrison. By the end of the shoot Ford was 'ready to kill Ridley', said one colleague. He really would have taken him on if he hadn't been talked out of it."
Future Noir has short cast biographies and quotations about their experiences, and photographs of the film's production and preliminary sketches. A second edition of Future Noir was published in 2007.
Philip K. Dick refused a $400,000 offer to write a Blade Runner novelization, saying: "[I was] told the cheapo novelization would have to appeal to the twelve-year-old audience" and "[it] would have probably been disastrous to me artistically." He added, "That insistence on my part of bringing out the original novel and not doing the novelization – they were just furious. They finally recognized that there was a legitimate reason for reissuing the novel, even though it cost them money. It was a victory not just of contractual obligations but of theoretical principles." Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was eventually reprinted as a tie-in, with the film poster as a cover and the original title in parentheses below the Blade Runner title.
Archie Goodwin scripted the comic book adaptation, A Marvel Super Special: Blade Runner, published in September 1982.
There are two video games based on the film, one from 1985 for Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by CRL Group PLC based on the music by Vangelis (due to licensing issues), and another action adventure PC game from 1997 by Westwood Studios. The 1997 video game featured new characters and branching storylines based on the Blade Runner world. Eldon Tyrell, Gaff, Leon, Rachael, Chew, and J.F. Sebastian appear, and their voice files are recorded by the original actors. The player assumes the role of McCoy, another replicant-hunter working at the same time as Deckard.
The PC game featured a non-linear plot, non-player characters that each ran in their own independent AI, and an unusual pseudo-3D engine (which eschewed polygonal solids in favor of voxel elements) that did not require the use of a 3D accelerator card to play the game.
The television film Total Recall 2070 was initially planned as a spin-off of the movie Total Recall, and would eventually be transformed into a hybrid of Total Recall and Blade Runner. The Total Recall film was also based on a Philip K. Dick story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"; many similarities between Total Recall 2070 and Blade Runner were noted, as well as apparent inspiration from Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel and the TV series Holmes & Yo-Yo.
The film has been the subject of several documentaries. On the Edge of Blade Runner (2000, 55 minutes) was directed by Andrew Abbott and hosted/written by Mark Kermode. Interviews with production staff, including Scott, give details of the creative process and the turmoil during preproduction. Insights into Philip K. Dick and the origins of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are provided by Paul M. Sammon and Hampton Fancher. Future Shocks (2003, 27 minutes) is a documentary by TVOntario. It includes interviews with executive producer Bud Yorkin, Syd Mead, and the cast, and commentary by science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer and from film critics. Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner (2007, 213 minutes) is a documentary directed and produced by Charles de Lauzirika for The Final Cut version of the film. It was culled from over 80 interviews, including Ford, Young, and Scott. The documentary consists of eight chapters, each covering a portion of the film-making – or in the case of the final chapter, the film's controversial legacy. All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut (2007, 29 minutes), produced by Paul Prischman, appears on the Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition and provides an overview of the film's multiple versions and their origins, as well as detailing the seven-year-long restoration, enhancement and remastering process behind The Final Cut.
Sequels
Dick's friend, K. W. Jeter, wrote three authorized Blade Runner novels that continue Deckard's story, attempting to resolve the differences between the film and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995), Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996), and Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon (2000). By 1999, Stuart Hazeldine had written a sequel to Blade Runner based on The Edge of Human, titled Blade Runner Down; the project was shelved due to rights issues. Blade Runner co-author David Peoples wrote the 1998 action film Soldier, which was referred to by him as a "sidequel" or spiritual successor to the original film.
Scott considered developing a sequel, tentatively titled Metropolis. At the 2007 Comic-Con, Scott again announced that he was considering a sequel to the film. Eagle Eye co-writer Travis Wright worked with producer Bud Yorkin for several years on the project. His colleague John Glenn, who left the project by 2008, stated the script explores the nature of the off-world colonies as well as what happens to the Tyrell Corporation in the wake of its founder's death.
In June 2009, The New York Times reported that Scott and his brother Tony Scott were working on a Blade Runner prequel, set in 2019. The prequel, Purefold, was planned as a series of 5–10 minute shorts, aimed first at the web and then perhaps television. Due to rights issues, the proposed series was not to be linked too closely to the characters or events of the 1982 film. On February 7, 2010, it was announced that production on Purefold had ceased, due to funding problems. On March 4, 2011, io9 reported that Yorkin was developing a new Blade Runner film. It was also reported that month that director Christopher Nolan was the desired choice to make the film.
It was announced on August 18, 2011, that Scott was to direct a new Blade Runner film, with filming to begin no earlier than 2013. Indications from producer Andrew Kosove were that Ford was unlikely to be involved in the project. Scott later said that the film was "liable to be a sequel" but without the previous cast, and that he was close to finding a writer that "might be able to help [him] deliver". On February 6, 2012, Kosove denied that any casting considerations had been made in response to buzz that Ford might reprise his role, saying, "It is absolutely, patently false that there has been any discussion about Harrison Ford being in Blade Runner. To be clear, what we are trying to do with Ridley now is go through the painstaking process of trying to break the back of the story ... The casting of the movie could not be further from our minds at this moment." When Scott was asked about the possibility of a sequel in October 2012, he said, "It's not a rumor—it's happening. With Harrison Ford? I don't know yet. Is he too old? Well, he was a Nexus-6 so we don't know how long he can live. And that's all I'm going to say at this stage."
In November 2014, Variety magazine reported that Scott was no longer the director for the film and would only fulfill a producer's role. Scott also revealed that Ford's character will only appear in "the third act" of the sequel. In February 2015, Alcon Entertainment confirmed that Scott will not be back to direct, and they were negotiating with Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve. Ford, however, will return, as will original writer Hampton Fancher, and the film is expected to enter production in mid-2016. The sequel is set decades after the first film. Besides Ford, the film will also star Ryan Gosling in a currently undisclosed role. It will be directed by Villeneuve and executive produced by Scott. Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins is also attached. On November 16, 2015, Gosling told Collider.com that he will be starring in the sequel.
See also
Biological robot
Synthetic biology
Arcology
Natural City
Tech noir
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Category:1982 films
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2016-01 | The_Real_Housewives_of_Beverly_Hills-697770813 | The_Real_Housewives_of_Beverly_Hills | The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (abbreviated RHOBH) is an American reality television series that premiered on October 14, 2010, on Bravo. The show was developed as the sixth installment of the The Real Housewives franchise following The Real Housewives of Orange County, New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, and D.C.. It has aired for five complete seasons and focuses on the personal and professional lives of several women residing in Los Angeles, California.
The series originally focused on Taylor Armstrong, Camille Grammer, Adrienne Maloof, Kim Richards, Kyle Richards, and Lisa Vanderpump. The sixth season lineup consists of Kyle Richards, Lisa Vanderpump, Yolanda Foster, Eileen Davidson, Lisa Rinna, Kathryn Edwards, and Erika Girardi. Of the original housewives, Grammar left after the second season, Armstrong and Maloof left after the third, and Kim Richards left after the fifth. The remaining housewives joined in later seasons: Yolanda Foster in the third season, Davidson and Rinna in the fifth, and Edwards and Girardi in the sixth. Other housewives include Brandi Glanville (seasons 3–5), Carlton Gebbia (season 4), and Joyce Giraud de Ohoven (season 4).
Overview and casting
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was announced in March 2010 as the sixth installment in the network's The Real Housewives franchise. The cast was announced on August 31, 2010, with former child actresses (and Paris Hilton's aunts) Kim Richards and Kyle Richards, heiress/businesswoman Adrienne Maloof, restaurant owner/entrepreneur Lisa Vanderpump, actor Kelsey Grammer's former wife Camille Grammer, and (now widowed) investment banker's wife Taylor Armstrong. Season 1 premiered on October 14, 2010, scoring over 1.5 million viewers and the series' ratings continued to grow, attracting 3.7 million viewers between the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. airings for the January 13, 2011 episode, making it the number one telecast among adults 18–49 versus all cable competition in the time slot. The January 20, 2011 finale became the highest-rated Season 1 episode with 4.2 million viewers, when combined with multiple evening reruns. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills''' first season ranked as the second highest rated first season series of the Real Housewives franchise ever in all demographics, averaging 2.42 million total viewers and 1.71 million adults 18–49. The series also received a 2011 Critics Choice Award for best reality series.
The series' second season renewal was announced in March 2011 and premiered on September 5, 2011. The entire season one cast returned, and Brandi Glanville and Dana Wilkey were each introduced to the series as a friend of the housewives". Grammer left the main cast after season two, and the second season was re-edited after the death of Taylor Armstrong's husband, Russell Armstrong, who committed suicide on August 15, 2011.
The third season premiere aired on November 5, 2012. Brandi Glanville was upgraded to main housewife and Yolanda Foster was added to the series, Marisa Zanuck was introduced as a friend of the housewives, and Camille Grammer held the same title. Faye Resnick officially joined the show as a friend of the housewives mid-season. Ratings for season 3 decreased from previous seasons. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills hit a season high of 2.35 million viewers and a 1.1 rating (18–49 aged viewers) on November 26, 2012, then plunged by 34% to a two-season low on March 11, 2013, with 1.56 million viewers and a 0.7 18–49 rating.
The series was officially renewed for a fourth season on April 2, 2013. Kyle Richards, Kim Richards, Brandi Glanville, Lisa Vanderpump, and Yolanda Foster all returned. Adrienne Maloof did not return for the fourth season, nor did she attend the season three reunion that was filmed March 1, 2013. Camille Grammer and Faye Resnick did not appear at all. Marisa Zanuck later revealed that producers did not ask her to return for the fourth season. TMZ posted a video of musician Rod Stewart stating that his wife, Penny Lancaster, turned down an offer from Bravo to be a part of the cast for the fourth season. Speculation began in April 2013 that Lisa Rinna would be joining the series for the fourth season, but a representative for Bravo stated that — at the time — there was "no truth" to the story. E! News confirmed that Carlton Gebbia and Joyce Giraud de Ohoven had joined the main cast, while Taylor Armstrong had been demoted to a guest role. The fourth season premiered on November 4, 2013.
The fifth season renewal of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was announced in April 2014. On May 28, 2014, it was reported that both Joyce Giraud and Carlton Gebbia would not be returning for the upcoming season. The fifth season began filming on June 20, 2014, with Lisa Vanderpump, Brandi Glanville, Kim and Kyle Richards, and Yolanda Foster returning. By July 2014, it was reported that Rinna had signed on for the fifth season, together with another Days of Our Lives alumna, Eileen Davidson. In addition, original housewives Maloof, Grammer, and Armstrong returned to the series for multiple appearances. The fifth season premiered on November 18, 2014.
In June 2015, it was confirmed that both Kim Richards and Glanville would not return as housewives for the sixth season. In August, E! News reported that singer Erika Girardi would be joining the series for the upcoming sixth season. In November, it was officially confirmed that Erika Girardi and Kathryn Edwards would join the show as housewives; former cast members, including Kim Richards, Grammer, Armstrong, Maloof, and Glanville would make guest appearances, alongside Bethenny Frankel from The Real Housewives of New York City''.
Timeline of housewives
Episodes
References
External links
Category:2010s American television series
Category:2010 American television series debuts
Category:English-language television programming
Category:Television shows set in Los Angeles, California
Category:Bravo (U.S.) television series
Category:Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills |
2016-01 | Iron_Maiden-696656639 | Iron_Maiden | Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, east London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. The band's discography has grown to thirty-eight albums, including sixteen studio albums, eleven live albums, four EPs, and seven compilations.
Pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden achieved initial success during the early 1980s. After several line-up changes, the band went on to release a series of UK and US platinum and gold albums, including 1982's The Number of the Beast, 1983's Piece of Mind, 1984's Powerslave, 1985's live release Live After Death, 1986's Somewhere in Time and 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Since the return of lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith in 1999, the band have undergone a resurgence in popularity, with their 2010 studio offering, The Final Frontier, peaking at No. 1 in 28 different countries and receiving widespread critical acclaim. Their sixteenth studio album, The Book of Souls, was released on 4 September 2015.
Despite little radio or television support, Iron Maiden are considered one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history, with The Observer reporting in 2015 that the band have sold over 90 million albums worldwide. The band won the Ivor Novello Award for international achievement in 2002. As of October 2013, the band have played over 2000 live shows throughout their career. For the past 35 years, the band have been supported by their famous mascot, "Eddie", who has appeared on almost all of their album and single covers, as well as in their live shows.
History
Early years (1975–1978)
Iron Maiden were formed on Christmas Day 1975 by bassist Steve Harris shortly after he left his previous group, Smiler. Harris attributes the band's name to a film adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, which he saw around that time and which had a verbal connection to the iron maiden torture device. After months of rehearsal, Iron Maiden made their debut at St. Nicks Hall in Poplar on 1 May 1976, before taking up a semi-residency at the Cart and Horses Pub in Maryland Point, Stratford.
The original line-up did not last very long, however, with vocalist Paul Day being the first casualty as he lacked "energy or charisma onstage." He was replaced by Dennis Wilcock, a Kiss fan who used make-up and fake blood during live performances. Wilcock's friend Dave Murray was invited to join, to the dismay of the band's guitarists Dave Sullivan and Terry Rance. Their frustration led Harris to temporarily disband Iron Maiden in 1976, though the group reformed soon after with Murray as the sole guitarist. Steve Harris and Dave Murray remain the band's longest-standing members and have performed on all of their releases.
Iron Maiden recruited yet another guitarist in 1977, Bob Sawyer, who was sacked for embarrassing the band onstage by pretending to play guitar with his teeth. Tension ensued again, causing a rift between Murray and Wilcock, who convinced Harris to fire Murray, as well as original drummer Ron Matthews. A new line-up was put together, including future Cutting Crew member Tony Moore on keyboards, Terry Wapram on guitar, and drummer Barry Purkis. A bad performance at the Bridgehouse, a pub located in Canning Town, in November 1977 was the line-up's first and only concert and led to Purkis being replaced by Doug Sampson. At the same time, Moore was asked to leave as Harris decided that keyboards did not suit the band's sound. A few months later, Dennis Wilcock decided that he had had enough with the group and left to form his own band, V1, and Dave Murray was immediately reinstated. As he preferred to be the band's sole guitarist, Wapram disapproved of Murray's return and was also dismissed.
Steve Harris, Dave Murray and Doug Sampson spent the summer and autumn of 1978 rehearsing while they searched for a singer to complete the band's new line-up. A chance meeting at the Red Lion pub in Leytonstone in November 1978 evolved into a successful audition for vocalist Paul Di'Anno. Steve Harris has stated, "There's sort of a quality in Paul's voice, a raspiness in his voice, or whatever you want to call it, that just gave it this great edge." At this time, Murray would typically act as their sole guitarist, with Harris commenting, "Davey was so good he could do a lot of it on his own. The plan was always to get a second guitarist in, but finding one that could match Davey was really difficult."
Record contract and early releases (1978–1981)
On New Year's Eve 1978, Iron Maiden recorded a demo, consisting of four songs, at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge. Hoping the recording would help them secure more gigs, the band presented a copy to Neal Kay, then managing a heavy metal club called "Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse", located in Kingsbury Circle, northwest London. Upon hearing the tape, Kay began playing the demo regularly at the Bandwagon, and one of the songs, "Prowler", eventually went to No. 1 in the Soundhouse charts, which were published weekly in Sounds magazine. A copy was also acquired by Rod Smallwood, who soon became the band's manager, and, as Iron Maiden's popularity increased, they decided to release the demo on their own record label as The Soundhouse Tapes, named after the club. Featuring only three tracks (one song, "Strange World", was excluded as the band were unsatisfied with its production) all five thousand copies were sold out within weeks.
In December 1979, the band secured a major record deal with EMI and asked Dave Murray's childhood friend Adrian Smith to join the group as their second guitarist. Smith declined as he was busy with his own band, Urchin, so Iron Maiden hired guitarist Dennis Stratton instead. Shortly afterwards, Doug Sampson left due to health issues and was replaced by ex-Samson drummer Clive Burr at Stratton's suggestion on 26 December. Iron Maiden's first appearance on an album was on the Metal for Muthas compilation (released on 15 February 1980) with two early versions of "Sanctuary" and "Wrathchild". The release led to an ensuing tour which featured several other bands linked with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Iron Maiden's eponymous 1980 release, Iron Maiden, debuted at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart. In addition to the title track (a live version of which would be one of the first music videos aired on MTV), the album includes other early favourites such as "Running Free", "Transylvania", "Phantom of the Opera", and "Sanctuary" – which was not on the original UK release but made the US version and subsequent remasters. The band set out on a headline tour of the UK, before opening for Kiss on their 1980 Unmasked Tour's European leg as well as supporting Judas Priest on select dates. After the Kiss tour, Dennis Stratton was dismissed from the band as a result of creative and personal differences, and was replaced by Adrian Smith in October 1980.
In 1981, Iron Maiden released their second album, entitled Killers. Containing many tracks that had been written prior to their debut release, only two new songs were written for the record: "Prodigal Son" and "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (the latter's title was taken from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe). Unsatisfied with the production on their debut album, the band hired veteran producer Martin Birch, who would go on to work for Iron Maiden until his retirement in 1992. The record was followed by the band's first world tour, which included their debut performance in the United States, opening for Judas Priest at The Aladdin Casino, Las Vegas.
Success (1981–1985)
By 1981, Paul Di'Anno was demonstrating increasingly self-destructive behaviour, particularly through his drug usage, about which Di'Anno comments, "it wasn't just that I was snorting a bit of coke, though; I was just going for it non-stop, 24 hours a day, every day... the band had commitments piling up that went on for months, years, and I just couldn't see my way to the end of it. I knew I'd never last the whole tour. It was too much." With his performances suffering, Di'Anno was immediately dismissed following the Killer World Tour, at which point the band had already selected his replacement.
After a meeting with Rod Smallwood at the Reading Festival, Bruce Dickinson, previously of Samson, auditioned for Iron Maiden in September 1981 and was immediately hired. The following month, Dickinson went out on the road with the band on a small headlining tour in Italy, as well as a one-off show at the Rainbow Theatre in the UK. For the last show, and in anticipation of their forthcoming album, the band played "Children of the Damned" and "22 Acacia Avenue", introducing fans to the sound towards which they were progressing.
In 1982, Iron Maiden released The Number of the Beast, an album which gave the band their first ever UK Albums Chart No. 1 record and additionally became a Top Ten hit in many other countries. At the time, Dickinson was in the midst of legal difficulties with Samson's management and was not permitted to add his name to any of the songwriting credits, although he still made what he described as a "moral contribution" to "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner" and "Run to the Hills". For the second time the band embarked on a world tour, dubbed The Beast on the Road, during which they visited North America, Japan, Australia and Europe, including a headline appearance at the Reading Festival. A new and hugely successful chapter in Iron Maiden's future was cemented; in 2010 The New York Times reported that the album had sold over 14 million copies worldwide.
The Beast on the Road's US leg proved controversial when an American conservative political lobbying group claimed Iron Maiden were Satanic because of the new album's title track, to the point where a group of Christian activists destroyed Iron Maiden records as a protest against the band. In recent years, Dickinson has stated that the band treated this as "silliness", and that the demonstrations in fact gave them "loads of publicity."
In December 1982, drummer Clive Burr was fired from the band and replaced by Nicko McBrain, previously of French band Trust. Although Harris states that his dismissal took place because his live performances were affected by offstage activities, Burr objected to this and claimed that he was unfairly ousted from the band. Soon afterwards, the band journeyed for the first time to The Bahamas to record the first of three consecutive albums at Compass Point Studios. In 1983, they released Piece of Mind, which reached the No. 3 spot in the UK, and was the band's debut in the North American charts, reaching No. 70 on the Billboard 200. Piece of Mind includes the successful singles "The Trooper" and "Flight of Icarus", the latter of which being particularly notable as one of the band's few songs to gain substantial airplay in the US.
Soon after the success of Piece of Mind and its supporting tour, the band released Powerslave on 9 September 1984. The album featured fan favourites "2 Minutes to Midnight", "Aces High", and "Rime of The Ancient Mariner", the latter based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name and running over 13 minutes long.
The tour following the album, dubbed the World Slavery Tour, was the band's largest to date and consisted of 193 shows in 28 countries over 13 months, playing to an estimated 3,500,000 people. Many shows were played back-to-back in the same city, such as in Long Beach, California, where the band played four consecutive concerts. It was here where the majority of their subsequent live release, Live After Death, was recorded, which became a critical and commercial success, peaking at No. 4 in the UK. Iron Maiden also made their debut appearance in South America, where they co-headlined (with Queen) the Rock in Rio festival to an estimated crowd of 300,000. The tour was physically gruelling for the band, who demanded six months off when it ended (although this was later reduced to four months). This was the first substantial break in the group's history, including the cancellation of a proposed supporting tour for the new live album, with Bruce Dickinson threatening to quit unless the tour ended.
Experimentation (1986–1989)
Returning from their time off, the band adopted a different style for their 1986 studio album, entitled Somewhere in Time, featuring, for the first time in the band's history, synthesised bass and guitars to add textures and layers to the sound. The release charted well across the world, particularly with the single "Wasted Years", but notably included no writing credits from lead singer Bruce Dickinson, whose material was rejected by the rest of the band. While Dickinson was focused on his own music, guitarist Adrian Smith, who typically collaborated with the vocalist, was "left to [his] own devices" and began writing songs on his own, coming up with "Wasted Years", "Sea of Madness", and "Stranger in a Strange Land", the last of which would be the album's second single.
The experimentation evident on Somewhere in Time continued on their next album, entitled Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which was released in 1988. A concept album, based on the 1987 novel Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, this would be the band's first record to include keyboards, performed by Harris and Smith, as opposed to guitar synthesisers on the previous release. After his contributions were not used for Somewhere in Time, Dickinson's enthusiasm was renewed as his ideas were accepted for this album. Another popular release, it became Iron Maiden's second album to hit No. 1 in the UK charts, although it only achieved a Gold certification in the US, in contrast to its four predecessors.
During the following tour, the band headlined the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington Park for the first time on 20 August 1988, playing to the largest crowd in the festival's history (107,000). Also included on the bill were Kiss, David Lee Roth, Megadeth, Guns N' Roses and Helloween. The festival was marred, however, by the deaths of two fans in a crowd-surge during the aforementioned Guns N' Roses performance; the following year's festival was cancelled as a result. The tour concluded with several headline shows in the UK in November and December 1988, with the concerts at the NEC Arena, Birmingham recorded for a live video, entitled Maiden England. Throughout the tour, Harris' bass technician, Michael Kenney, provided live keyboards. Kenney has acted as the band's live keyboard player ever since, also performing on the band's four following albums before Harris took over as the group's sole studio keyboardist from 2000's Brave New World.
Upheaval (1989–1994)
During another break in 1989, guitarist Adrian Smith released a solo album with his band ASAP, entitled Silver and Gold, and vocalist Bruce Dickinson began work on a solo album with former Gillan guitarist Janick Gers, releasing Tattooed Millionaire in 1990, followed by a tour. At the same time, to mark the band's ten-year recording anniversary, Iron Maiden released The First Ten Years, a series of ten CDs and double 12-inch singles. Between 24 February and 28 April 1990, the individual parts were released one-by-one, each containing two of Iron Maiden's singles, including the original B-sides.
Soon afterwards, Iron Maiden regrouped to work on a new studio record. During the pre-production stages, Adrian Smith left the band due to differences with Steve Harris regarding the direction the band should be taking, disagreeing with the "stripped down" style that they were leaning towards. Janick Gers, having worked on Dickinson's solo project, was chosen to replace Smith and became the band's first new member in seven years. The album, No Prayer for the Dying, was released in October 1990 and contained "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter", the band's first (and to date, only) UK Singles Chart No. 1, originally recorded by Dickinson's solo outfit for the soundtrack to A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.
After another tour and some more time off, the band recorded their next studio release, Fear of the Dark, which was released in 1992 and included the stand-out title track, which is now a regular fixture in the band's concert setlists. Achieving their third No. 1 in the UK albums chart, the disc also featured the No. 2 single "Be Quick or Be Dead" and the No. 21 single "From Here to Eternity". The album featured the first songwriting by Gers, and no collaboration at all between Harris and Dickinson on songs. The extensive worldwide tour that followed included their first ever Latin American leg (after a single concert during the World Slavery Tour), and headlining the Monsters of Rock festivals in seven European countries. Iron Maiden's second performance at Donington Park, to an audience of 68,500 (the attendance was capped after the incident in 1988), was filmed for the audio and video release, Live at Donington, and featured a guest appearance by Adrian Smith, who joined the band to perform "Running Free".
In 1993, Bruce Dickinson left the band to further pursue his solo career, but agreed to remain for a farewell tour and two live albums (later re-released in one package). The first, A Real Live One, featured songs from 1986 to 1992, and was released in March 1993. The second, A Real Dead One, featured songs from 1980 to 1984, and was released after Dickinson had left the band. The tour did not go well, however, with Steve Harris claiming that Dickinson would only perform properly for high-profile shows and that at several concerts he would only mumble into the microphone. Dickinson denies the charge that he was under-performing, stating that it was impossible to "make like Mr Happy Face if the vibe wasn't right," claiming that news of his exit from the band had prevented any chance of a good atmosphere during the tour. He played his farewell show with Iron Maiden on 28 August 1993, which was filmed, broadcast by the BBC and released on video under the name Raising Hell.
Blaze Bayley era, The X Factor and Virtual XI (1994–1999)
In 1994, the band listened to hundreds of tapes sent in by vocalists before convincing Blaze Bayley, formerly of the band Wolfsbane who had supported Iron Maiden in 1990, to audition for them. Harris' preferred choice from the outset, Bayley had a different vocal style from his predecessor, which ultimately received a mixed reception among fans.
After a two-year hiatus (as well as a three-year hiatus from studio releases – a record for the band at the time) Iron Maiden returned in 1995. Releasing The X Factor, the band had their lowest chart position since 1981 for an album in the UK (debuting at No. 8), although it would go on to win Album of the Year awards in France and Germany. The record included the 11-minute epic "Sign of the Cross", the band's longest song since "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", as well as the singles, "Man on the Edge", based on the film Falling Down, and "Lord of the Flies", based on the novel of the same name. The release is notable for its "dark" tone, inspired by Steve Harris' divorce. The band toured for the rest of 1995 and 1996, playing for the first time in Israel and South Africa, before stopping to release Best of the Beast. The band's first compilation, it included a new single, "Virus", whose lyrics attack the critics who had recently written off the band.
Iron Maiden returned to the studio to record Virtual XI, released in 1998. The album's chart scores were the band's lowest to date, including the UK where it peaked at No. 16 failing to score one million worldwide sales for the first time in Iron Maiden's history. At the same time, Steve Harris assisted in remastering the band's entire discography, up to and including Live at Donington (which was given a mainstream release for the first time).
Bayley's tenure in Iron Maiden ended in January 1999 when he was asked to leave during a band meeting. The dismissal took place due to issues Bayley had experienced with his voice during the Virtual XI World Tour, although Janick Gers has since stated that this was partly the band's fault for forcing him to perform songs which were beyond his natural register.
Return of Dickinson and Smith, Brave New World (1999–2002)
While the group were considering a replacement for Bayley, Rod Smallwood convinced Steve Harris to invite Bruce Dickinson back into the band. Although Harris admits that he "wasn't really into it" at first, he then thought, "'Well, if the change happens, who should we get?' The thing is, we know Bruce and we know what he's capable of, and you think, 'Well, better the devil you know.' I mean, we got on well professionally for, like, eleven years, and so... after I thought about it, I didn't really have a problem with it."
The band entered into talks with Dickinson, who agreed to rejoin during a meeting in Brighton in January 1999, along with guitarist Adrian Smith, who was telephoned a few hours later. With Gers, Smith's replacement, remaining, Iron Maiden now had a three-guitar line-up and embarked on a hugely successful reunion tour. Dubbed The Ed Hunter Tour, it tied in with the band's newly released greatest hits collection, Ed Hunter, whose track listing was decided by a poll on the group's website, and also contained a computer game of the same name starring the band's mascot.
One of Dickinson's primary concerns on rejoining the group "was whether we would in fact be making a real state-of-the-art record and not just a comeback album," which eventually took the form of 2000's Brave New World. Having disliked the results from Harris' personal studio, Barnyard Studios located on his property in Essex, which had been used for the last four Iron Maiden studio albums, the band recorded the new release at Guillaume Tell Studios, Paris in November 1999 with producer Kevin Shirley. Thematic influences continued with "The Wicker Man" – based on the 1973 British cult film of the same name – and "Brave New World" – title taken from the Aldous Huxley novel of the same name. The album furthered the more progressive and melodic sound present in some earlier recordings, with elaborate song structures and keyboard orchestration.
The world tour that followed consisted of well over 100 dates and culminated on 19 January 2001 in a show at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, where Iron Maiden played to an audience of around 250,000. While the performance was being produced for a CD and DVD release in March 2002, under the name Rock in Rio, the band took a year out from touring, during which they played three consecutive shows at Brixton Academy in aid of former drummer Clive Burr, who had recently announced that he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The band performed two further concerts for Burr's MS Trust Fund charity in 2005, and 2007; before his death in 2013.
Dance of Death and A Matter of Life and Death (2003–2007)
Following their Give Me Ed... 'Til I'm Dead Tour in the summer of 2003, Iron Maiden released Dance of Death, their thirteenth studio album, which was met by worldwide critical and commercial success. Produced by Kevin Shirley, now the band's regular producer, many critics also felt that this release matched up to their earlier efforts, such as Killers, Piece of Mind and The Number of the Beast. As usual, historical and literary references were present, with "Montségur" in particular being about the Cathar stronghold conquered in 1244, and "Paschendale" relating to the significant battle which took place during The First World War. During the following tour, the band's performance at Westfalenhalle, in Dortmund, Germany, was recorded and released in August 2005 as a live album and DVD, entitled Death on the Road.
In 2005, the band announced the Eddie Rips Up the World Tour which, tying in with their 2004 DVD entitled The History of Iron Maiden – Part 1: The Early Days, only featured material from their first four albums. As part of this celebration of their earlier years, "The Number of the Beast" single was re-released and went straight to No. 3 in the UK Chart. The tour included many headlining stadium and festival dates, including a performance at Ullevi Stadium in Sweden to an audience of almost 60,000. This concert was also broadcast live on satellite television all over Europe to approximately 60 million viewers. Following this run of European shows, the band co-headlined the US festival tour, Ozzfest, with Black Sabbath, their final performance at which earned international press coverage after their show was sabotaged by singer Ozzy Osbourne's family, who took offence to Dickinson's remarks against reality-TV. The band completed the tour by headlining the Reading and Leeds Festivals on the 26–28 August, and the RDS Stadium in Ireland on 31 August. For the second time, the band played a charity show for The Clive Burr MS Trust Fund, this time taking place at the Hammersmith Apollo. The same year, the band were inducted into the Hollywood RockWalk in Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.
At the end of 2005, Iron Maiden began work on A Matter of Life and Death, their fourteenth studio effort, released in autumn 2006. While not a concept album, war and religion are recurring themes in the lyrics, as well as in the cover artwork. The release was a critical and commercial success, earning the band their first top ten in the Billboard 200 and receiving the Album of the Year award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards. A supporting tour followed, during which they played the album in its entirety; response to this was mixed.
The second part of the "A Matter of Life and Death" tour, which took place in 2007, was dubbed "A Matter of the Beast" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Number of the Beast album, and included appearances at several major festivals worldwide. The tour opened in the Middle East with the band's first performance in Dubai at the Dubai Desert Rock Festival, after which they played to over 30,000 people at the Bangalore Palace Grounds, marking the first concert by any major heavy metal band in the Indian sub-continent. The band went on to play a string of European dates, including an appearance at Download Festival, their fourth headline performance at Donington Park, to approximately 80,000 people. On 24 June they ended the tour with a performance at London's Brixton Academy in aid of The Clive Burr MS Trust fund.
Somewhere Back in Time World Tour and Flight 666 (2007–2009)
On 5 September 2007, the band announced their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, which tied in with the DVD release of their Live After Death album. The setlist for the tour consisted of successes from the 1980s, with a specific emphasis on the Powerslave era for set design. The first part of the tour, commencing in Mumbai, India on 1 February 2008, consisted of 24 concerts in 21 cities, travelling nearly 50,000 miles in the band's own chartered aeroplane, named "Ed Force One". They played their first ever concerts in Costa Rica and Colombia and their first shows in Australia and Puerto Rico since 1992.
The tour led to the release of a new compilation album, entitled Somewhere Back in Time, which included a selection of tracks from their 1980 eponymous debut to 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, as well as several live versions from Live After Death.
The Somewhere Back in Time World Tour continued with two further legs in the US and Europe in the summer of 2008, during which the band used a more expansive stage-set, including further elements of the original Live After Death show. With the sole UK concert taking place at Twickenham Stadium, this would be the first time the band would headline a stadium in their own country. The three 2008 legs of the tour were remarkably successful; it was the second highest grossing tour of the year for a British artist.
The last part of the tour took place in February and March 2009, with the band, once again, using "Ed Force One". The final leg included the band's first ever appearances in Peru and Ecuador, as well as their return to Venezuela and New Zealand after 17 years. The band also played another show in India (their third in the country within a span of 2 years) at the Rock in India festival to a crowd of 20,000. At their concert in São Paulo on 15 March, Dickinson announced on stage that it was the largest non-festival show of their career, with an overall attendance of 63,000 people. The final leg ended in Florida on 2 April after which the band took a break. Overall, the tour reportedly had an attendance of over two million people worldwide over both years.
At the 2009 BRIT Awards, Iron Maiden won the award for best British live act. Voted for by the public, the band reportedly won by a landslide.
On 20 January 2009, the band announced that they were to release a full-length documentary film in select cinemas on 21 April 2009. Entitled Iron Maiden: Flight 666, it was filmed during the first part of the Somewhere Back in Time World Tour between February and March 2008. Flight 666 was co-produced by Banger Productions and was distributed in cinemas by Arts Alliance Media and EMI, with D&E Entertainment sub-distributing in the US. The film went on to have a Blu-ray, DVD and CD release in May and June, topping the music DVD charts in 22 countries.
The Final Frontier and Maiden England World Tour (2010–2014)
Following announcements that the band had begun composition of new material and booked studio time in early 2010 with Kevin Shirley producing, The Final Frontier was announced on 4 March. The album, the band's fifteenth, was released on 16 August, garnering critical acclaim and the band's greatest commercial success in their history, reaching No. 1 in twenty-eight countries worldwide. Although Steve Harris had been quoted in the past as claiming that the band would only produce fifteen studio releases, band members have since confirmed that there will be at least one further record.
The album's supporting tour saw the band perform 98 shows across the globe to an estimated audience of over 2 million, including their first visits to Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea, before concluding in London on 6 August 2011. As the tour's 2010 leg preceded The Final Frontier'''s release, the band made "El Dorado" available as a free download on 8 June, which would go on to win the award for Best Metal Performance at the 2011 Grammy Awards on 13 February 2011. It is the band's first win following two previous Grammy nominations ("Fear of the Dark" in 1994 and "The Wicker Man" in 2001).
On 15 March, a new compilation to accompany 2009's Somewhere Back in Time was announced. Entitled From Fear to Eternity, the original release date was set at 23 May but was later pushed back to 6 June. The double disc set covers the period 1990–2010 (the band's most recent eight studio albums), and, as on Somewhere Back in Time, live versions with Bruce Dickinson were included in place of original recordings which featured other vocalists, in this case Blaze Bayley.
In a press release regarding From Fear to Eternity, band manager Rod Smallwood revealed that Iron Maiden will release a new concert video to DVD in 2011, filmed in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina during The Final Frontier World Tour. On 17 January 2012, the band announced that the new release, entitled En Vivo!, based on footage from the Chile concert, will be made available worldwide on CD, LP, DVD and Blu-ray on 26 March, except the United States and Canada (where it was released on 27 March). In addition to the concert footage, the video release includes an 88-minute tour documentary, entitled Behind The Beast, containing interviews with the band and their crew. In December 2012, one song from the release ("Blood Brothers") was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance at the 2013 Grammy Awards.
On 15 February 2012, the band announced the Maiden England World Tour 2012–14, which was based around the video of the same name. The tour commenced in North America in the summer of 2012 and was followed by further dates in 2013 and 2014, which included the band's record-breaking fifth headline performance at Donington Park, their first show at the newly built national stadium in Stockholm, a return to the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, and their debut appearance in Paraguay. In August 2012, Steve Harris stated that the Maiden England video would be re-issued in 2013, with a release date later set for 25 March 2013 in DVD, CD and LP formats under the title Maiden England '88.
The Book of Souls (2015–present)
Following confirmation from the group that 2010's The Final Frontier would not be their last album, Bruce Dickinson revealed plans for a sixteenth studio record in July 2013, with a potential release date in 2015. In February 2015, drummer Nicko McBrain revealed that a new album had been completed, although the release has been put on hold while Dickinson recovers from treatment for a cancerous tumour found on his tongue. On 15 May, after Dickinson had been given the all-clear, manager Rod Smallwood confirmed that the album would be released in 2015, although the band will not tour until 2016 to allow Dickinson to recuperate. On 18 June 2015, the band's website announced its title, The Book of Souls, and confirmed a release date of 4 September 2015. A critical and commercial success, it received positive reviews and became the band's fifth UK No. 1 album.
The new record was recorded at Guillaume Tell Studios, Paris, which they had previously used for 2000's Brave New World, with regular producer Kevin Shirley in late summer 2014. With a total time of 92 minutes, it is the group's first double studio album. In addition, the release's closing song, "Empire of the Clouds", penned by Dickinson, replaces "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (from 1984's Powerslave) as Iron Maiden's longest song, at 18 minutes in length. A music video for the song "Speed of Light" was issued on 14 August.
From February 2016, the band will embark on The Book of Souls World Tour, which will see them play concerts in 35 countries in North and South America, Asia, Australasia, Africa and Europe, including their first ever performances in China, El Salvador and Lithuania. As with 2008-09's Somewhere Back in Time World Tour and 2010-11's The Final Frontier World Tour, the group will be travelling in a customised aeroplane, flown by Dickinson and nicknamed "Ed Force One", although this time they will be using a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet.
Image and legacy
Iron Maiden were ranked No. 24 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock", No. 4 in MTV's "Top 10 Greatest Heavy Metal Bands of All Time" and No. 3 in VH1 Classic's "Top 20 Metal Bands". The band also won the Ivor Novello Award for international achievement in 2002 and were inducted into the Hollywood RockWalk whilst touring in the US in 2005.
Iron Maiden frequently use the slogan "Up the Irons" in their disc liner notes, and the phrase can also be seen on several T-shirts officially licensed by the band. It is a paraphrase of "Up the Hammers," the phrase which refers to the London football club, West Ham United, of which founder Steve Harris is a fan.
Iron Maiden's mascot, Eddie, is a perennial fixture in the band's science fiction and horror-influenced album cover art, as well as in live shows. Originally a papier-mâché mask incorporated in their backdrop which would squirt fake blood during their live shows, the name would be transferred to the character featured in the band's debut album cover, created by Derek Riggs. Eddie was painted exclusively by Riggs until 1992, at which point the band began using artwork from numerous other artists as well, including Melvyn Grant. Eddie is also featured in the band's first-person shooter video game, Ed Hunter, as well as numerous T-shirts, posters and other band-related merchandise. In 2008, he was awarded the "Icon Award" at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods, while Gibson.com describes him as "the most recognisable metal icon in the world and one of the most versatile too."
Iron Maiden's distinct logo has adorned all of the band's releases since their debut, 1979's The Soundhouse Tapes EP. The typeface originates with Vic Fair's poster design for the 1976 science fiction film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, also used by Gordon Giltrap, although Steve Harris claims that he designed it himself, utilising his abilities as an architectural draughtsman.
Influence on other artists
According to Guitar World, Iron Maiden's music has "influenced generations of newer metal acts, from legends like Metallica to current stars like Avenged Sevenfold," with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich commenting that he has "always had an incredible amount of respect and admiration for them." Kerry King of Slayer has stated that "they meant so much to me in their early days" and Scott Ian of Anthrax says that "they had a major impact on my life."
M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold states that Iron Maiden "are by far the best live band in the world and their music is timeless," while Trivium singer Matt Heafy comments that "without Iron Maiden, Trivium surely wouldn't exist." Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor says that "Steve Harris does more with four fingers than I've ever seen anybody do. And Bruce Dickinson? Dude! To me, he was the quintessential old-school heavy metal singer. He could hit notes that were just sick, and he was a great showman. Everything made me a fan. And there wasn't a dude that I hung out with that wasn't trying to draw Eddie on their schoolbooks," while their music also helped Jesper Strömblad of In Flames to pioneer the melodic death metal genre, stating that he had wanted to combine death metal with Iron Maiden's melodic guitar sounds.
Other heavy metal artists who cite the band as an influence include Chris Jericho, lead singer of Fozzy, Cam Pipes, lead vocalist of 3 Inches of Blood, Vitaly Dubinin, bassist of Aria, and Mikael Åkerfeldt, guitarist and lead vocalist of Opeth. Both current and former Dream Theater members John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy have stated that Iron Maiden were one of their biggest influences when their band first formed.
Appearance in media
The band's name has been mentioned prominently in several songs, such as the singles "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus, "Back to the 80's" by Danish dance-pop band Aqua. and "Fat Lip" by Sum 41. Iron Maiden have also been referenced in Weezer's "Heart Songs" (from their 2008 self-titled "Red" album), Blues Traveler's "Psycho Joe" (from 1997's Straight on till Morning), and NOFX's "Eddie, Bruce and Paul" (from their 2009 album Coaster), which Sputnikmusic describes as "a humorous retelling of Paul DiAnno's departure." Also, Swedish power metal band Sabaton have made references to the band in their songs "Metal Machine", "Metal Crue", and "Metal Ripper", with the former mentioning various Iron Maiden songs (namely "Fear of the Dark" and "Afraid to Shoot Strangers"), and the latter including lyrics from "The Number of the Beast".
In 2008, Kerrang! released an album, entitled Maiden Heaven: A Tribute to Iron Maiden, composed of Iron Maiden cover songs played by artists such as Metallica, Machine Head, Dream Theater, Trivium, Coheed and Cambria, Avenged Sevenfold, and others who were influenced by Iron Maiden throughout their careers. In 2010, Maiden uniteD, an acoustic tribute band consisting of members of Ayreon, Threshold and Within Temptation, released Mind the Acoustic Pieces, a re-interpretation of the entire Piece of Mind album. Many other Iron Maiden cover albums exist (each featuring various artists), including piano, electro, string quartet and hip-hop tributes.
Iron Maiden songs have been featured in the soundtracks of several video games, including Carmageddon 2, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, SSX on Tour and Madden NFL 10. Their music also appears in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series of rhythmic video games. Iron Maiden songs have also appeared in films, such as Phenomena (entitled Creepers in the US), and Murder by Numbers; while MTV's animated duo Beavis and Butt-head have commented favourably on the band several times.
Transformers author Bill Forster is an avowed Iron Maiden fan and made several Iron Maiden references, including song lyrics and the phrase "Up the Irons" in his books, including The Ark series and The AllSpark Almanac series.
Claims of Satanic references
In 1982, the band released one of their most popular, controversial and acclaimed albums, The Number of the Beast. The artwork and title track led to Christian groups in the United States branding the band as Satanists, encouraging people to destroy copies of the release. The band's manager, Rod Smallwood, later commented that Christians initially burnt the records, but later decided to destroy them with hammers through fear of breathing in the melting vinyl's fumes. The claims were not restricted to the US, however, with Christian organisations managing to prevent Iron Maiden from performing in Chile in 1992.
Contrary to the accusations, the band have always denied the notion that they are Satanists, with lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, doing so on-stage in the Live After Death concert video. Steve Harris has since commented that, "It was mad. They completely got the wrong end of the stick. They obviously hadn't read the lyrics. They just wanted to believe all that rubbish about us being Satanists." Harris has also stated that "The Number of the Beast" song was inspired by a nightmare he had after watching Damien: Omen II, and also influenced by Robert Burns' Tam o' Shanter. Furthermore, the band's drummer, Nicko McBrain, has been a born again Christian since 1999.
Ed Force One
For their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour in 2008 and 2009, Iron Maiden commissioned an Astraeus Airlines Boeing 757 as transport. The aeroplane was converted into a combi configuration, which enabled it to carry the band, their crew and stage production, thereby allowing the group to perform in countries which were previously deemed unreachable logistically. It was also repainted with a special Iron Maiden livery, which the airline decided to retain after receiving positive feedback from customers.
The aircraft, named "Ed Force One" after a competition on the band's website, was flown by Dickinson, as he was also a commercial airline pilot for Astraeus, and plays a major role in the award-winning documentary, Iron Maiden: Flight 666, which was released in cinemas in 42 countries in April 2009. A different aeroplane (G-STRX) was used for The Final Frontier World Tour in 2011 with altered livery, adopting the artwork of The Final Frontier album, and features heavily in the 2012 documentary "Behind the Beast". For the upcoming The Book of Souls World Tour (2016), the band have upgraded to a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet, supplied by Air Atlanta Icelandic, which allows for more space without the aircraft having to undergo a significant conversion to carry their equipment.
Musical style and influences
Steve Harris, Iron Maiden's bassist and primary songwriter, has stated that his influences include Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy, UFO and Wishbone Ash. In 2010 Harris stated, "I think if anyone wants to understand Maiden's early thing, in particular the harmony guitars, all they have to do is listen to Wishbone Ash's Argus album. Thin Lizzy too, but not as much. And then we wanted to have a bit of a prog thing thrown in as well, because I was really into bands like Genesis and Jethro Tull. So you combine all that with the heavy riffs and the speed, and you've got it." In 2004, Harris explained that the band's "heaviness" was inspired by "Black Sabbath and Deep Purple with a bit of Zeppelin thrown in." On top of this, Harris developed his own playing style, which guitarist Janick Gers describes as "more like a rhythm guitar," cited as responsible for the band's galloping style, heard in such songs as "The Trooper" and "Run to the Hills."
The band's guitarists, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers, each have their own individual influences and playing style. Dave Murray is known for his legato technique which, he claims, "evolved naturally. I'd heard Jimi Hendrix using legato when I was growing up, and I liked that style of playing." Stating that he "was inspired by blues rock rather than metal," Adrian Smith was influenced by Johnny Winter and Pat Travers, leading to him becoming a "melodic player." Janick Gers, on the other hand, prefers a more improvised style, largely inspired by Ritchie Blackmore, which he claims is in contrast to Smith's "rhythmic" sound.
Singer Bruce Dickinson, who typically works in collaboration with guitarist Adrian Smith, has an operatic vocal style, inspired by Arthur Brown, Peter Hammill, Ian Anderson and Ian Gillan, and is often considered to be one of the best heavy metal vocalists of all time. Although Nicko McBrain has only received one writing credit, on the Dance of Death album, Harris often relies on him while developing songs. Adrian Smith commented, "Steve loves playing with him. [They] used to work for hours going over these bass and drum patterns."
Throughout their career, the band's style has remained largely unchanged, in spite of the addition of guitar synthesisers on 1986's Somewhere in Time, keyboards on 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and an attempt to return to the "stripped down" production of their earlier material on No Prayer for the Dying. In recent years, however, the band have begun using more progressive elements in their songs, which Steve Harris describes as not progressive "in the modern sense, but like Dream Theater, more in a 70s way." According to Harris, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the band's first album which was "more progressive," while they would only return to this style from 1995's The X Factor, which he states is "like an extension of Seventh Son..., in the sense of the progressive element to it." The development contrasts with the band's raw sounding earlier material, which AllMusic states was "clearly drawing from elements of punk rock," although Harris firmly denies this.
Awards
Bandit Rock Awards:
2011: Best International Live Act
2015: Best International Live Act
Brit Awards:
2009: Best British Live Act
Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards:
2006: Album of the Year – A Matter of Life and Death 2006: VIP Award – Rod Smallwood, Iron Maiden
2009: Band of the Year
2015: Album of the Year – The Book of SoulsEmma-gaala:
2004: The audience vote for Best Foreign Artist
2006: The audience vote for Best Foreign Artist
Grammy Awards:
2011: Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance – "El Dorado"
Hollywood's RockWalk:
2005: RockWalk of Fame Inductee
Ivor Novello Awards:
2002: International Achievement
Juno Awards:
2010: Juno Award for Music DVD of the Year – Iron Maiden: Flight 666 (Sam Dunn and Scott McFadyen)
Kerrang! Awards:
2005: Kerrang! Hall of Fame
2013: Kerrang! Inspiration
Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards:
2004: Best UK Act
2008: Best UK Band
2008: Icon Award – Eddie
2009: Golden Gods Award
2009: Best UK Band
2011: Best UK Band
2012: Best Event – Iron Maiden's UK Tour
2014: Best UK Band
Metal Storm Awards:
2006: Best Heavy Metal Album – A Matter of Life and Death 2009: Best DVD – Iron Maiden: Flight 666'
2010: Best Video – "The Final Frontier"
Silver Clef Award:
2004: Special Achievement Award
2015: O2 Silver Clef Award 2015
Rockbjörnen:
2011: Best Hard Rock Live Act
SXSW Film Festival:
2009: 24 Beats Per Second – Iron Maiden: Flight 666
Band members
Current members
Steve Harris – bass, backing vocals (1975–present), keyboards (1988, 1998–present)
Dave Murray – guitars (1976–1977, 1978–present)
Adrian Smith – guitars, backing vocals (1980–1990, 1999–present), keyboards (1988)
Bruce Dickinson – lead vocals (1981–1993, 1999–present)
Nicko McBrain – drums, percussion (1982–present)
Janick Gers – guitars (1990–present)
Live members
Michael Kenney – keyboards (1988–present)
Former members
Vocalists:
Paul Day – lead vocals (1975–1976)
Dennis Wilcock – lead vocals (1976–1978)
Paul Di'Anno – lead vocals (1978–1981)
Blaze Bayley – lead vocals (1994–1999)
Guitarists:
Terry Rance – guitars (1975–1976)
Dave Sullivan – guitars (1975–1976)
Bob Sawyer – guitars (1977)
Terry Wapram – guitars (1977–1978)
Paul Cairns – guitars (1978–1979)
Paul Todd – guitars (1979)
Tony Parsons – guitars (1979)
Dennis Stratton – guitars, backing vocals (1979–1980)
Drummers:
Ron "Rebel" Matthews – drums (1975–1977)
Thunderstick – drums, percussion (1977)
Doug Sampson – drums, percussion (1977–1979)
Clive Burr – drums, percussion (1979–1982)
Keyboardist:
Tony Moore – keyboards (1977)
Discography
Studio albums
Iron Maiden (1980)
Killers (1981)
The Number of the Beast (1982)
Piece of Mind (1983)
Powerslave (1984)
Somewhere in Time (1986)
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)
No Prayer for the Dying (1990)
Fear of the Dark (1992)
The X Factor (1995)
Virtual XI (1998)
Brave New World (2000)
Dance of Death (2003)
A Matter of Life and Death (2006)
The Final Frontier (2010)
The Book of Souls (2015)
Concert tours
* More dates to be announced
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands
List of bands from England
List of Iron Maiden songs
Music in tribute of Iron Maiden
The Iron Maidens
Notes
Citations
References
ASIN B0006B29Z2
Popoff, Martin (2013). 2 Minutes to Midnight: An Iron Maiden Day-by-Day. Backbeat Books. ISBN 1-617-13565-8.
External links
Iron Maiden at Metal Archives
Category:English heavy metal musical groups
Category:English rock music groups
Category:Musical groups established in 1975
Category:Musical groups from London
Category:Musical sextets
Category:Brit Award winners
Category:Grammy Award winners
Category:Ivor Novello Award winners
Category:Kerrang! Awards winners
Category:1975 establishments in England
Category:EMI Records artists
Category:Universal Music Group artists
Category:Capitol Records artists
Category:Epic Records artists
Category:Harvest Records artists
Category:Parlophone artists |
2016-01 | Chicago-697200665 | Chicago | Chicago
Chicago ( or ) is the third most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois and the Midwest. The Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland, has nearly 10 million people and is the third-largest in the U.S. Chicago is the seat of Cook County.
Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and grew rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. The city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation: O'Hare International Airport is the busiest airport in the world; it also has the largest number of U.S. highways and railroad freight. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranked seventh in the world in the 2014 Global Cities Index. , Chicago had the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States at billion.
, Chicago had 50.2 million international and domestic visitors. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, gospel and house music. It also has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. Chicago has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City.
History
Beginnings
The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, translated by some sources as "wild leek" or "wild onion" or "wild garlic", from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called "chicagoua", grew abundantly in the area. Other sources say place of the skunk.
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples. The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago."
In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, native tribes, in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville, turned over an area that was to be part of Chicago to the United States for a military post. The United States Army built Fort Dearborn in 1803, but it was destroyed in the Battle of Fort Dearborn during the War of 1812, and was later rebuilt. The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833.
Founding and 19th century
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales commenced with Edmund Dick Taylor as U.S. receiver of public moneys. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837 and for several decades was the fastest growing city in the world.
As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal both opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.
A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first ever standardized 'exchange traded' forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.
In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US President at the 1860 Republican National Convention. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.
To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the health of the city, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, then into Lake Michigan, polluting the primary source of fresh water for the city.
The city responded by tunneling two miles (3 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.
In 1871, a Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area of about 4 miles long and 1 mile wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.
The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by superior municipal services the city could provide its residents.
Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).
Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams to co‑found Hull House in 1889. Programs developed there became a model for the new field of social work.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City, and later state laws, that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.
The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D.. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867,in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.
In the 19th century, Chicago became the nation's railroad center, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of 6 different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects Washington and Jackson Parks.
20th and 21st centuries
During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African-Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African-American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.
The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, where Al Capone sent men to gun down members of his rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.
In 1924, Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization, the Society for Human Rights. This organization produced the first American publication for gays, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure soon caused it to disband.
In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition Worlds Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.
In March 1937, there was a violent strike by about 3,500 drivers for Checker and Yellow Cab Companies which included rioting that went on for weeks. The cab companies hired "strike breakers", and the cab drivers union hired "sluggers" who ragged through the downtown Chicago area looking for cabs and drivers not participating in the strike.
On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.
Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. Starting in the early 1960s due to blockbusting, many white residents, as in most American cities, left the city for the suburbs. Whole neighborhoods were completely changed based on race. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy losses of jobs for lower skilled workers. In 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.
Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, including full-scale riots, or in some cases police riots, in city streets. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She helped mitigate crime in the Cabrini-Green housing project and guide Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.
In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of the city of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development. After successfully standing for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.
On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, won the mayoral election, beating five rivals with 55 percent of the vote, and was sworn in as Mayor on May 16, 2011.
Geography
Cityscape
Topography
Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, situated in the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. Chicago rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside huge freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow entirely or partially through Chicago.
Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect, moderating Chicago's climate; making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
When Chicago was founded in 1833, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas, is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. The lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.
The Chicago Loop is the central business district, but Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's lakefront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park and Jackson Park. There are twenty-four public beaches across of the waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.
An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland". There is no precise definition for the term "Chicagoland", but it generally means the entire conurbation. The Chicago Tribune, which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.
Communities
Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, the South, and West Sides. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most densely populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains the University of Chicago and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.
In the late 1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.
Streetscape
Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plat. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction (about one street per 201 meters by two in the other direction). The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.
Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass and/or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world. Other famous streets include North Michigan Avenue, North State Street, Clark, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.
Architecture
The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era, which would then be followed by many other cities around the world. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense.
Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.
The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th largest (as of September 9, 2013), has its own zip code, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.
Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.
Chicago's religious heritage is evident in its sacred architecture. Many are Christian in origin, with Roman Catholic structures particularly prevalent. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The city also has many historic synagogues and noteworthy buildings of other religions. The Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv Synagogue, now the Pilgrim Baptist Church was designed by Adler & Sullivan in 1890.
Monuments and public art
Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust. A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain and Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.
More representational and portrait statuary includes a number of works by Lorado Taft (Fountain of Time, The Crusader, Eternal Silence, and the Heald Square Monument completed by Crunelle), French's Statue of the Republic, Edward Kemys's Lions, Saint-Gaudens's Abraham Lincoln: The Man (a.k.a. Standing Lincoln) and Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State (a.k.a. Seated Lincoln), Brioschi's Christopher Columbus, Meštrović's The Bowman and The Spearman, Dallin's Signal of Peace, Fairbanks's The Chicago Lincoln, Boyle's The Alarm, Polasek's memorial to Masaryk, memorials along Solidarity Promenade to Kościuszko, Havliček and Copernicus by Chodzinski, Strachovský, and Thorvaldsen, a memorial to General Logan by Saint-Gaudens, and Kearney's Moose (W-02-03). A number of statues also honor recent local heroes such as Michael Jordan (by Amrany and Rotblatt-Amrany), Stan Mikita, and Bobby Hull outside of the United Center; Harry Caray (by Amrany and Cella) outside Wrigley field, Jack Brickhouse (by McKenna) next to the WGN studios, and Irv Kupcinet at the Wabash Avenue Bridge.
There are preliminary plans to erect a 1:1‑scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's Art Nouveau statue of Frédéric Chopin found in Warsaw's Royal Baths along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth.
Climate
The city lies within the humid continental climate zone (Köppen: Dfa), and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are warm to hot and often humid, with a July daily average of . In a normal summer, temperatures can exceed as many as 21 days. Winters are cold and snowy with few sunny days, and the normal January high is just below freezing. Spring and autumn are mild seasons with low humidity. Dewpoint temperatures in the summer range from in June to in July. The city is part of the USDA Plant Hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.
According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on July 24, 1934, although Midway Airport reached the same day and recorded a heat index of during the 1995 heatwave. The lowest official temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. The city can experience extreme winter cold waves and summer heat waves that may last for several consecutive days. Thunderstorms are not uncommon during the spring and summer months which may sometimes produce hail, high winds, and tornadoes. Like other major cities, Chicago also experiences urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. Also, the proximity to Lake Michigan keeps lakefront Chicago cooler in early summer and milder in winter than areas to the west.
Demographics
During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever-recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.
From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Serbs and Czechs. To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African-Americans from the American South — with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago were clustered in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's African-American population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition. Chicago's South Side emerged as America's second largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem.
As of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households living in Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is one of the United States' most densely populated major cities, and the largest city in the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The racial composition of the city was:
45.0% White (31.7% non-Hispanic whites);
32.9% Black or African American;
28.9% Hispanic or Latino (of any race);
13.4% from some other race;
5.5% Asian (1.6% Chinese, 1.1% Indian, 1.1% Filipino, 0.4% Korean, 0.3% Pakistani, 0.3% Vietnamese, 0.2% Japanese, 0.1% Thai);
2.7% from two or more races;
0.5% American Indian.
Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian)
The city's previous largest ethnic group, non-Hispanic white, declined from 59% in 1970 to 31.7% in 2010.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008-2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line.
According to the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:
Irish: (137,799)
Polish: (134,032)
German: (120,328)
Italian: (77,967)
American: (37,118)
English: (36,145)
African American: (32,727)
Russian: (19,771)
Arab: (17,598)
European: (15,753)
Swedish: (15,151)
Greek: (15,129)
French (except Basque): (11,410)
Ukrainian: (11,104)
West Indian (except Hispanic groups): (10,349)
Persons identifying themselves as "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.
Religion
Seventy-one percent of Chicagoans identify as Christian, 7% identity with other faiths and 22% have no religious affiliation. Chicago also has many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and others.
Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the biggest Presbyterian congregations in the U.S.
The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago. Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama, and Pope John Paul II in 1979.
Economy
Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $547 billion according to 2012 estimates. Only the urban agglomerations of New York City and Los Angeles are larger. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. Chicago was named the fourth most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for calendar year 2014. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009 Chicago placed 9th on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.
Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second largest central business district in the United States. The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX) and the Dow Jones Indexes. Perhaps due to the influence of the Chicago school of economics, the city also has markets trading unusual contracts such as emissions (on the Chicago Climate Exchange) and equity style indices (on the U.S. Futures Exchange). Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.
The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.48 million workers, as of 2014. In addition, the state of Illinois is home to 66 Fortune 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city claims one Dow 30 company: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001. Two more Dow 30 companies, Kraft Foods and McDonald's are in the Chicago suburbs, as are Sears Holdings Corporation and the technology spin-offs of Motorola. The headquarters of United Continental Holdings, are in the United Building and its operations center and its United Airlines subsidiary are in the Willis Tower in Chicago.
Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare Financial Services division of General Electric. In addition to Boeing, which located its headquarters in Chicago in 2001, and United Airlines in 2011, GE Transportation moved its offices to the city in 2013, as did ThyssenKrupp North America, and agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Though the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also the site of a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, 37signals, Groupon, Feedburner, and NowSecure.
Chicago has been a hub of the Retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.
Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.
Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.
Culture and contemporary life
The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south. The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and La Villita along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown; Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.
Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.
Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. Lakeview has Boystown, which, along with Andersonville, are the best-known LGBT neighborhoods.
The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park contains the University of Chicago (U of C), ranked one of the world's top ten universities; and the Museum of Science and Industry. The long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels from Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant located in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.
The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios.
Entertainment, the arts, and performing arts
Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian.
The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.
Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music and is the site of an influential hip-hop scene. In the 1980s, the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances."
Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings.
Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, Miró's Chicago, Flamingo and Flying Dragon by Alexander Calder, Agora by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Monument with Standing Beast by Jean Dubuffet, Batcolumn by Claes Oldenburg, Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa, and the Four Seasons mosaic by Marc Chagall.
Chicago also has a nationally televised Thanksgiving parade that occurs annually. The McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade is seen across the nation on WGN-TV and WGN America, featuring a variety of diverse acts from the community, marching bands from across the country, and is the only parade in the city to feature inflatable balloons every year.
Tourism
, Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the fourth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, there is the reflective Cloud Gate sculpture. Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.
Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Its tall Ferris wheel is one of the most visited landmarks in the Midwest, attracting about 8 million people annually. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.
On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.
With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.
The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends 10 feet out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.
In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler.
Cuisine
Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city.
The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.
There are several distinctly Chicago sandwiches, among them the Italian beef sandwich, which is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. Another is the Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa — on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.
Ethnically originated creations include chicken Vesuvio, with roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. Another is the Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito, a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. There is also the tamale with chile, mother-in-law sandwich. The tradition of serving the Greek dish, saganaki while aflame, has its origins in Chicago's Greek community. The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side.
A number of well-known chefs have had restaurants in Chicago, including Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination."
Literature
Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to "capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people." The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago. Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.
At least, three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American Literature. These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.
What would become the influential Poetry magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune. The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery. T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by Poetry. Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements.
Sports
Sporting News named Chicago the "Best Sports City" in the United States in 1993, 2006, and 2010. Along with Boston, Chicago is the only city to continuously host major professional sports since 1871, having only taken 1872 and 1873 off due to the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, along with Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia, Chicago is one of the six cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional sports leagues and, along with New York and Los Angeles, is one of three cities to have won soccer championships as well. Several major franchises have won championships within recent years – the Bears (1985), the Bulls (91, '92, '93, '96, '97, and '98), the White Sox (2005), the Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015), and the Fire (1998).
The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League (NL), who play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League (AL), who play in U.S. Cellular Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901 (New York only hosted one between 1958 and early 1962). The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city; they have played in Chicago since 1871, and continuously so since 1874 due to the Great Chicago Fire. They have played more games and have more wins than any other team in Major League baseball since 1876. They have won two World Series titles, but have the dubious honor of having the two longest droughts in American professional sports: They have not won their sport's title since 1908, and have not participated in a World Series since 1945, both records.
The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901, with all three of their home fields throughout the years being within mere blocks of one another. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Sox are fifth in the American League in all-time wins, and sixth in pennants.
The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but is now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears have won more games in the history of the NFL than any other team, and only the Green Bay Packers, their longtime rivals, have won more championships. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. Soldier Field re-opened in 2003 after an extensive renovation. However, because of this renovation, the stadium lost its National Historic Landmark designation in 2006.
The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons. They also boast the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, Derrick Rose, who won it for the 2010–11 season.
The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team has won six Stanley Cups, including in 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.
The Chicago Fire Soccer Club is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Toyota Park in suburban Bridgeview, after playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.
The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team based in Rosemont, Illinois, playing in the Eastern Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Allstate Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.
The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.
Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).
Parks
When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.
With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.
The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield. Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly . The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.
Law and government
Government
The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.
The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois State's Attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States Attorney.
Politics
During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding. Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but 8 of Illinois' 19 U.S. Representatives have part of Chicago in their districts.
Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. On May 16, 2011, Rahm Emanuel was sworn in as the 55th mayor of Chicago. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.
Formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US Senator, the city is home of United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
Crime
Chicago had a murder rate of 18.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012, ranking 16th among cities with 100,000 people or more. This was higher than in New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the United States, which have lower murder rates and lower total homicides. However, it was less than in many smaller American cities, including New Orleans, Newark, and Detroit, which had 53 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012.
According to reports in 2013, "[m]ost of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories", and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which by 2006 had decided to seek to control illicit drug distribution, over against local street gangs. Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime. In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people; the murder rate was 10.4 -- while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.
The number of murders in Chicago peaked at 970 in 1974, when the city's population was over 3 million people (a murder rate of about 29 per 100,000), and it reached 943 murders in 1992, (a murder rate of 34 per 100,000). However, Chicago and other major U.S. cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, falling to 448 homicides in 2004, its lowest total since 1965 and only 15.65 murders per 100,000). Chicago's homicide tally remained low during 2005 (449), 2006 (452), and 2007 (435) but rose to 510 in 2008, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. In 2009, the murder count fell to 458 (10% down). and in 2010 Chicago's murder rate fell to 435 (16.14 per 100,000), a 5% decrease from 2009 and lowest levels since 1965. In 2011, Chicago's murders fell another 1.2% to 431 (a rate of 15.94 per 100,000). but shot up to 506 in 2012.
In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, but in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide (down 26%). Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent. (In 1965, there were 397 murders.)
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, estimated that shootings cost the city of Chicago $2.5 billion in 2012.
In 2014, the Chicago police department reported a total murder count of 390 through December 20, 2014, according to the Chicago Suntimes. That means that Chicago was able to record their lowest number of murder totals in close to five years for the second continuous calendar year, despite an overall increase in shootings. The Cook County medical examiner's office had reported a total of 410 homicides with 16 of those including fatal police shootings, all within the same time period.
Education
Schools and libraries
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are ten selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools, designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked second. The oldest magnet school in the city, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which was opened in 1975, is ranked third. The magnet school with the largest enrollment is Lane Technical College Prep High School. Lane is one of the oldest schools in Chicago and in 2012 was designated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.
Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013-2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third largest in the U.S. On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues. According to data complied in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).
Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Several private schools are completely secular, such as the Latin School of Chicago in the Near North Side neighborhood, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the British School of Chicago and the Francis W. Parker School in Lincoln Park, the Lycée Français de Chicago in Uptown, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others including St. Rita of Cascia High School, De La Salle Institute, Josephinum Academy, DePaul College Prep, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, Mount Carmel High School, Queen of Peace High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School.
The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries, including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.
Colleges and universities
Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities that are in the city proper or in the immediate environs. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by U.S. News & World Report. Top universities in Chicago are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Loyola University Chicago; Illinois Institute of Technology; DePaul University; and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Columbia College Chicago; Robert Morris University; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.
William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.
Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Media
The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM, WLS, WMAQ and WFLD, respectively). WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. The city has also been the base of several talk shows, including, formerly, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Chicago Public Radio produces programs such as PRI's This American Life and NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Chicago's PBS station can be seen on WTTW, producer of shows such as Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet, Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The McLaughlin Group, just to name a few and WYCC.
Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as Chicago, the Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News), Draugas (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the Chicago Reader, the SouthtownStar, the Chicago Defender, the Daily Herald, Newcity, StreetWise and the Windy City Times. The entertainment and cultural magazine Time Out Chicago and GRAB magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine Chicago Innerview. In addition, Chicago is the recent home of satirical national news outlet, The Onion, as well as its sister pop-culture publication, The A.V. Club.
Chicago is a filming-friendly location. Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed in the city, most notably The Blues Brothers; Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Sixteen Candles; Home Alone; The Fugitive; I, Robot; Wanted; Batman Begins; The Dark Knight; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Transformers: Age of Extinction; Divergent; Insurgent; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; and Sinister 2.
Chicago has also been the setting for many popular television shows, including the situation comedies Perfect Strangers and its spinoff Family Matters, Married...with Children, Kenan & Kel, The League, The Bob Newhart Show, and Shake It Up. The city served as the venue for the medical dramas ER and Chicago Hope, as well as the fantasy drama series Early Edition and the 2005–2009 drama Prison Break. Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: Cook County Jail and the Chicago version of Cash Cab. Chicago is currently the setting for CBS's The Good Wife and Mike and Molly, Showtime's Shameless, and NBC's Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med.
Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.
Chicago is also featured in a few video games, including Watch Dogs and Midtown Madness, a real-life, car-driving simulation game. In 2005, indie rock artist Sufjan Stevens created a concept album about Illinois titled Illinois; many of its songs were about Chicago and its history.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.
Expressways
Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.
The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.
Transit systems
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the City of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24‑hour service which makes Chicago one of a handful of cities around the world (and one of two in the United States, the other being New York City) to offer rail service 24 hours a day, every day of the year, within the city's limits.
Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and throughout the Chicago suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago.
Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit.
Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).
Passenger rail
Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station. Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was ultimately never completed.
Freight rail
Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry. Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). According to U.S. DOT, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040. CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transport Efficiency program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.
Airports
Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic (due to government enforced flight caps). Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternate Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third largest airline.
Port authority
The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,390,000 square feet) of storage.
Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over 29,000 square meters (315,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3,000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing.
Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet.
The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign trade zone No. 22, which extends from Chicago's city limits.
Utilities
Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.
Natural Gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.
Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills. Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.
Health systems
The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2014–15, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.
Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2010–11; the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by U.S. News & World Report; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).
In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.
The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Hospital Association, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.
Notable people
Sister cities
Chicago has 28 sister cities around the world. Like Chicago, many of them are or were the second most populous city or second most influential city of their country, or they are the main city of a country that has had large amounts of immigrants settle in Chicago. These relationships have sought to promote economic, cultural, educational, and other ties.
To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kiev sister cities program.
Sister cities
Warsaw (Poland) 1960
Milan (Italy) 1973
Osaka (Japan) 1973
Casablanca (Morocco) 1982
Shanghai (China) 1985
Shenyang (China) 1985
Gothenburg (Sweden) 1987
Accra (Ghana) 1989
Prague (Czech Republic) 1990
Kiev (Ukraine) 1991
Mexico City (Mexico) 1991
Toronto (Canada) 1991
Birmingham (United Kingdom) 1993
Vilnius (Lithuania) 1993
Hamburg (Germany) 1994
Petah Tikva (Israel) 1994
Paris (France) 1996 (Partnership agreement)
Athens (Greece) 1997
Durban (South Africa) 1997
Galway (Ireland) 1997
Moscow (Russia) 1997
Lucerne (Switzerland) 1998
Delhi (India) 2001
Amman (Jordan) 2004
Belgrade (Serbia) 2005
Lahore (Pakistan) 2007
Busan (South Korea) 2007
Bogotá (Colombia) 2009
See also
Chicago Wilderness
List of cities with the most skyscrapers
List of fiction set in Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in Central Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in North Side Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side Chicago
Notes and references
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website
Choose Chicago official tourism website
Maps of Chicago from the American Geographical Society Library
Category:1833 establishments in Illinois
Category:Cities in Cook County, Illinois
Category:Cities in DuPage County, Illinois
Category:Cities in Illinois
Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66
Category:County seats in Illinois
Category:Inland port cities and towns of the United States
Category:Populated places established in 1833
Category:Populated places on the Great Lakes
Category:Articles containing video clips |
2016-01 | Cats_musical-696567133 | Cats_musical | Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as "the Jellicle choice" and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard "Memory". The first performance of "Cats" was in 1981.
Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and then with the same creative team on Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for twenty-one years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years, both setting new records. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical. One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run (from 1982 until 2000).
As of 2015, Cats is the fourth longest-running show in Broadway history, and was the longest running Broadway show in history from 1987 to 2006, when surpassed by The Phantom of the Opera. Cats is the fourth longest-running West End musical. It has been performed around the world many times and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1998, Cats was turned into a made-for-television film.
Production history
Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the production of Cats is based on T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favourite. The songs of the musical comprise Eliot's verse set to music by the composer, the principal exception being the most famous song from the musical, "Memory", for which the lyrics were written by Trevor Nunn after an Eliot poem entitled "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". Also, a brief song entitled "The Moments of Happiness" was taken from a passage in Eliot's Four Quartets. Andrew Lloyd Webber began composing the songs in late 1977 and premiered the compositions at the Sydmonton Festival in 1980. The concert was attended by T.S. Eliot's wife, Valerie Eliot and she loved the songs that Webber had composed. She gave her blessing for the songs to be adapted into a musical stage play. Rehearsals for the musical began in early 1981 at the New London Theatre. Due to the Eliot estate asserting that they write no script and only use the original poems as the text, the musical had no identified plot during the rehearsal process, causing many actors to be confused about what they were actually doing. An unusual musical in terms of its construction, the overture incorporates a fugue and there are occasions when the music accompanies spoken verse. The show is completely told through music with virtually no spoken dialogue in between the songs. Dance is also a key element in the musical especially during the 10-minute Jellicle Ball dance sequence. The set, consisting of an oversized junk yard, remains the same throughout the show without any scene changes. Lloyd Webber's eclecticism is very strong here; musical genres range from classical to pop, music hall, jazz, rock and electro-acoustic music as well as hymn-like songs such as "The Addressing of Cats".
Cats premiered in the West End at the New London Theatre on 11 May 1981. There was trouble initially as Judi Dench, cast in the role of Grizabella, snapped her Achilles tendon during rehearsals prior to the London opening. She was replaced by Elaine Paige. The musical was produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group, directed by Trevor Nunn, with associate director and choreographer Gillian Lynne, design by John Napier, and lighting by David Hersey. The conductor was Harry Rabinowicz. It played a total of 8,949 performances in London. Its final performance in London's West End was on its 21st birthday, 11 May 2002, and broadcast on a large screen in Covent Garden to the delight of fans who could not acquire a ticket for the final performance. It held the record as London's longest running musical until 8 October 2006, when it was surpassed by Les Misérables.
The show made its debut on Broadway on 7 October 1982, at the Winter Garden Theatre with the same production team. On 19 June 1997, Cats became the longest-running musical in Broadway history with 6,138 performances. It closed on 10 September 2000, after a total of 7,485 performances. Its Broadway record was surpassed on 9 January 2006 by The Phantom of the Opera. It remains Broadway's fourth longest-running show in history. Lloyd Webber stated that when the original show was produced, it cost £900,000, but on Broadway, it cost $5,000,000.
In 1998, Lloyd Webber produced a video version of Cats, based upon the stage version, starring Elaine Paige, who originated the role of Grizabella in London; Ken Page, who originated Old Deuteronomy on Broadway; Sir John Mills as Gus; Michael Gruber as Munkustrap; John Partridge as The Rum Tum Tugger; Jo Gibb as Rumpelteazer with many of the dancers and singers drawn largely from various stage productions of the show. It was directed by David Mallet, with choreography and musical staging by the show's respected original creator Gillian Lynne in London's Adelphi Theatre, and was released on VHS and DVD, as well as broadcast on television worldwide. Andrew Lloyd Webber and others on the production team for the film wanted to keep the feeling that viewers watching the film could still get the sense of seeing the show live, by having all views be facing the stage, therefore, getting multiple views of the set, with several close-ups. Beyond the productions in England, the US, Canada, and Australia, the musical has been produced professionally in Hungary, Austria, and Japan, 1983; Sydney and Toronto, 1985; Germany, 1986; France, 1989; Mexico, 1991; Netherlands, 1992; Argentina, 1993; Hong Kong, 1994; Spain, 2003; Poland and Czech Republic, 2004; Russia and Estonia, 2005; Israel, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, China and Finland, 2007; Singapore, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, China, Italy, Bulgaria and Japan, 2009; and Brazil and the Philippines, 2010. Cats has been translated into over 20 languages.
It was announced on 3 August 2012 that a UK tour of the show will open on 9 February 2013, at the Edinburgh Playhouse.
Stagecoach Theatre Arts schools celebrated their 25th anniversary by performing Cats in the Birmingham National Indoor Arena on 24 March 2013. In association with 'The Really Useful Group', 3500 children from across Europe joined together with a virtual choir of many international Stagecoach students, and produced the largest production of the musical yet. 35 Stagecoach franchises across the UK performed the show on 7 'stages' around the arena, with each school taking it in turns to portray a small section of the musical. In addition to this, 52 selected elite dancers, including 14 solo dancers who took the named parts, performed the whole musical on a raised stage in the centre of the arena. The Really Useful Group, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Veronica Bennetts, Stephanie Manuel and Paul Leddington Wright all contributed and collaborated to bring this production together.
From 21 August through 11 September 2013, the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival (Auburn, NY) staged a production of the show with Taylor Dayne as Grizabella, KC Fredericks as Mr. Mistoffelees, Patrick Mellen as Old Deuteronomy, and Adam Ryan Tackett as Rum Tum Tugger. Jacob Brent directed and choreographed the production.
In July 2014, Australia's Harvest Rain Theatre Company staged the biggest production of Cats in the Southern Hemisphere with over 700 performers. Produced by Tim O'Connor, the production was performed at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. Callum Mansfield directed and choreographed it, and its record-breaking cast included Marina Prior as Grizabella.
Royal Caribbean International announced in April 2014 that a fully licensed production of Cats will be performed regularly for guests aboard the cruise ship beginning in fall 2014.
It was announced on 27 June 2014 that "Cats" will be returning to London from December 2014 for a 12-week run at the London Palladium following the UK national tour with the original creative team featuring direction from Trevor Nunn, choreography by Gillian Lynne and design by John Napier. The run was later extended through April 2015. Along with this Andrew Lloyd Webber would be rewriting a number of songs from the musical. Speaking on the revival, Lloyd Webber himself said, "we wanted to do Cats again ourselves, then the Palladium came up and Trevor fell in love with it. We’re taking the Cats show that’s touring and working on it afresh." The musical returned to the London Palladium for a run lasting from 23 October 2015 to 2 January 2016 starring Beverley Knight as Grizabella
Synopsis
Act I — When Cats Are Maddened by the Midnight Dance
After the overture, the Cats gather on stage and explain the Jellicle tribe and its purpose ("Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats"). The Cats (who break the fourth wall throughout the production) then notice that they are being watched by the human audience, and proceed to explain how the different Cats of the tribe are named ("The Naming of Cats"). This is followed by a dance from Victoria the White Cat that signals the beginning of the Jellicle Ball ("The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball"). Munkustrap explains that tonight is the night when Old Deuteronomy will choose a cat to be reborn into a new life on the Heaviside Layer.
Munkustrap appears and introduces Jennyanydots ("The Old Gumbie Cat"), a large tabby cat. She "sits and sits and sits and sits" all day, while at night she teaches the mice and cockroaches various activities. Jennyanydots finishes her song and greets the other cats, but is interrupted. The music changes suddenly and The Rum Tum Tugger makes an extravagant entrance ("The Rum Tum Tugger"). He is very fickle and unappeasable, "for he will do as he do and there's no doing anything about it".
As Rum Tum Tugger's song fades, a shabby old grey cat stumbles out and looks around - it is Grizabella. All the Cats back away from her in fear and disgust and sing of her unfortunate state ("Grizabella: The Glamour Cat"). Grizabella leaves and the music changes to a cheerful upbeat number as Bustopher Jones, a fat cat in "a coat of fastidious black", appears ("Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town"). Bustopher Jones is among the elite of the cats, and visits prestigious gentlemen's clubs. A loud crash then startles the tribe and the Cats run off the stage in fright. Hushed giggling signals the entrance of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, a pair of near-identical Cats. They are petty burglars, very mischievous, and they enjoy causing trouble for human families ("Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer").
Finally, the Jellicle patriarch, Old Deuteronomy, appears ("Old Deuteronomy"). He is a large old Cat that "has lived many lives" and "buried nine wives (And more, I am tempted to say – ninety-nine)". He is the Cat who will choose which Jellicle Cat will go to the Heaviside Layer. In most productions, at this point, the cats perform a song ("The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles") for Old Deuteronomy. It is a story about two dog tribes clashing in the street and subsequently being scared away by the Great Rumpus Cat, a cat with flashing red eyes. After a few words from Old Deuteronomy on the destiny of Jellicle Cats and Pollicle Dogs, a second loud crash, presumably from Macavity, sends the alarmed Cats scurrying. Old Deuteronomy calls the Cats back and the main celebration begins ("The Jellicle Ball"), in which the cats sing and display their "Terpsichorean powers".
After the Ball, Grizabella reappears and tries to dance, but her age and decrepit condition prevent her from doing so. Once again, she is shunned by the other Cats, but that does not stop her from singing a short version of "Memory'".
Act II — Why Will the Summer Day Delay — When Will Time Flow Away?
After the Jellicle Ball, Old Deuteronomy sings of "what happiness is", referring to Grizabella. The Cats do not understand, so he repeats the message again and Jemima (or Sillabub, depending on the production) sings it for everyone to hear ("The Moments of Happiness"). Gus — short for Asparagus — shuffles forward ("Gus: The Theatre Cat"). He was once a famous actor but is now old and "suffers from palsy which makes his paws shake." He is accompanied by Jellylorum, who tells of his exploits. Gus then remembers how he once played the infamous Growltiger, Terror of the Thames ("Growltiger's Last Stand"). He tells the story about the pirate's romance with Griddlebone and how he was overtaken by the Siamese and forced to walk the plank.
Back in the present, after Gus exits, Skimbleshanks is seen sleeping in the corner ("Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat"). He is the Cat who is unofficially in charge of the night train to Glasgow. Skimbleshanks is considered vital to the train, as without him "the train can't start". Within his song, a whole steam train engine is assembled out of objects in the junkyard: Various Cats spin wheels, hold up the structure, and light the headlights.
With a third crash and an evil laugh, the "most wanted" cat Macavity appears. He is a "master criminal" and is never found at the scene of the crime. Macavity's minions throw a net over Old Deuteronomy and capture him. As the other Cats try to follow him, Demeter and Bombalurina sing what they know about Macavity ("Macavity: The Mystery Cat"). When they are finished, Macavity returns disguised as Old Deuteronomy. When his disguise is revealed by Demeter, Macavity fights with Munkustrap and Alonzo. Though he holds his own for a time, Macavity is overwhelmed by the two younger tomcats; as the rest of the tribe begin to gang up and surround him, he shorts out the stage lights and escapes in the confusion.
Rum Tum Tugger suggests that the Cats find Mr. Mistoffelees "the original conjuring cat" ("Magical Mr. Mistoffelees"). Mr. Mistoffelees is small and black and can perform feats of magic that no other Cat can do. Mr. Mistoffelees performs his dance, which is often one of the most intricate and challenging dance solos in the show. The magical Cat restores the lights and brings back Old Deuteronomy, earning praise from all the Cats. The Jellicle Choice can now be made.
After Old Deuteronomy sits down, Grizabella returns to the junkyard and he allows her to address the gathering. Her faded appearance and lonely disposition have little effect on her song ("Memory"). With acceptance and encouragement from Jemima and Victoria, her appeal succeeds and she is chosen to be the one to go to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn to a new Jellicle life ("Journey to the Heaviside Layer"). A large tire rises from the piles of junk, carrying Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy partway toward the sky; he then steps off so she can finish the journey on her own. Old Deuteronomy gives his closing speech to the human audience ("The Ad-dressing of Cats") and the show comes to a close.
Music
Musical numbers
Act I
"Overture" – Orchestra
"Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" – The Company
"The Naming of Cats" – The Company
"The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball" – Victoria, Quaxo, Munkustrap
"The Old Gumbie Cat" – Jennyanydots, Munkustrap, Bombalurina, Jellylorum, Demeter
"The Rum Tum Tugger" – Rum Tum Tugger and Company
"Grizabella: The Glamour Cat" – Grizabella, Demeter, Bombalurina
"Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town" – Bustopher, Jennyanydots, Jellylorum, Bombalurina
"Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" – Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer
"Old Deuteronomy" – Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger, Old Deuteronomy
"The Awefull Battle of The Pekes and the Pollicles" – Munkustrap, Rumpus Cat and Company
"The Song of the Jellicles" – The Company
"The Jellicle Ball" – Orchestra
"Grizabella: The Glamour Cat" (Reprise) – Jellylorum and Jemima
"Memory (Prelude)" – Grizabella
Act II
"The Moments Of Happiness" – Old Deuteronomy, Jemima
"Gus: The Theatre Cat" – Asparagus, Jellylorum
"Growltiger's Last Stand" – Asparagus as Growltiger, Jellylorum as Griddlebone, and Company
"Gus: The Theatre Cat" (Reprise) – Asparagus
"Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat" – Skimbleshanks and Company
"Macavity: The Mystery Cat" – Demeter, Bombalurina
"Macavity Fight" – Macavity, Munkustrap, Alonzo
"Mr. Mistoffelees" – Mr. Mistoffelees, Rum Tum Tugger, and Company
"Jellicle Choice"/"Daylight" – Munkustrap and Jemima
"Memory" – Grizabella, Jemima
"The Journey to the Heaviside Layer" – The Company
"Finale: The Ad-Dressing of Cats" – Old Deuteronomy and Company
Orchestra
Reed I: Flute, Tenor Sax, Soprano Sax
Reed II: B-flat Clarinet, Bari Sax, Flute
Reed III: Oboe, English Horn
Electric Bass
Cello
Horn I
Horn II
Trumpet I Clive Baker
Trumpet II
Trombone Noel Frazer
Percussion
Keyboard I
Keyboard II
Keyboard III
Drum Set
Electric Guitar
London Cast album
A 1981 recording of the Original London Cast was released first as a cassette tape and later as a two CD set. It contains the following tracks:
Disc I
"The Overture"
"Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats"
"The Naming of Cats"
"The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball"
"The Old Gumbie Cat"
"The Rum Tum Tugger"
"Grizabella: The Glamour Cat"
"Bustopher Jones"
"Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer"
"Old Deuteronomy"
"The Jellicle Ball"
"Grizabella: The Glamour Cat (Reprise)"
"Memory (Prelude)"
Disc II
"The Moments of Happiness"
"Gus: The Theatre Cat"
"Growltiger's Last Stand / The Ballad of Billy McCaw"
"Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat"
"Macavity: The Mystery Cat"
"Mr. Mistoffelees"
"Memory"
"The Journey to the Heaviside Layer"
"The Ad-Dressing of Cats"
Chart positions
Original Broadway
Dutch version
German version
German version at the Operettenhaus
London version
Characters
Principal characters
These descriptions, in alphabetical order, are based on more recent versions of the show, although there are minor variations from production to production.
Alonzo – A black and white tom cat in most productions; in the Broadway and early European productions, he was depicted as being a black and gold tabby. Sometimes considered the third in command after Munkustrap as he also fights Macavity. However, he is not the subject of any song, and has no dialogue.
Asparagus / Gus – The theatre cat. One of the oldest tribe members. He was once an actor, and is one of two cats who is only seen during his song. This only applies to some productions, however, as the DVD release, Cats: The Musical (2000), showed him singing parts of the song as well.
Bombalurina – A red female. She is not the subject of a song herself, but plays a leading part in introducing several of the cats, and also sings of Macavity.
Bustopher Jones – A fat cat, a "twenty-five pounder." Dresses in a snappy tuxedo and spats. Respected by all, as the upper class "St. James's Street Cat". In most productions, the actor playing Gus also plays Bustopher, perhaps because both are only seen during their song, though in early productions the part was handled by the actor playing Old Deuteronomy. TDVD release (2000), however, shows him singing parts of his song.
Demeter – A very skittish female cat. She is not the subject of a song, but plays a lead role in several.
Griddlebone – A fluffy white Persian female cat. Growltiger's lover in Growltiger's Last Stand, where she sings The Ballad of Billy M'Caw or the mock Italian aria In Una Tepida Notte (depending on production) with Growltiger. In many productions the role is played by the actress playing Jellylorum. "Growltiger's Last Stand" was a play in which Gus, the Theatre Cat, acted, and a scene from it is used as a dream sequence, but it is omitted from some productions. Whether she is the same Griddlebone who is one of MacAvity's agents is not known.
Grizabella – The former Glamour Cat who has lost her sparkle and now only wants to be accepted. Grizabella left the tribe when she was younger to see the world for herself; she has experienced the harshness of the world and is a pariah in the cats' society.
Growltiger – A theatrical character Gus recalls playing in his youth, and who appears in Gus' memory of the production of Growltiger's Last Stand. In some productions he is portrayed as a vicious pirate; in others, he is more comical.
Jellylorum – A female who watches out for the kittens, along with Jennyanydots. She is Gus' mate. Named after T. S. Eliot's own cat. The actress who plays Jellylorum usually also plays Griddlebone in Growltiger's Last Stand.
Jemima – A kitten interchangeable with Sillabub, though Jemima is used in most international productions. She is the kitten who sings the Memory refrain in The Moments of Happiness for Old Deuteronomy. Jemima sings the happier parts of Memory, while Grizabella sings the sadder parts. She is the first cat/kitten to accept Grizabella by singing with her and not judge her.
Jennyanydots – The old Gumbie cat. She sits all day and rules the mice and cockroaches at night, forcing them to undertake helpful functions and creative projects, to curb their naturally destructive habits.
Macavity – the show's only real villain, who only appears briefly and has no dialogue. The character is a literary allusion to the Sherlock Holmes character Professor Moriarty. Usually played by the same actor as Plato or Admetus.
Mr. Mistoffelees – A young black tom (with some white) who has magical powers (which he doesn't fully control). His signature dance move is "The Conjuring Turn", a minimum of twenty-four fouettés en tournant. In the UK production, Mistoffelees has an alter-ego named Quaxo, who appears as a general chorus cat throughout the show, and is dressed slightly differently.
Mungojerrie – Male half of a pair of notorious cat-burglars, with Rumpleteazer. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are most commonly remembered for their featured dance number where at the end, they do a "double windmill" across the stage.
Munkustrap – The show's main narrator. A tabby tomcat who is storyteller and protector of the Jellicle tribe. He is Old Deuteronomy's second-in-command.
Old Deuteronomy – The lovable patriarch of the Jellicle Tribe. He is very old and dignified.
Rumpleteazer – Female half of a pair of notorious cat-burglars, with Mungojerrie.
The Rum Tum Tugger – A flashy tomcat. His temperament ranges from clownish to serious.
Skimbleshanks – The railway cat. An active orange tabby cat, who lives on the trains and acts as an unofficial chaperone to such an extent he is considered rather indispensable to the train and station employees.
Victoria – A pure white kitten gifted in dancing. The "official" Jellicle Ball begins with her solo dance. She also does a Pas de Deux with Plato during the Jellicle Ball. She is also the first to touch Grizabella.
Other characters
The more notable minor characters are as follows:
Admetus – a shy, ginger and white tom. The actor usually also plays the Rumpus Cat or Macavity.
Bill Bailey – Bill Bailey is a london chorus kitten interchangeable with Tumblebrutus. He is a playful young kitten, often performing acrobatics as well as being a strong dancer. His costume is patchy browns on a white base, suggesting he is a Bi-colour tabby and white.
Carbucketty – The name was one of T. S. Eliot's ideas for cat names for a "knockabout cat." Sometimes interchangeable with the character of Pouncival.
Cassandra – A mysterious brown and cream Egyptian sphinx who is a talented, flexible dancer. She is mysterious and a very elegant queen. She is portrayed as a kitten but has very mature looks.
Coricopat – Male twin to Tantomile. Coricopat and Tantomile are often portrayed as psychic cats, as they sense the presence of danger before it becomes apparent to the other characters.
Electra and Etcetera – Tabby kittens who are fans of Rum Tum Tugger. Electra is dark and quieter, Etcetera is paler and hyperactive.
Exotica – Chorus cat created for the 1998 filmed version. Appears in few scenes and dance numbers.
George – A male chorus cat. In London productions George played the Rumpus Cat in the junkyard performance of "Pekes and Pollicles". George was also featured as part of Growltiger's "Raffish Crew".
Ghengis or Gilbert – The leader of the crew of Siamese cats who contribute to Growltiger's demise. Usually played by the actor who portrays Mungojerrie, Tumblebrutus or Coricopat.
Plato – Teenage male cat; the actor usually doubles as Macavity. He does a pas de deux with Victoria during the Jellicle Ball. Plato is somewhat interchangeable with Admetus.
Pouncival – a playful, tom kitten sometimes interchangeable with Carbucketty and often first understudy to Mr. Mistoffelees
Rumpus Cat – A spiky-haired cat with glowing red eyes, as mentioned in The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, seen as a sort of superhero figure among the Jellicles. Does not appear in productions which omit the song The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles. Usually played by Alonzo or Admetus.
Sillabub, the Broadway version of Jemima. Sillabub was a name created for the American productions. The Japanese, Australian (in particular the Brisbane cast, who have Jemima as just a dancer) and Swedish casts include both Sillabub and Jemima as different characters.
Tumblebrutus – A playful young adult cat. Tumblebrutus is a brown and white tabby, characterised by a large, flame-like brown patch over his left eye. This energetic young tom is featured in many dance numbers and has many featured solos throughout the show. He is the Broadway version of Bill Bailey.
Tantomile – Female twin of Coricopat. The name was created by T.S. Eliot for a "Witch's Cat".
Victor – Victor is a chorus cat with cream and brown human markings and few distinguishing features. He featured as one of Growltiger's crew. The actor playing Victor was usually an understudy for Rum Tum Tugger and Munkustrap.
Notable casts
Other notable performers
Bill Bailey: Drew Varley, Fergus Logan
Coricopat: Jason Pennycooke, Richard Astbury
Demeter: Jo Bingham, Ruthie Henshall, Lena Hall
Electra: Veerle Casteleyn Kate Keenan
Griddlebone: Ruthie Henshall
Grizabella: Laurie Beechman, Liz Callaway, Dee Roscioli, Ruthie Henshall, Lea Salonga, Paula Lima, Stephanie J. Block, Loni Ackerman, Linda Balgourd, Lilias White, Joanna Ampil, Sophia Ragavelas, Nicole Scherzinger, Kerry Ellis, Jane McDonald, Beverley Knight, Debra Byrne, Prisca Demarez (2015 Paris Revival), Delta Goodrem
Jellyorum: Ruthie Henshall, Madeleine M. Gagné
Macavity/Admetus: Bryn Walters, Cameron Ball
Mistoffelees: Graham Fletcher (former principal of the Royal Ballet Company Louie Spence, John Partridge, Fergus Logan, Joseph Poulton
Munkustrap: Gary Martin, Steven Houghton, John Partridge, Shaun Rennie, Ben Palmer
Old Deuteronomy: Bill Nolte, John Ellis
Rum Tum Tugger: John Partridge, John O'Hara, Oliver Savile, Stephen Bienskie
Rumpus Cat/Admetus: Frank Thompson, Jason Gardiner
Rumpelteazer: Veerle Casteleyn, Jo Gibb, Leah-Sue Morland, Jo Bingham
Jemima/Sillabub: Anita Louise Combe, Ruthie Henshall, Helen Anker, Natasha Mould, Tarryn Gee
Tumblebrutus: Jason Wise
Victoria: Veerle Casteleyn, Helen Anker , Hannah Kenna Thomas
Other notable professional casts
Awards and nominations
Original London production
Original Broadway production
2014 London revival
Revisions to the show
Cats has undergone several revisions since its London and subsequent Broadway openings. The most current version, licensed by The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, is based on the recent UK Tour. This score contains several small cuts, transpositions, additions, reassignment of vocal lines, and a reduced orchestration.
The original London version of the song "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer" was in 12/8 time and had a jazzy accompaniment. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer sang their song themselves. For the Broadway production Andrew Lloyd Webber later wrote a new melody; in this production Mr. Mistoffelees sang about Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer in the third person, with Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer as puppets being magically controlled by Mr. Mistoffelees. This version of the song was in an upbeat 4/4 time with its middle section in 7/8 time and its mood was similar to the original version. Lloyd Webber's new version was used for all subsequent productions of Cats but now Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer sing their number themselves in all productions. In the 1998 film, one stanza was cut. In the current licensed version, based on the recent UK tour, the 7/8 section is reworked into 4/4 with triplet quavers that simulate the original 12/8 version.
The "Growltiger's Last Stand" sequence was also revised for the Broadway production. In the original London show, the "last duet" for Growltiger and Griddlebone was a setting of an unpublished T.S. Eliot poem, "The Ballad of Billy M'Caw". For Broadway, the Ballad was replaced with a pastiche of Italian opera (reminiscent of Puccini's Madama Butterfly). This new version was subsequently incorporated into most productions of Cats worldwide (a notable exception was the Hungarian production at the Madách Színház). The Ballad remained in the London production until some time in the early 1990s when it was replaced with the Italian aria pastiche. "Billy M'Caw" was re-instated for the UK Tours following the show's closure in London. Lloyd Webber has said that he is pleased with the reinstatement of "The Ballad of Billy M'Caw" as he didn't care for the "Italian aria" version. In the video version, the entire scene featuring Growltiger was cut due to John Mills' (Gus) old age. The licensed version of Cats includes both songs, giving individual companies a choice as to which to include.
In recent productions, a lyric in "Growltiger's Last Stand" was changed to remove any racially insensitive language. "With a frightful burst of fireworks the Chinks they swarmed aboard!" became "with a frightful burst of fireworks, the Siamese they swarmed aboard!", although the lyric "Heathen Chinese" remains in the tale of the Pekes and the Pollicles.
The original London cast recording utilised longer versions of "The Old Gumbie Cat", "Old Deuteronomy" and "The Ad-Dressing of Cats" with verses and lines that were cut from later productions.
The US tour continues to use the original Broadway version of the score, including the Italian aria and material cut from newer versions. Only "Pekes and Pollicles" and one verse of "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" are cut from performance.
The 2015 London revival features numerous changes, including the reworking of the Rum Tum Tugger into a rap song. The 2015 Australian Tour and 2015 Paris productions also used this modified version of the song.
References
External links
Official Website
Official Cats London Palladium Website
The Really Useful Group
The Official Andrew Lloyd Webber site
The origin and creation of Cats
Category:1981 musicals
Category:Adaptations of works by T. S. Eliot
Category:Broadway musicals
Category:Compositions by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Category:Musicals based on poems
Category:Sung-through musicals
Category:Laurence Olivier Award winning musicals
Category:West End musicals
Category:Fantasy theatre
Category:Tony Award for Best Musical
Category:Cats in popular culture |
2016-01 | Alexander_Hamilton-697182074 | Alexander_Hamilton | Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was a Founding Father of the United States, chief staff aide to General George Washington, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, the founder of the nation's financial system, the founder of the Federalist Party, the world's first voter-based political party, the Father of the United States Coast Guard, and the founder of The New York Post. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration. Hamilton took the lead in the funding of the states' debts by the Federal government, the establishment of a national bank, a system of tariffs, and friendly trade relations with Britain. He led the Federalist Party, created largely in support of his views; he was opposed by the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which despised Britain and feared that Hamilton's policies of a strong central government would weaken the American commitment to Republicanism.
Born out of wedlock, raised in the West Indies, and orphaned as a child, Hamilton pursued a college education through the help of local wealthy men. Recognized for his abilities and talent, he was sent to King's College (now Columbia University), in New York City. Hamilton played a major role in the American Revolutionary War. At the start of the war in 1775, he joined a militia company. In early 1776, he raised a provincial artillery company, to which he was appointed captain. He soon became the senior aide to General Washington, the American forces' commander-in-chief. Washington sent him on numerous important missions to tell generals what Washington wanted. After the war, Hamilton was elected to the Congress of the Confederation from New York. He resigned, to practice law, and founded the Bank of New York. Hamilton was among those dissatisfied with the weak national government. He led the Annapolis Convention, which successfully influenced Congress to issue a call for the Philadelphia Convention, in order to create a new constitution. He was an active participant at Philadelphia; and he helped achieve ratification by writing 51 of the 85 installments of The Federalist Papers, which to this day are the single most important reference for Constitutional interpretation.
Hamilton became the leading cabinet member in the new government under President Washington. Hamilton was a nationalist, who emphasized strong central government and successfully argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, assume states' debts, and create the government-owned Bank of the United States. These programs were funded primarily by a tariff on imports, and later also by a highly controversial tax on whiskey. Facing well-organized opposition from Jefferson and Madison, Hamilton mobilized a nationwide network of friends of the government, especially bankers and businessmen. It became the Federalist Party. A major issue splitting the parties was the Jay Treaty, largely designed by Hamilton in 1794. It established friendly economic relations with Britain to the chagrin of France and the supporters of the French Revolution. Hamilton played a central role in the Federalist party, which dominated national and state politics until it lost the election of 1800 to Jefferson's Democratic Republicans.
In 1795, he returned to the practice of law in New York. He tried to control the policies of President Adams (1797–1801). In 1798 and 99, Hamilton called for mobilization against France after the XYZ Affair and became commander of a new army, which he readied for war. However, the Quasi-War, while hard-fought at sea, was never officially declared and did not involve army action. In the end, Adams found a diplomatic solution which avoided a war with France. Hamilton's opposition to Adams' re-election helped cause his defeat in the 1800 election. When Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for the presidency in the electoral college in 1801, Hamilton helped to defeat Burr, whom he found unprincipled, and to elect Jefferson despite philosophical differences. Hamilton continued his legal and business activities in New York City, but lost much of his national prominence within the Federalist party. When Vice President Burr ran for governor of New York state in 1804, Hamilton crusaded against him as unworthy. Taking offense at some of Hamilton's comments, Burr challenged him to a duel in 1804 and mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the next day.
Childhood in the Caribbean
Alexander Hamilton was born in and spent part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis, in the Leeward Islands; Nevis was one of the British West Indies. Hamilton was born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucette, a married woman of partial French Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, the fourth son of the Scottish laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Ayrshire.
His mother moved with the young Hamilton to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, then ruled by Denmark. It is not certain whether the year of Hamilton's birth was 1757 or 1755; most historical evidence after Hamilton's arrival in North America supports the idea that he was born in 1757, and many historians had accepted this birth date. But, Hamilton's early life in the Caribbean was recorded in documents which were first published in Danish in 1930; this evidence has caused historians since then to favor a birth year of 1755. Hamilton listed his birth year as 1757 when he first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies. He celebrated his birthday on January 11. In later life, he tended to give his age only in round figures. Probate papers from St. Croix in 1768, after the death of Hamilton's mother, list him as then 13 years old, a date that would support a birth year of 1755. Historians have posited reasons for the different dates of birth being used: If 1755 is correct, Hamilton may have been trying to appear younger than his college classmates or perhaps wished to avoid standing out as older; if 1757 is correct, the probate document indicating a birth year of 1755 may have been in error, or Hamilton may have been attempting to pass as 13, in order to be more employable after his mother's death.
Hamilton's mother had been married previously to Johann Michael Lavien of St. Croix. Rachel left her husband and first son, Peter, traveling to St. Kitts in 1750, where she met James Hamilton. Hamilton and Rachel moved together to Rachel's birthplace, Nevis, where she had inherited property from her father. The couple's two sons were James Jr. and Alexander. Because Alexander Hamilton's parents were not legally married, the Church of England denied him membership and education in the church school. Hamilton received "individual tutoring" and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress. Hamilton supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books.
James Hamilton abandoned Rachel and their sons, allegedly to "spar[e] [Rachel] a charge of bigamy ... after finding out that her first husband intend[ed] to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion." Thereafter, Rachel supported her children in St. Croix, keeping a small store in Christiansted. She contracted a severe fever and died on February 19, 1768, 1:02 am, leaving Hamilton orphaned. This may have had severe emotional consequences for him, even by the standards of an 18th-century childhood. In probate court, Rachel's "first husband seized her estate" and obtained the few valuables Rachel had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off, but a friend purchased the family's books and returned them to the young Hamilton.
Hamilton became a clerk at a local import-export firm, Beekman and Cruger, which traded with New England; he was left in charge of the firm for five months in 1771, while the owner was at sea. He and his older brother James Jr. were adopted briefly by a cousin, Peter Lytton; but when Lytton committed suicide, the brothers were separated. James apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was adopted by a Nevis merchant, Thomas Stevens. According to the writer Ron Chernow, some evidence suggests that Stevens may have been Alexander Hamilton's biological father; his son, Edward Stevens, became a close friend of Hamilton. The two boys were described as looking much alike, were both fluent in French, and shared similar interests.
Hamilton continued clerking, but he remained an avid reader, later developing an interest in writing, and began to desire a life outside the small island where he lived. He wrote an essay published in the Royal Danish-American Gazette, a detailed account of a hurricane which had devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. His biographer says that, "Hamilton's famous letter about the storm astounds the reader for two reasons: for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous the 17-year-old self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto. Clearly, Hamilton was highly literate and already had considerable fund of verbal riches." The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send the young Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.
Education
In the autumn of 1772, Hamilton arrived at Elizabethtown Academy, a grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. In 1773 he studied with Francis Barber at Elizabethtown in preparation for college work. He came under the influence of William Livingston, a leading intellectual and revolutionary, with whom he lived for a time at his Liberty Hall. Hamilton entered King's College in New York City (now Columbia University) in the autumn of 1773 "as a private student" and officially matriculated in May 1774. In what is credited as his first public appearance, on July 6, 1774 at the liberty pole at King's College, Hamilton's friend Robert Troup spoke glowingly of Hamilton's ability to clearly and concisely explain the rights and reasons the patriots have in their case against the British. Hamilton, Troup and four other undergraduates formed an unnamed literary society that is regarded as a precursor of the Philolexian Society.
When the Church of England clergyman Samuel Seabury published a series of pamphlets promoting the Loyalist cause in 1774, Hamilton responded anonymously with his first political writings, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress and The Farmer Refuted. Seabury essentially tried to provoke fear into the colonies and his main objective was to stopgap the potential of a union among the colonies. Hamilton published two additional pieces attacking the Quebec Act and may have also authored the fifteen anonymous installments of "The Monitor" for Holt's New York Journal. Although Hamilton was a supporter of the Revolutionary cause at this prewar stage, he did not approve of mob reprisals against Loyalists. On May 10, 1775, Hamilton won credit for saving his college president Myles Cooper, a Loyalist, from an angry mob by speaking to the crowd long enough for Cooper to escape.
During the Revolutionary War
Early military career
In 1775, after the first engagement of American troops with the British at Lexington and Concord, Hamilton and other King's College students joined a New York volunteer militia company called the Corsicans, later renamed or reformed as the Hearts of Oak. He drilled with the company, before classes, in the graveyard of nearby St. George's Chapel. Hamilton studied military history and tactics on his own and was soon recommended for promotion. Under fire from HMS Asia, he led a successful raid for British cannons in the Battery, the capture of which resulted in the Hearts of Oak becoming an artillery company thereafter. Through his connections with influential New York patriots such as Alexander McDougall and John Jay, he raised the New York Provincial Company of Artillery of sixty men in 1776, and was elected captain. It took part in the campaign of 1776 around New York City, particularly at the Battle of White Plains; at the Battle of Trenton, it was stationed at the high point of town, the meeting of the present Warren and Broad Streets, to keep the Hessians pinned in the Trenton Barracks.
George Washington's staff
Hamilton was invited to become an aide to William Alexander, Lord Stirling and one other general, perhaps Nathanael Greene or Alexander McDougall. He declined these invitations, believing his best chance for improving his station in life was glory on the battlefield. Hamilton eventually received an invitation he felt he could not refuse: to serve as Washington's aide, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Washington felt, "Aides de camp are persons in whom entire confidence must be placed and it requires men of abilities to execute the duties with propriety and dispatch." Hamilton served for four years as Washington's chief staff aide. He handled letters to Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals in the Continental Army; he drafted many of Washington's orders and letters at the latter's direction; he eventually issued orders from Washington over Hamilton's own signature. Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiation with senior army officers as Washington's emissary.
During the war, Hamilton became close friends with several fellow officers. His letters to the Marquis de Lafayette and to John Laurens, employing the sentimental literary conventions of the late eighteenth century and alluding to Greek history and mythology, have been read by Jonathan Katz as revealing a homosocial or perhaps homosexual relationship, but few historians agree.
While on Washington's staff, Hamilton long sought command and a return to active combat. As the war drew nearer to an end, he knew that opportunities for military glory were diminishing. In February 1781, Hamilton was mildly reprimanded by Washington and used this as an excuse to resign his staff position. He asked Washington and others for a field command. This continued until early July 1781, when Hamilton submitted a letter to Washington with his commission enclosed, "thus tacitly threatening to resign if he didn't get his desired command."
On July 31, 1781, Washington relented and assigned Hamilton as commander of a New York light infantry battalion. In the planning for the assault on Yorktown, Hamilton was given command of three battalions, which were to fight in conjunction with the allied French troops in taking Redoubts No. 9 and No. 10 of the British fortifications at Yorktown. Hamilton and his battalions fought bravely and took Redoubt No. 10 with bayonets in a nighttime action, as planned. The French also fought bravely, suffered heavy casualties, and took Redoubt No. 9. These actions forced the British surrender of an entire army at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ending their major British military operations in North America.
Congress of the Confederation
After the Battle of Yorktown, Hamilton resigned his commission. He was appointed in July 1782 to the Congress of the Confederation as a New York representative for the term beginning in November 1782. Before his appointment to Congress in 1782, Hamilton was already sharing his criticisms of Congress. He expressed these criticisms in his letter to James Duane dated September 3, 1780. In this letter he wrote, "The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress…the confederation itself is defective and requires to be altered; it is neither fit for war, nor peace." While on Washington's staff, Hamilton had become frustrated with the decentralized nature of the wartime Continental Congress, particularly its dependence upon the states for voluntary financial support. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to collect taxes or to demand money from the states. This lack of a stable source of funding had made it difficult for the Continental Army both to obtain its necessary provisions and to pay its soldiers. During the war, and for some time after, Congress obtained what funds it could from subsidies from the King of France, from aid requested from the several states (which were often unable or unwilling to contribute), and from European loans.
An amendment to the Articles had been proposed by Thomas Burke, in February 1781, to give Congress the power to collect a 5% impost, or duty on all imports, but this required ratification by all states; securing its passage as law proved impossible after it was rejected by Rhode Island in November 1782. Madison joined Hamilton in persuading Congress to send a delegation to persuade Rhode Island to change its mind. Their report recommending the delegation argued the federal government needed not just some level of financial autonomy, but also the ability to make laws that superseded those of the individual states. Hamilton transmitted a letter arguing that Congress already had the power to tax, since it had the power to fix the sums due from the several states; but Virginia's rescission of its own ratification ended the Rhode Island negotiations.
Congress and the army
While Hamilton was in Congress, discontented soldiers began to pose a danger to the young United States. Most of the army was then posted at Newburgh, New York. Those in the army were paying for much of their own supplies, and they had not been paid in eight months. Furthermore, the Continental officers had been promised, in May 1778, after Valley Forge, a pension of half their pay when they were discharged. By the early 1780s, due to the structure of the government under the Articles of Confederation, it had no power to tax to either raise revenue or pay its soldiers. In 1782 after several months without pay, a group of officers organized to send a delegation to lobby Congress, led by Capt. Alexander MacDougall. The officers had three demands: the Army's pay, their own pensions, and commutation of those pensions into a lump-sum payment if Congress were unable to afford the half-salary pensions for life. Congress rejected the proposal.
Several Congressmen, including Hamilton, Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris, attempted to use this Newburgh Conspiracy as leverage to secure support from the states and in Congress for funding of the national government. They encouraged MacDougall to continue his aggressive approach, threatening unknown consequences if their demands were not met, and defeated proposals that would have resolved the crisis without establishing general federal taxation: that the states assume the debt to the army, or that an impost be established dedicated to the sole purpose of paying that debt. Hamilton suggested using the Army's claims to prevail upon the states for the proposed national funding system. The Morrises and Hamilton contacted Knox to suggest he and the officers defy civil authority, at least by not disbanding if the army were not satisfied; Hamilton wrote Washington to suggest that Hamilton covertly "take direction" of the officers' efforts to secure redress, to secure continental funding but keep the army within the limits of moderation. Washington wrote Hamilton back, declining to introduce the army; after the crisis had ended, he warned of the dangers of using the army as leverage to gain support for the national funding plan.
On March 15, Washington defused the Newburgh situation by giving a speech to the officers. Congress ordered the Army officially disbanded in April 1783. In the same month, Congress passed a new measure for a twenty-five-year impost—which Hamilton voted against—that again required the consent of all the states; it also approved a commutation of the officers' pensions to five years of full pay. Rhode Island again opposed these provisions, and Hamilton's robust assertions of national prerogatives in his previous letter were widely held to be excessive.
In June 1783, a different group of disgruntled soldiers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sent Congress a petition demanding their back pay. When they began to march toward Philadelphia, Congress charged Hamilton and two others with intercepting the mob. Hamilton requested militia from Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council, but was turned down. Hamilton instructed Assistant Secretary of War William Jackson to intercept the men. Jackson was unsuccessful. The mob arrived in Philadelphia, and the soldiers proceeded to harangue Congress for their pay. The President of Congress, John Dickinson, feared that the Pennsylvania state militia was unreliable, and refused its help. Hamilton argued that Congress ought to adjourn to Princeton, New Jersey. Congress agreed, and relocated there.
Frustrated with the weakness of the central government, Hamilton while in Princeton drafted a call to revise the Articles of Confederation. This resolution contained many features of the future US Constitution, including a strong federal government with the ability to collect taxes and raise an army. It also included the separation of powers into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches.
Return to New York
Hamilton resigned from Congress, and in July 1783 was authorized to practice law in New York after several months of self-directed education. He practiced law in New York City in partnership with Richard Harison. He specialized in defending Tories and British subjects, as in Rutgers v. Waddington, in which he defeated a claim for damages done to a brewery by the Englishmen who held it during the military occupation of New York. He pleaded for the Mayor's Court to interpret state law consistent with the 1783 Treaty of Paris which had ended the Revolutionary War.
In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, now the oldest ongoing bank in the United States. Hamilton was one of the men who restored King's College, which had been suspended since 1776 and severely damaged during the War, as Columbia College. Long dissatisfied with the weak Articles of Confederation, he played a major leadership role at the Annapolis Convention in 1786. He drafted its resolution for a constitutional convention, and in doing so brought his longtime desire to have a more powerful, more financially independent federal government one step closer to reality.
Constitution and The Federalist Papers
Constitutional Convention and ratification of the Constitution
In 1787, Hamilton served as assemblyman from New York County in the New York State Legislature and was chosen as a delegate for the Constitutional Convention by his father-in-law Philip Schuyler. Even though Hamilton had been a leader in calling for a new Constitutional Convention, his direct influence at the Convention itself was quite limited. Governor George Clinton's faction in the New York legislature had chosen New York's other two delegates, John Lansing, Jr. and Robert Yates, and both of them opposed Hamilton's goal of a strong national government. Thus, whenever the other two members of the New York delegation were present, they decided New York's vote, to ensure that there was no major alterations to the Articles of Confederation.
Early in the Convention he made a speech proposing a President-for-Life; it had no effect upon the deliberations of the convention. He proposed to have an elected President and elected Senators who would serve for life, contingent upon "good behavior" and subject to removal for corruption or abuse; this idea contributed later to the hostile view of Hamilton as a monarchist sympathizer, held by James Madison. According to Madison's notes, Hamilton said in regards to the executive, "The English model was the only good one on this subject. The hereditary interest of the king was so interwoven with that of the nation, and his personal emoluments so great, that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad…Let one executive be appointed for life who dares execute his powers." Hamilton argued, "And let me observe that an executive is less dangerous to the liberties of the people when in office during life than for seven years. It may be said this constitutes as an elective monarchy…But by making the executive subject to impeachment, the term 'monarchy' cannot apply…" During the convention, Hamilton constructed a draft for the Constitution based on the convention debates, but he never presented it. This draft had most of the features of the actual Constitution. In this draft, the Senate was to be elected in proportion to the population, being two-fifths the size of the House, and the President and Senators were to be elected through complex multistage elections, in which chosen electors would elect smaller bodies of electors; they would hold office for life, but were removable for misconduct. The President would have an absolute veto. The Supreme Court was to have immediate jurisdiction over all law suits involving the United States, and state governors were to be appointed by the federal government.
At the end of the Convention, Hamilton was still not content with the final form of the Constitution, but signed it anyway as a vast improvement over the Articles of Confederation, and urged his fellow delegates to do so also. Since the other two members of the New York delegation, Lansing and Yates, had already withdrawn, Hamilton was the only New York signer to the United States Constitution. He then took a highly active part in the successful campaign for the document's ratification in New York in 1788, which was a crucial step in its national ratification. He first used the popularity of the Constitution by the masses to compel George Clinton to sign, but was unsuccessful. The state convention in Poughkeepsie in June 1788 pitted Hamilton, Jay, James Duane, Robert Livingston, and Richard Morris against the Clintonian faction led by Melancton Smith, Lansing, Yates, and Gilbert Livingston. Hamilton's faction were against any conditional ratification, under the impression that New York would not be accepted into the Union, while Clinton's faction wanted to amend the Constitution, while maintaining the state's right to secede if their attempts failed. During the state convention, New Hampshire and Virginia becoming the ninth and tenth states to ratify the Constitution, respectively, had ensured any adjournment would not happen and a compromise would have to be reached. Hamilton's arguments used for the ratifications were largely iterations of work from The Federalist Papers, and Smith eventually went for ratification, though it was more out of necessity than Hamilton's rhetoric. The vote in the state constitution was ratified 30 to 27, on 26 July 1788.
In 1788, Hamilton served yet another term in what proved to be the last session of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation. When the term of Philip Schuyler was up in 1791, elected in his place was the attorney general of New York, one Aaron Burr. Hamilton blamed Burr for this result, and ill characterizations of Burr appear in his correspondence thereafter. The two men did work together from time to time thereafter on various projects, including Hamilton's army of 1798 and the Manhattan Water Company.
The Federalist Papers
Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a series of essays defending the proposed Constitution, now known as The Federalist Papers, and made the largest contribution to that effort, writing 51 of 85 essays published (Madison wrote 29, Jay only five). Hamilton supervised the entire project, enlisted the participants, wrote the majority of the essays, and oversaw the publication. During the project each person was responsible for their areas of expertise; Jay covered foreign relations, Madison covered the history of republics and confederacies, along with the anatomy of the new government and Hamilton covered the branches of government most pertinent to him: the executive and judicial branches, with some aspects of the Senate, as well as covering military matters and taxation. The papers first appeared in The Independent Journal in October 27, 1787.
Hamilton wrote the first paper signed as Publius, and all of the subsequent papers were signed under the name. Jay wrote the next four papers to elaborate on the confederation's weakness and the need for unity against foreign aggression and against splitting into rival confederacies, and, except for Number 64, was not further involved. Hamilton's highlights included discussion that although republics have been culpable for disorders in the past, advances in the "science of politics" had fostered principles that ensured that those abuses could be prevented, such as the division of powers, legislative checks and balances, an independent judiciary, and legislators that were represented by electors (Numbers 7–9). Hamilton also wrote an extensive defense of the constitution (No. 23–36), and discussed the Senate and executive and judicial branches in Numbers 65–85. Hamilton and Madison worked to describe the anarchic state of the confederation in numbers 15–22, and have been described as not being entirely different in thought during this time period in contrast to their stark opposition later in life. Subtle differences appeared with the two when discussing the necessity of standing armies.
Reconciliation between New York and Vermont
In 1764 King George III had ruled in favor of New York in a dispute between New York and New Hampshire over the region that later became the state of Vermont. New York refused to recognize claims to property derived from grants by New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth during the preceding 15 years when the territory had been governed as a de facto part of New Hampshire. Consequently, the people of the disputed territory, called the New Hampshire Grants, resisted the enforcement of New York's laws within the Grants. Indeed, Ethan Allen's militia called the Green Mountain Boys, noted for successes in the war against the British in 1775, was originally formed for the purpose of resisting the colonial government of New York. In 1777 the statesmen of the Grants declared it a separate state to be called Vermont, and by early 1778 had erected a state government. During 1777–1785, Vermont was repeatedly denied representation in the Continental Congress, largely because New York insisted that Vermont was legally a part of New York. Vermont took the position that because the denial its petitions for admission to the Union, it was not a part of the United States, not subject to Congress, and at liberty to negotiate separately with the British. The latter Haldimand negotiations led to some exchanges of prisoners of war. The peace treaty of 1783 that ended the war included Vermont within the boundaries of the United States.
By 1787 the government of New York had almost entirely given up plans to subjugate Vermont, but still claimed jurisdiction. As a member of the legislature of New York, Hamilton argued forcefully and at length in favor of a bill to recognize the sovereignty of the State of Vermont, against numerous objections to its constitutionality and policy. Consideration of the bill was deferred to a later date. In 1788 and 1789 extensive negotiations were carried out between Hamilton and Nathaniel Chipman, a lawyer representing Vermont. Among the topics were the location of the border between Vermont and New York, and financial compensation of New York land-grantees whose grants Vermont refused to recognize because they conflicted with earlier grants from New Hampshire. In 1788 the new Constitution of the United States went into effect, with its plan to replace the unicameral Continental Congress with a new Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Hamilton wrote: One of the first subjects of deliberation with the new Congress will be the independence of Kentucky [at that time still a part of Virginia], for which the southern states will be anxious. The northern will be glad to find a counterpoise in Vermont.
In 1790 the legislature of New York agreed to give up that state's claim to jurisdiction in Vermont on condition that Congress would admit Vermont state to the Union.
Secretary of the Treasury
President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury on September 11, 1789. He left office on the last day of January 1795. Much of the structure of the government of the United States was worked out in those five years, beginning with the structure and function of the cabinet itself. Biographer Forrest McDonald argues that Hamilton saw his office, like that of the British First Lord of the Treasury, as the equivalent of a Prime Minister; Hamilton would oversee his colleagues under the elective reign of George Washington. Washington did request Hamilton's advice and assistance on matters outside the purview of the Treasury Department. In 1791, while Secretary, Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hamilton submitted various financial reports to Congress. Among these are the First Report on the Public Credit, Operations of the Act Laying Duties on Imports, Report on a National Bank, On the Establishment of a Mint, Report on Manufactures, and the Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit. So, the great enterprise in Hamilton's project of an administrative republic is the establishment of stability.
Report on Public Credit
Before the adjournment of the House in September 1789, they requested Hamilton to make a report on suggestions to improve the public credit by January 1790. Hamilton had written to Robert Morris as early as 1781 that fixing the public credit will win their objective of independence. The sources that Hamilton used ranged from Frenchmen such as Jacques Necker and Montesquieu to British writers such as Hume, Hobbes, and Malachy Postlethwayt. While writing the report he also sought out suggestions from contemporaries such as John Knox Witherspoon, and Madison. Although they agreed on additional taxes such as distilleries and duties on imported liquors and land taxes, Madison feared that the securities from the government debt would fall in foreign hands.
In the report, Hamilton felt that the debt that the United States had accrued during the Revolutionary War was the price it paid for its liberty. He argued that liberty and property security were inseparable and that the government should honor the contracts, as they formed the basis of public and private morality. To Hamilton, the proper handling of the government debt would also allow America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also be a stimulant to the economy. Hamilton divided the debt into national and state, and further divided the national debt into foreign and domestic debt. While there was agreement on how to handle the foreign debt (especially with France), there was not with regards to the national debt held by domestic creditors. During the Revolutionary War, affluent citizens had invested in bonds, and war veterans had been paid with promissory notes and IOUs that plummeted in price during the Confederation. In response, the war veterans sold the securities to speculators for as little as fifteen to twenty cents on the dollar. Hamilton felt the money from the bonds should not go to the soldiers, but the speculators that had bought the bonds from the soldiers, as they had little faith in the country's future. The process of attempting to track down the original bond holders along with the government showing discrimination among the classes of holders if the war veterans were to be compensated also weighed in as factors for Hamilton. As for the state debts, Hamilton suggested to consolidate it with the national debt and label it as federal debt, for the sake of efficiency on a national scale. The last portion of the report dealt with eliminating the debt by utilizing a sinking fund that would retire five percent of the debt annually until it was paid off. Due to the bonds being traded well below their face value, the purchases would benefit the government as the securities rose in price.
When the report was submitted to the House of Representatives, detractors soon began to speak against it. The notion of programs that resembled British practice were wicked along with the power of balance being shifted away from the Representatives to the executive branch were some of the prejudices that resided within the House. William Maclay suspected that that several congressmen were involved in government securities, saw Congress in an unholy league with New York speculators. Congressman James Jackson also spoke against New York with allegations of speculators attempting to swindle those who had yet heard about Hamilton's report. The involvement of those in Hamilton's circle such as Schuyler, William Duer, James Duane, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus King as speculators was not favorable to those against the report, either, though Hamilton personally did not own or deal a share in the debt. Madison eventually spoke against it by February 1790. Although he was not against current holders of government debt to profit, he wanted the windfall to go to the original holders. Madison did not feel that the original holders had lost faith in the government, but sold their securities out of desperation. The compromise was seen as egregious to both Hamiltonians and their dissidents such as Maclay, and Madison's vote was defeated 36 votes to 13 on February 22.
The fight for the national government to assume state debt was a longer issue, and lasted over four months. During the period, the resources that Hamilton was to apply to the payment of state debts was requested by Alexander White, and was rejected due to Hamilton's not being able to prepare information by March 3, and was even postponed by his own supporters in spite of configuring a report the next day (which consisted of a series of additional duties to meet the interest on the state debts). Some of the other issues involving Hamilton was bypassing the rising issue of slavery in Congress after Quakers petitioned for its abolition (though he returned to the issue the following year), having Duer resign as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and the vote of assumption being voted down 31 votes to 29 on April 12. The temporary location of the capital from New York City also played a role, as Tench Coxe was sent to speak to Maclay to bargain about the capital being temporarily located to Philadelphia, as a single vote in the Senate was needed and five in the House for the bill to pass. The bill passed in the Senate on July 21 and in the House 34 votes to 28 on July 26, 1790.
Report on a National Bank
Hamilton's Report on a National Bank was a projection from the first Report on the Public Credit. Although Hamilton had been forming ideas of a national bank as early as 1779, he gathered ideas in various ways over the past eleven years. These included theories from Adam Smith, extensive studies on the Bank of England, the blunders of the Bank of North America and his experience in establishing the Bank of New York. His also used American records from James Wilson, Pelatiah Webster, Gouverneur Morris, and from his assistant Treasury secretary Tench Coxe.
Hamilton suggested that Congress should charter the National Bank with a capitalization of $10 million, one-fifth of which would be handled by the Government. Since the Government did not have the money, it would borrow the money from the bank itself, and repay the loan in ten even annual installments. The rest was to be available to individual investors. The bank was to be governed by a twenty-five member board of directors that was to represent a large majority of the private shareholders, which Hamilton considered essential for his being under a private direction. Hamilton's bank model had many similarities to that of the Bank of England, except Hamilton wanted to exclude the Government from being involved in public debt, but provide a large, firm, and elastic money supply for the functioning of normal businesses and usual economic development, among other differences. For tax revenue to ignite the bank, it was the same as he had previously proposed; increases on imported spirits: rum, liquor, and whiskey.
The bill passed through the Senate practically without a problem, but objections of the proposal increased by the time it reached the House of Representatives. It was generally held by critics that Hamilton was serving the interests of the Northeast by means of the bank, and those of the agrarian lifestyle would not benefit from it. Among those critics was James Jackson of Georgia, who also attempted to refute the report by quoting from The Federalist Papers. Madison and Jefferson also opposed the bank bill; however, the potential of the capital not being moved to the Potomac if the bank was to have a firm establishment in Philadelphia (the current capital of the United States) was a more significant reason, and actions that Pennsylvania members of Congress took to keep the capital there made both men anxious. Madison warned the Pennsylvania congress members that he would attack the bill as unconstitutional in the House, and followed up on his threat. Madison argued his case of where the power of a bank could be established within the Constitution, but he failed to sway members of the House, and his authority on the constitution was questioned by a few members. The bill eventually passed in an overwhelming fashion 39 to 20, on February 8, 1791.
Washington hesitated to sign the bill, as he received suggestions from Attorney-General Edmund Randolph and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson dismissed the 'necessary and proper' clause as reasoning for the creation of a national bank, stating that the enumerated powers "can all be carried into execution without a bank." Along with Randolph and Jefferson's objections, Washington's involvement in the movement of the capital from Philadelphia is also thought to be a reason for his hesitation. In response to the objection of the 'necessary and proper' clause, Hamilton stated that "Necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conductive to", and the bank was a "convenient species of medium in which they (taxes) are to be paid.". Washington would eventually sign the bill into law.
Establishing the U.S. Mint
In 1791, Hamilton submitted Report on the Establishment of a Mint to the House of Representatives. Most of Hamilton's ideas for this report were from European economists, resolutions from Continental Congress meetings from 1785 and 1786, and from people such as Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson. Due to the Spanish coin being the most circulated coin in the United States at the time, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the minting of the United States dollar weighing almost as much as the Spanish peso would be the simplest way to introduce a national currency. Hamilton wanted the U.S. dollar system to be set for decimals rather than the eights like the Spanish mint. In spite of preferring a monometallic gold standard, he issued a bimetallic currency at ratio that was to be similar to most European countries. What was different from the European currencies was his desire to overprice the gold on the grounds that the United States would always receive an influx of silver from the West Indies. Hamilton desired the minting of small value coins such as silver ten-cent, copper, and half-cent pieces, for reducing the cost of living for the poor. One of his main objectives was for the general public to become accustomed to handling money on a frequent basis.
By 1792, Hamilton's principles were adopted by Congress, resulting in the Coinage Act of 1792, and the creation of the United States Mint. There was to be a ten dollar Gold Eagle coin, a silver dollar, and fractional money ranging from one-half to fifty cents. The coining of silver and gold was issued by 1795.
Revenue Cutter Service
Smuggling off American coasts was an issue before the Revolutionary War, and after the Revolution it was more problematic. Along with smuggling, lack of shipping control, pirating, and a revenue unbalance were also major problems. In response, Hamilton proposed to Congress to enact a naval police force called revenue cutters in order to patrol the waters and assist the custom collectors with confiscating contraband. This idea was also proposed to assist in tariff controlling, boosting the American economy, and promote the merchant marine. It is thought that his experience obtained during his apprenticeship with Nicholas Kruger was influential in his decision-making.
Concerning some of the details of the "System of Cutters", Hamilton wanted the first ten cutters in different areas in the United States, from New England to Georgia. Hamilton also wanted those cutters to be armed with ten muskets and bayonets, twenty pistols, two chisels, one broad-ax and two lanterns. Hamilton also wanted the fabric of the sails to be domestically manufactured. Hamilton was also concerned of the employees' food supply and etiquette when boarding ships, and made provisions for each. Congress established the Revenue Cutter Service on August 4, 1790, which is viewed as the birth of the United States Coast Guard.
Whiskey as tax revenue
One of the principal sources of revenue Hamilton prevailed upon Congress to approve was an excise tax on whiskey. In his first Tariff Bill in January of 1790, Hamilton proposed to raise the three million dollars needed to pay for government operating expenses and interest on domestic and foreign debts by means of an increase on duties on imported wines, distilled spirits, tea, coffee, and domestic spirits. It failed, with Congress complying with most recommendations excluding the excise tax on Whiskey (Madison's tariff of the same year was a modification of Hamilton's that involved only imported duties and was passed in September).
In response of diversifying revenues, as three-fourths of revenue gathered was from commerce with Great Britain, Hamilton attempted once again during his Report on Public Credit when presenting it in 1790 to implement an excise tax both imported and domestic spirits. The taxation rate was graduated in proportion to the whiskey proof, and Hamilton intended to equalize the tax burden on imported spirits with imported and domestic liquor. In lieu of the excise on production citizens could pay 60 cents by the gallon of dispensing capacity, along with an exemption on small stills used exclusively for domestic consumption. He realized the loathing that the tax would receive in rural areas, but thought of the taxing of spirits more reasonable than land taxes.
Opposition initially came from Pennsylvania's House of Representatives protesting the tax. William Maclay had noted that not even the Pennsylvanian legislators had been able to enforce excise taxes in the western regions of the state. Hamilton was aware of the potential difficulties and proposed inspectors the ability to search buildings that distillers were designated to store their spirits, and would be able to search suspected illegal storage facilities to confiscate contraband with a warrant. Although the inspectors were not allowed to search houses and warehouses, they were to visit twice a day and file weekly reports in extensive detail. Hamilton cautioned against expedited judicial means, and favored a jury trial with potential offenders. As soon as 1791 locals began to shun or threaten inspectors, as they felt the inspection methods were intrusive. Inspectors were also tarred and feathered, blindfolded, and whipped. Hamilton had attempted to appease the opposition with lowered tax rates, but it did not suffice.
Strong opposition to the whiskey tax by cottage producers in remote, rural regions erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794; in Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, whiskey was the basic export product and was fundamental to the local economy. In response to the rebellion, believing compliance with the laws was vital to the establishment of federal authority, Hamilton accompanied to the rebellion's site President Washington, General Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and more federal troops than were ever assembled in one place during the Revolution. This overwhelming display of force intimidated the leaders of the insurrection, ending the rebellion virtually without bloodshed.
Manufacturing and industry
Hamilton's next report was his Report on Manufactures. Although he was requested by Congress on January 15, 1790 for a report for manufacturing that would expand the United States' independence, the report was not submitted until December 5, 1791. In the report, Hamilton quoted from Wealth of Nations and used the French physiocrats as an example for rejecting agrarianism and the physiocratic theory; respectively. Hamilton also refuted Smith's ideas of government noninterference, as it would have been detrimental for trade with other countries. Hamilton also thought of the United States being a primarily agrarian country would be a disadvantage in dealing with Europe. In response to the agrarian detractors, Hamilton stated that the agriculturists' interest would be advanced by manufactures, and that agriculture was just as productive as manufacturing.
Among the ways that the government could assist in manufacturing, Hamilton mentioned levying protective duties on imported foreign goods that were also manufactured in the United States, to withdraw duties levied on raw materials needed for domestic manufacturing, pecuniary boundaries, and encouraging immigration for people to better themselves in similar employment opportunities. Congress shelved the report without much debate (except for Madison's objection to Hamilton's formulation of the General Welfare clause, which Hamilton construed liberally as a legal basis for his extensive programs).
Subsequently in 1791, with his ideas for manufacturing being a major influence, Hamilton, along with Coxe and several entrepreneurs from New York and Philadelphia helped form the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private industrial corporation. The location at Great Falls of the Passaic River in New Jersey was selected due to access to raw materials, it being densely inhabited, and having access to water power from the falls of the Passaic. The factory town was named Paterson after New Jersey's Governor William Paterson, who signed the charter. The profits were to derive from specific corporates rather than the benefits to be conferred to the nation and the citizens, which was unlike the report. Hamilton also suggested the first stock to be offered at $500,000 and to eventually increase to $1 million, and welcomed state and national government subscriptions alike. The company was never successful: numerous shareholders reneged on stock payments, some members soon went bankrupt, and William Duer, the governor of the program, was sent to debtors' prison. In spite of Hamilton's efforts to mend the disaster, the company would expire by 1796.
Emergence of parties
During Hamilton's tenure as Treasury Secretary, political factions began to emerge. A Congressional caucus, led by James Madison and William Branch Giles, began as an opposition group to Hamilton's financial programs, and Thomas Jefferson joined this group when he returned from France. Hamilton and his allies began to call themselves Federalists. The opposition group, now called the Democratic-Republican Party by political scientists, was at the time known as Republicans.
Hamilton assembled a nationwide coalition to garner support for the Administration, including the expansive financial programs Hamilton had made Administration policy and especially the president's policy of neutrality in the European war between Britain and France. Hamilton's public relations campaign attacked the French minister Edmond-Charles Genêt (he called himself "Citizen Genêt") who tried to appeal to voters directly, which Federalists denounced as foreign interference in American affairs. If Hamilton's administrative republic was to succeed, Americans had to see themselves as nation citizens, and experience an administration that proved firm and demonstrated the concepts found within the United States Constitution. The Federalists did impose some internal direct taxes but they departed from the most implications of the Hamilton administrative republic as risky.
The Jeffersonian Republicans opposed banks and cities, and favored France. They built their own national coalition to oppose the Federalists. Both sides gained the support of local political factions; each side developed its own partisan newspapers. Noah Webster, John Fenno, and William Cobbett were energetic editors for the Federalists; Benjamin Franklin Bache and Philip Freneau were fiery Republican editors. All the newspapers were characterized by intense personal attacks, major exaggerations and invented claims. In 1801, Hamilton established a daily newspaper, the New York Evening Post and brought in William Coleman as editor. It is still publishing (as the New York Post).
The quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson is the best known and historically the most important in American political history. Hamilton's and Jefferson's incompatibility was heightened by the unavowed wish of each to be Washington's principal and most trusted advisor.
Jay Treaty and Britain
When France and Britain went to war in early 1793, all four members of the Cabinet were consulted on what to do. They and Washington unanimously agreed to remain neutral, and to send Genêt home. However, in 1794 policy toward Britain became a major point of contention between the two parties. Hamilton and the Federalists wished for more trade with Britain, the new nation's largest trading partner. The Republicans saw Britain as the main threat to republicanism and proposed instead a trade war.
To avoid war, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate with the British; Hamilton largely wrote Jay's instructions. The result was Jay's Treaty. It was denounced by the Republicans but Hamilton mobilized support up and down the land. The Jay Treaty passed the Senate in 1795 by exactly the required two-thirds majority. The Treaty resolved issues remaining from the Revolution, averted war, and made possible ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain. Historian George Herring notes the "remarkable and fortuitous economic and diplomatic gains" produced by the Treaty.
Several European nations had formed a League of Armed Neutrality against incursions on their neutral rights; the Cabinet was also consulted on whether the United States should join it, and decided not to. It kept that decision secret, but Hamilton revealed it in private to George Hammond, the British Minister to the United States, without telling Jay or anyone else. (His act remained unknown until Hammond's dispatches were read in the 1920s). This "amazing revelation" may have had limited effect on the negotiations; Jay did threaten to join the League at one point, but the British had other reasons not to view the League as a serious threat.
Second Report on Public Credit
Before leaving his post in 1795, Hamilton submitted Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit to Congress to curb the debt problem. Hamilton grew dissatisfied with what he viewed as a lack of a comprehensive plan to fix the public debt. He wished to have new taxes passed with older ones made permanent and stated that the any surplus from the excise tax on liquor would be pledged to lower public debt. His proposals were included into a bill by Congress within slightly over a month after his departure as treasury secretary.
Post-Secretary years
The Reynolds affair
In 1791, Hamilton became involved in an affair with Maria Reynolds over a nine-month period that would be revealed to the public several years afterward. Reynolds appeared to Hamilton as a woman who had been abandoned by her husband, James, at New York and wished to return to there. Hamilton did not have any money on his person, so he retrieved her address in order to deliver the funds in person. After the brief dialogue in Reynolds' bedroom, he had frequent meetings with her. Hamilton then received two letters on December 15, 1791, one from both Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds. The first letter was Maria warning of her husband's knowledge and of James attempting to blackmail Hamilton. By this point Hamilton contemplated ending the tryst, and briefly ceased to visit, but both apparently were involved in the blackmailing scheme as both sent letters, and at one point James Reynolds requested to 'befriend' her. By May of 1792, James Reynolds had requested for Hamilton to no longer see his wife, but not before receiving fifty and two hundred dollars out of over $1300 in blackmail. Hamilton possibly was aware of both Reynolds' being involved before the blackmailing incident.
When under suspicion of illegal actions while Secretary of Treasury by associating with William Duer from John J. Beckley and Jacob Clingman, the latter also had alleged evidence of James Reynolds being an agent of Hamilton's, with accompanying letters gathered from Maria Reynolds that were from Hamilton. This information was relayed to James Monroe, who consulted with Congressmen Muhlenberg and Venable on what actions to take. When it was suggested by Clingman that James Reynolds had evidence that would incriminate Hamilton, after both were arrested for counterfeiting and Clingman was released, Monroe and the Congressmen soon confronted Hamilton on 15 December 1792. After Hamilton discussed the affair, the trio were to keep the documents privately with the utmost confidence.
In 1797, however, when "notoriously scurrilous journalist" James T. Callender published A History of the United States for the Year 1796, it contained accusations of James Reynolds being an agent of Hamilton using documents from the confrontation on December 15, 1792. On July 5, 1797, Hamilton wrote to all three men to confirm that there was nothing that would damage the perception of his integrity while Secretary of Treasury. All complied but Monroe, and after several rounds of argument, the two almost resorted to a duel. When Hamilton did not obtain an explicit response from Monroe, he published a pamphlet in order to preserve his public reputation, and discussed the affair in exquisite detail. His wife forgave him, but not Monroe. Though he faced ridicule from the Democratic-Republican faction, he maintained his availability for public service.
1796 presidential election
Hamilton's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795 did not remove him from public life. With the resumption of his law practice, he remained close to Washington as an advisor and friend. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his Farewell Address by writing drafts for Washington to compare with the latter's draft, although when Washington contemplated retirement in 1792, he had consulted James Madison for a draft that was used in a similar manner to Hamilton's.
In the election of 1796, under the Constitution as it stood then, each of the presidential electors had two votes, which they were to cast for different men. The one who received most votes would become President, the second-most, Vice President. This system was not designed with the operation of parties in mind, as they had been thought disreputable and factious. The Federalists planned to deal with this by having all their Electors vote for John Adams, the Vice President, and all but a few for Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina.
Adams resented Hamilton's influence with Washington and considered him overambitious and scandalous in his private life; Hamilton compared Adams unfavorably with Washington and thought him too emotionally unstable to be President. Hamilton took the election as an opportunity: he urged all the northern electors to vote for Adams and Pinckney, lest Jefferson get in; but he cooperated with Edward Rutledge to have South Carolina's electors vote for Jefferson and Pinckney. If all this worked, Pinckney would have more votes than Adams, Pinckney would become President, and Adams would remain Vice President, but it did not work. The Federalists found out about it (even the French minister to the United States knew), and northern Federalists voted for Adams but not for Pinckney, in sufficient numbers that Pinckney came in third and Jefferson became Vice President. Adams resented the intrigue since he felt his service to the nation was much more extensive than Pinckney's.
Quasi-War
During the Quasi-War of 1798–1800, and with Washington's strong endorsement, Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton a major general of the army; at Washington's insistence, Hamilton was made the senior major general, prompting Henry Knox to decline appointment to serve as Hamilton's junior (Knox had been a major general in the Continental Army and thought it would be degrading to serve beneath him). Hamilton served as inspector general of the United States Army from July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800; because Washington was unwilling to leave Mount Vernon unless it were to command an army in the field, Hamilton was the de facto head of the army, to Adams's considerable displeasure. If full-scale war broke out with France, Hamilton argued that the army should conquer the North American colonies of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States.
To fund this army, Hamilton wrote regularly to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., his successor at the Treasury; William Loughton Smith, of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Senator Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts. He directed them to pass a direct tax to fund the war. Smith resigned in July 1797, as Hamilton scolded him for slowness, and told Wolcott to tax houses instead of land.
The eventual program included a Stamp Act like that of the British before the Revolution and other taxes on land, houses, and slaves, calculated at different rates in different states, and requiring difficult and intricate assessment of houses. This provoked resistance in southeastern Pennsylvania, led primarily by men such as John Fries who had marched with Washington against the Whiskey Rebellion.
Hamilton aided in all areas of the army's development, and after Washington's death he was by default the Senior Officer of the United States Army from December 14, 1799, to June 15, 1800. The army was to guard against invasion from France. Adams, however, derailed all plans for war by opening negotiations with France. Adams had held it proper to retain the members of Washington's cabinet, except for cause; he found, in 1800 (after Washington's death), that they were obeying Hamilton rather than himself, and fired several of them.
1800 presidential election
In the 1800 election, Hamilton worked to defeat not only the rival Democratic-Republican candidates, but also his party's own nominee, John Adams. In November 1799, the Alien and Sedition Acts had left one Democratic-Republican newspaper functioning in New York City; when the last, the New Daily Advertiser, reprinted an article saying that Hamilton had attempted to purchase the Philadelphia Aurora and close it down, Hamilton had the publisher prosecuted for seditious libel, and the prosecution compelled the owner to close the paper.
Aaron Burr had won New York for Jefferson in May; now Hamilton proposed a rerun of the election under different rules—with carefully drawn districts and each choosing an elector—such that the Federalists would split the electoral vote of New York. (John Jay, a Federalist who had given up the Supreme Court to be Governor of New York, wrote on the back of the letter the words, "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt," and declined to reply.)
John Adams was running this time with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. Hamilton now toured New England, again urging northern electors to hold firm for Pinckney in the renewed hope of making Pinckney president; and he again intrigued in South Carolina. Hamilton's ideas involved coaxing middle-state Federalists to assert their non-support for Adams if there was no support for Pinckney and writing to more of the modest supports of Adams concerning his supposed misconduct while president. Hamilton expected to see southern states such as the Carolinas cast their votes for Pinckney and Jefferson, and would result in the former being ahead of both Adams and Jefferson.
In accordance with the second of the aforementioned plans, and a recent personal rift with Adams, Hamilton wrote a pamphlet called Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States that was highly critical of him, though it closed with a tepid endorsement. He mailed this to two hundred leading Federalists; when a copy fell into the Democratic-Republicans' hands, they printed it. This hurt Adams's 1800 reelection campaign and split the Federalist Party, virtually assuring the victory of the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Jefferson, in the election of 1800; it destroyed Hamilton's position among the Federalists.
Jefferson had beaten Adams, but both he and his running mate, Aaron Burr, had received 73 votes in the Electoral College (Adams finished in third place, Pinckney in fourth, and Jay received one vote). With Jefferson and Burr tied, the United States House of Representatives had to choose between the two men. Several Federalists who opposed Jefferson supported Burr, and for the first 35 ballots, Jefferson was denied a majority. Before the 36th ballot, Hamilton threw his weight behind Jefferson, supporting the arrangement reached by James A. Bayard of Delaware, in which five Federalist Representatives from Maryland and Vermont abstained from voting, allowing those states' delegations to go for Jefferson, ending the impasse and electing Jefferson President rather than Burr. Even though Hamilton did not like Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he viewed Jefferson as the lesser of two evils. Hamilton spoke of Jefferson as being "by far not so a dangerous man", and that Burr was a "mischievous enemy" to the principle measure of the past administration. There is strong circumstantial evidence, however, that what Hamilton really feared was Burr's appeal to the members of the Federalist Party and loss of his control over them. Many Federalists viewed Burr as a moderate who was willing to dialogue with them. It was for that reason, along with the fact that Burr was a northerner and not a Virginian, that many Federalist Representatives voted for him. Hamilton wrote an exceeding number of letters to friends in congress to Convince the members to see otherwise. However, the Federalists rejected Hamilton's diatribe as reasons to not vote for Burr. Nevertheless, Burr would become Vice President of the United States. When it became clear that Jefferson developed his own concerns about Burr and would not support his return to the Vice Presidency, Burr sought the New York governorship in 1804 with Federalist support, against the Jeffersonian Morgan Lewis, but was defeated by forces including Hamilton.
Burr–Hamilton duel and untimely death
Soon after the 1804 gubernatorial election in New York—in which Morgan Lewis, greatly assisted by Hamilton, defeated Aaron Burr—the Albany Register published Charles D. Cooper's letters, citing Hamilton's opposition to Burr and alleging that Hamilton had expressed "a still more despicable opinion" of the Vice President at an upstate New York dinner party. Cooper claimed that the letter was intercepted after relaying the information, but stated he was 'unusually cautious' in recollecting the information from the dinner. Burr, sensing an attack on his honor, and recovering from his defeat, demanded an apology in letter form. Hamilton wrote a letter in response and ultimately refused because he could not recall the instance of insulting Burr; also, Hamilton would have been accused of recanting Cooper's letter out of cowardice After a series of attempts to reconcile were to no avail, the duel was accepted through liaisons on June 27, 1804.
The night before the duel, Hamilton wrote a defense of his decision to duel. Hamilton viewed his roles of being a father and husband, putting his creditors at risk, placing his family's welfare in jeopardy and his moral and religious stances as reasons not to duel, but he felt it impossible to avoid due to making attacks on Burr and unable to recant, and because of Burr's behavior prior to the duel. He attempted to reconcile his moral and religious reasons and the codes of honor and politics. He intended to accept the duel and throw his fire in order to satisfy his morals and political codes, respectively. His desire to be available for future political matters also played a factor.
The duel began at dawn on July 11, 1804, along the west bank of the Hudson River on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey. After the seconds measured the paces, Hamilton, according to William P. Van Ness and Burr, raised his pistol 'as if to try the light' and had to wear his spectacles to prevent his vision from being obscured. Hamilton also refused the hairspring set of dueling pistols (that would make the pulling of the trigger lighter) when offered by Nathaniel Pendleton. Vice President Burr shot Hamilton, delivering what proved to be a fatal wound. Hamilton's shot broke a tree branch directly above Burr's head. Neither of the seconds, Pendleton or Van Ness, could determine who fired first, as each claimed that the other man had fired first. Soon after, they measured and triangulated the shooting, but could not determine from which angle Hamilton fired. Burr's shot, however, hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above the right hip. The bullet ricocheted off Hamilton's second or third false rib, fracturing it and caused considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and diaphragm before becoming lodged in his first or second lumbar vertebra. Biographer Ron Chernow considers the circumstances to indicate that, after taking deliberate aim, Burr fired second, while biographer James Earnest Cooke suggested that Burr took careful aim and only after the bullet struck Hamilton did he fire his shot while falling.
The paralyzed Hamilton, who knew himself to be mortally wounded, was ferried to the Greenwich Village home of his friend William Bayard Jr., who had been waiting on the dock. After final visits from his family and friends and considerable suffering, Hamilton died on the following afternoon, July 12, 1804 at Bayard's home at what is now 80–82 Jane Street. Gouverneur Morris gave the eulogy at his funeral and secretly established a fund to support his widow and children. Hamilton was buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan.
Personal life
Family
While Hamilton was stationed in Morristown, New Jersey in the winter of 1779 and 1780, he met Elizabeth Schuyler, a daughter of Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer. The two were married on December 14, 1780 at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York. He and Elizabeth had eight children, including two named Philip. The elder Philip, Hamilton's first child (born January 22, 1782), was killed in 1801 in a duel with George I. Eacker, whom he had publicly insulted in a Manhattan theater. The second Philip, Hamilton's last child, was born on June 2, 1802, after the first Philip was killed. Their other children were Angelica, born September 25, 1784; Alexander, born May 16, 1786; James Alexander (April 14, 1788 – September 1878); John Church, born August 22, 1792; William Stephen, born August 4, 1797; and Eliza, born November 26, 1799.
Hamilton was also close to Elizabeth's older sister, Angelica, who eloped with John Barker Church, an Englishman who made a fortune in North America during the Revolution. She returned with Church to London after the war, where she later became a joint friend of Maria Cosway and Thomas Jefferson.
Hamilton's religion
Hamilton, as a youth in the West Indies, was an orthodox and conventional Presbyterian of the "New Light" evangelical type (as opposed to the "Old Light" Calvinists); he was being taught by a student of John Witherspoon, a moderate of the New School. He wrote two or three hymns, which were published in the local newspaper. Robert Troup, his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was "in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning."
Gordon Wood says that Hamilton dropped his youthful religiosity during the Revolution and became, "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best"; however, he returned to religion in his last years. Chernow says he was nominally an Episcopalian but:
he was not clearly affiliated with the denomination and did not seem to attend church regularly or take communion. Like Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, Hamilton had probably fallen under the sway of deism, which sought to substitute reason for revelation and dropped the notion of an active God that will intervene in human affairs. At the same time, he never doubted God's existence, embracing Christianity as a system of morality and cosmic justice.
Hamilton made jokes about God at the Constitutional Convention. During the French Revolution, he displayed an "opportunistic religiosity", using Christianity for political ends and insisting that Christianity and Jefferson's democracy were incompatible. After 1801, Hamilton further asserted the truth of Christianity; he proposed a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802, to take hold of "some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office, and he wrote of "Christian welfare societies" for the poor. He was not a member of any denomination. After being shot, Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy, and of his desire to renounce dueling; Bishop Moore administered communion to Hamilton.
Hamilton had always had respect for Jews. His birthplace of Charlestown had a large Jewish population with whom Hamilton came into contact on a regular basis. As a boy, he had learned Hebrew and could recite the Ten Commandments in its original language. He believed that Jewish achievement was a result of divine providence and warned that those who discredit the Jews "destroy the Christian religion."
Legacy
Hamilton's interpretations of the Constitution set forth in the Federalist Papers remain highly influential, as seen in scholarly studies and court decisions.
Though the Constitution was ambiguous as to the exact balance of power between national and state governments, Hamilton consistently took the side of greater federal power at the expense of the states. As Secretary of the Treasury, he established—against the intense opposition of Secretary of State Jefferson—the country's first national bank. Hamilton justified the creation of this bank, and other increased federal powers, under Congress's constitutional powers to issue currency, to regulate interstate commerce, and to do anything else that would be "necessary and proper" to enact the provisions of the Constitution. Jefferson, on the other hand, took a stricter view of the Constitution: parsing the text carefully, he found no specific authorization for a national bank. This controversy was eventually settled by the Supreme Court of the United States in McCulloch v. Maryland, which in essence adopted Hamilton's view, granting the federal government broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers, specifically the doctrine of implied powers. Though, the American Civil War and the Progressive Era demonstrated the sorts of crises and politics Hamilton's administrative republic sought to avoid.
Hamilton's policies as Secretary of the Treasury greatly affected the United States government and still continue to influence it. His constitutional interpretation, specifically of the Necessary and Proper Clause, set precedents for federal authority that are still used by the courts and are considered an authority on constitutional interpretation. The prominent French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, who spent 1794 in the United States, wrote, "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton", adding that Hamilton had intuited the problems of European conservatives.
Opinions of Hamilton have run the gamut: both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson viewed him as unprincipled and dangerously aristocratic. Hamilton's reputation was mostly negative in the eras of Jeffersonian democracy and Jacksonian democracy. However, by the Progressive era, Herbert Croly, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt praised his leadership of a strong government. Several nineteenth- and twentieth-century Republicans entered politics by writing laudatory biographies of Hamilton.
Historians have generally taken one of two main views of Hamilton. Wilentz says:
In recent years, Hamilton and his reputation have decidedly gained the initiative among scholars who portray him as the visionary architect of the modern liberal capitalist economy and of a dynamic federal government headed by an energetic executive. Jefferson and his allies, by contrast, have come across as naïve, dreamy idealists.
The older Jeffersonian view attacks him as a centralizer, to the point sometimes of advocating monarchy.
Monuments and memorials
Since the beginning of the American Civil War, Hamilton has been depicted on more denominations of US currency than anyone else. He has appeared on the $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $1,000. His likeness also began to appear on US postage in 1870. His portrait has continued to appear on US postage and currency, and most notably appears on the modern $10 bill, though it was announced on 18 June 2015 that his portrait would be replaced by that of a woman, to reflect the changing nature of American democracy and society. Hamilton also appears on the $500 Series EE Savings Bond. The source of the face on the $10 bill is John Trumbull's 1805 portrait of Hamilton, in the portrait collection of New York City Hall.
The first postage stamp to honor Hamilton was issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1870. The portrayals on the 1870 and 1888 issues are from the same engraved die, which was modeled after a bust of Hamilton by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi The Hamilton 1870 issue was the first US Postage stamp to honor a Secretary of the Treasury. The three-cent red commemorative issue, which was released on the 200th anniversary of Hamilton's birth in 1957, includes a rendition of the Federal Hall building, located in New York City. On March 19, 1956, the United States Postal Service issued the $5 Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Hamilton.
The only home Hamilton ever owned was a Federal style mansion designed by John McComb Jr., which he built on his 32-acre country estate in Hamilton Heights in upper Manhattan. He named the house, which was completed in 1802, the "Grange" after his grandfather Alexander's estate in Ayrshire, Scotland. The house remained in the family until 1833 when his widow sold it to Thomas E. Davis, a British born real estate developer, for $25,000. Part of the proceeds were used by Eliza to purchase a new townhouse from Davis (Hamilton-Holly House) in Greenwich Village with her son Alexander. The Grange, first moved from its original location in 1889, was moved again in 2008 to a spot in St. Nicholas Park on land that was once part of the Hamilton estate, in Hamilton Heights, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan. The historic structure was restored to its original 1802 appearance in 2011, and is maintained by the National Park service as Hamilton Grange National Memorial.
Alexander Hamilton served as one of the first trustees of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in New York state. Later the Academy received a college charter in 1812, and the school was formally renamed Hamilton College. Columbia University, Hamilton's alma mater, has official memorials to Hamilton on its campus in New York City. The college's main classroom building for the humanities is Hamilton Hall, and a large statue of Hamilton stands in front of it. The university press has published his complete works in a multivolume letterpress edition. Columbia University's student group for ROTC cadets and Marine officer candidates is named the Alexander Hamilton Society.
The main administration building of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, is named Hamilton Hall to commemorate Hamilton's creation of the United States Revenue Cutter Service, one of the predecessor services of the United States Coast Guard. The U.S. Army's Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn is named after Hamilton.
In 1990, the U.S. Custom House in New York City was renamed after Hamilton.
In 1880, his son John Church Hamilton commissioned Carl Conrads to sculpt a granite statue, now located in Central Park, New York City.
One statue honoring Alexander Hamilton in Chicago was mired in controversy, at least concerning the surrounding architecture. Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858–1937), of the Buckingham Fountain family, commissioned the monument. Its impetus was that Treasury Secretary Hamilton "secured the nation's financial future and made it possible for her own family to make its fortune in grain elevators and banking. Consequently, John Angel was hired to model a figurative sculpture and the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen was to create a "colossal architectural setting" for it. The proposed 80-foot tall columned shelter was poorly received. By Ms. Buckingham's death in 1937, the sculpture's setting, location, and design were uncertain. Conspiracy allegations surfaced, and the matter became mired in litigation. After the courts ordered the construction to be completed by 1953, the trustees hired architect Samuel A. Marx. The structure was completed, had structural problems, and was eventually demolished in 1993. The statue was gilded, and is still on display.
A statue, by James Earle Fraser, was dedicated on May 17, 1923, on the south terrace of the Treasury Building, in Washington.
Popular culture
Apart from the $10 bill and an obscure 1931 film, Hamilton did not attract much attention in American popular culture until the advent of the 2015 hit Broadway musical Hamilton. The musical, which features music, lyrics, and a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is based on a biography by Ron Chernow. The New Yorker called the show "an achievement of historical and cultural reimagining. In Miranda's telling, the headlong rise of one self-made immigrant becomes the story of America." The review in The New York Times concluded:
But it's probably not possible to top the adrenaline rush of revolution, when men can chant, "Hey yo, I'm just like my country/I'm young, scrappy and hungry/And I'm not throwing away my shot." Ambitious, enthusiastic and talented in equal measures, Mr. Miranda embodies those sentiments in a show that aims impossibly high and hits its target.
On slavery
Until recently the prevailing scholarly view was that Hamilton, like the Founders generally, lacked a deep concern about slavery. John Patrick Diggins traced this animus of historians against Hamilton to Vernon L. Parrington, who, writing in the 1920s to praise Jefferson and the Enlightenment, denounced a reactionary and unenlightened Hamilton as greedy and evil. Sean Wilentz contends that the consensus has changed sharply in Hamilton's favor in recent years. For example, Michael D. Chan argues that the first U.S. Treasury Secretary was committed to ending slavery, Chernow calls him "a fervent abolitionist", David O. Stewart states he was a "lifelong opponent of slavery", and Braun says he "was a leading anti-slavery advocate". Historian Manning Marable says Hamilton "vigorously opposed the slave trade and slavery's expansion."
Hamilton's first polemic against King George's ministers contains a paragraph that speaks of the evils that "slavery" to the British would bring upon the Americans. McDonald sees this as an attack on the institution of slavery. David Hackett Fischer believes the term is used in a symbolic way at that time.
During the Revolutionary War, Hamilton took the lead in proposals to arm slaves, free them, and compensate their masters. In 1779, Hamilton worked closely with his friend John Laurens of South Carolina to propose that such a unit be formed, under Laurens' command. Hamilton proposed to the Continental Congress that it create up to four battalions of slaves for combat duty, and free them. Congress recommended that South Carolina (and Georgia) acquire up to three thousand slaves for service, if they saw fit. Although the South Carolina governor and Congressional delegation had supported the plan in Philadelphia, they did not implement it.
Hamilton believed that the natural faculties of blacks were probably as good as those of free whites, and he warned that the British would arm the slaves if the patriots did not. In his 21st-century biography, Chernow cites this incident as evidence that Hamilton and Laurens saw the Revolution and the struggle against slavery as inseparable. Hamilton attacked his political opponents as demanding freedom for themselves and refusing to allow it to blacks.
In January 1785, Hamilton attended the second meeting of the New York Manumission Society (NYMS). John Jay was president and Hamilton was the first secretary and later became president. Chernow notes how the membership soon included many of Hamilton's friends and associates. Hamilton was a member of the committee of the society that petitioned the legislature to end the slave trade, and that succeeded in passing legislation banning the export of slaves from New York. In the same period, Hamilton felt bound by the rule of law of the time and his law practice facilitated the return of a fugitive slave to Henry Laurens of South Carolina. He opposed the compromise at the 1787 Constitutional Convention by which the federal government could not abolish the slave trade for 20 years, and was disappointed when he lost that argument.
Hamilton never supported forced emigration for freed slaves. Horton has argued from this that he would be comfortable with a multiracial society, and that this distinguished him from his contemporaries. In international affairs, he supported Toussaint L'Ouverture's black government in Haiti after the revolt that overthrew French control, as he had supported aid to the slaveowners in 1791—both measures hurt France. Scant evidence has been interpreted by a few to indicate Hamilton may have owned household slaves, as did many wealthy New Yorkers (the evidence for this is indirect; McDonald interprets it as referring to paid employees).
On economics
Hamilton has been portrayed as the "patron saint" of the American School of economic philosophy that, according to one historian, dominated economic policy after 1861. He firmly supported government intervention in favor of business, after the manner of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as early as the fall of 1781. Hamilton opposed the British ideas of free trade, which he believed skewed benefits to colonial and imperial powers, in favor of protectionism, which he believed would help develop the fledgling nation's emerging economy. Henry C. Carey was inspired by his writings. Hamilton influenced the ideas and work of the German Friedrich List. In Hamilton's view, a strong executive, linked to the support of the people, could become the linchpin of an administrative republic. The dominance of executive leadership in the formulation and carrying out of policy was essential to resist the deterioration of republican government. Ian Patrick Austin has explored the similarities between Hamiltonian recommendations and the development of Meiji Japan after 1860.
See also
Compromise of 1790
Infant industry argument
Necessary and Proper Clause
Panic of 1792
References
Notes
Bibliography
Biographies
Specialized studies
Balogh, Brian. 2009. A Government out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth Century American. New York: Cambridge University Press.
A one-volume recasting of Brant's six-volume life.
Full-length, detailed biography.
Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. Age of Federalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. online edition; detailed political history of the 1790s
. Four volumes, with various subtitles, cited as "Flexner, Washington". Vol. IV. ISBN 978-0-316-28602-2.
A review of the evidence on Newburgh; despite the title, Kohn is doubtful that a coup d'état was ever seriously attempted.
McCraw, Thomas K. The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy (2012)
First volume of two, but this contains Hamilton's lifetime.
Survey of politics in the 1790s.
An undergraduate paper, which concludes that Hamilton was ambivalent about slavery.
Coverage of how the Treasury and other departments were created and operated.
The most recent synthesis of the era.
Primary sources
Cooke, Jacob E., ed. Alexander Hamilton: A Profile. 1967. (Short excerpts from AH and his critics)
Cunningham, Noble E. Jefferson vs. Hamilton: Confrontations that Shaped a Nation. 2000. (Short collection of primary sources, with commentary)
Federalist Papers. Under the shared pseudonym "Publius". By Alexander Hamilton (c. 52 articles), James Madison (28 articles), and John Jay (five articles).
Freeman, Joanne B., ed. Alexander Hamilton: Writings. 2001, ISBN 978-1-931082-04-4. The Library of America edition, 1108 pages. (All of Hamilton's major writings and many of his letters)
Frisch, Morton J., ed. Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton. 1985.
Hamilton, Alexander; Hamilton, John Church. The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1789–1795: France; Duties on imports; National bank; Manufactures; Revenue circulars; Reports on claims, etc. 1850. John F. Trow, Printer. free online EBook edition
Goebel, Julius, Jr., and Joseph H. Smith, eds. The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton. 5 vols. Columbia University Press, 1964–80. (The legal counterpart to The Papers of Alexander Hamilton)
Lodge, Henry Cabot, ed. The Works of Alexander Hamilton. 10 vols. 1904. full text online at Internet Archive online in HTML edition. (The only online collection of Hamilton's writings and letters, containing about 1.3 million words)
Morris, Richard, ed. Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation. 1957. (Excerpts from AH's writings)
Report on Manufactures. (AH's economic program for the United States)
Report on Public Credit. (AH's financial program for the United States)
Syrett, Harold C., Jacob E. Cooke, and Barbara Chernow, eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. Columbia University Press, 1961–87. (Includes all letters and writings by Hamilton, and all important letters written to him; this is the definitive edition of Hamilton's works, intensively annotated)
Taylor, George Rogers, ed. Hamilton and the National Debt. 1950. (Excerpts from all sides in the 1790s)
External links
Alexander Hamilton on PBS' American Experience
Alexander Hamilton: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, subset of Founders Online from the National Archives
New-York Historical Society's Alexander Hamilton Exhibit
Hamilton's Report on Manufactures (Columbia University Press)
Hamilton's Congressional biography
Alexander Hamilton by Henry Cabot Lodge
Alexander Hamilton's Plan of Government
Hamilton Grange National Memorial
Reenactment of the Burr–Hamilton duel on July 12, 2004
Alexander Hamilton and the National Triumph of New York City A WNET video lecture; overview of Hamilton's career
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2016-01 | Walt_Disney_World-697206948 | Walt_Disney_World | Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, informally known as Walt Disney World or simply Disney World, is an entertainment complex in Bay Lake, Florida (mailing address is Lake Buena Vista, Florida), near Kissimmee and Orlando and is the flagship of Disney's worldwide corporate empire. The resort opened on October 1, 1971 and is the most visited vacation resort in the world, with an attendance of over 52 million annually.
Walt Disney World is owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Company. The property covers , housing 27 themed resort hotels, nine non–Disney hotels, four theme parks, two water parks, four golf courses, one nine-hole walking golf course for young golfers (no electric carts allowed), two themed miniature golf courses, one camping resort, a downtown-like shopping district, and other entertainment venues. Magic Kingdom was the first and original theme park to open in the complex followed by Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom, which opened later throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Designed to supplement Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had opened in 1955, the complex was developed by Walt Disney in the 1960s. "The Florida Project", as he called it, was originally to be built in hopes of differential in design and scheme from Disneyland with its own diverse set of rides. Walt Disney's original plans also called for the inclusion of an "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow", a planned community that would serve as a test bed for new innovations for city living. After extensive lobbying, the Government of Florida created the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special government district that essentially gave The Walt Disney Company the standard powers and autonomy of an incorporated city. However, Disney died on December 15, 1966, before construction began. Without the creative mind of Disney spearheading the construction of Walt Disney World, the company instead created the resort very similar to Disneyland, just on a much larger scale, along with abandoning Walt's concept of an experimental planned community.
History
Planning and construction
Conception
In 1959, Walt Disney Productions began looking for land for a second park to supplement the Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had opened in 1955. Market surveys revealed that only 5% of Disneyland's visitors came from east of the Mississippi River, where 75% of the population of the United States lived. Additionally, Walt Disney disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland and wanted control of a much larger area of land for the new project.
Walt Disney flew over the Orlando-area site (one of many) in November 1963. Seeing the well-developed network of roads, including the planned Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike, with McCoy Air Force Base (later Orlando International Airport) to the east, Disney selected a centrally located site near Bay Lake. To avoid a burst of land speculation, Walt Disney World Company used various dummy corporations to acquire of land. In May 1965, some of these major land transactions were recorded a few miles southwest of Orlando in Osceola County. Also, two large tracts totaling $1.5 million were sold, and smaller tracts of flatlands and cattle pastures were purchased by exotic-sounding companies such as the "Ayefour Corporation", "Latin-American Development and Management Corporation" and the "Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation"; some of these names are now memorialized on a window above Main Street, U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom. In addition to three huge parcels of land were many smaller parcels, called "outs". Much of the land acquired had been platted into lots in 1912 by the Munger Land Company and sold to investors. Most owners were happy to get rid of the land, which was mostly swamp. Another issue was the mineral rights to the land, which were owned by Tufts University. Without the transfer of these rights, Tufts could come in at any time and demand the removal of buildings to obtain minerals. Eventually, Disney's team negotiated a deal with Tufts to buy the mineral rights for $15,000.
Working under a strict cloak of secrecy, real estate agents who did not know the identity of their client began making offers to landowners in southwest Orange and northwest Osceola counties in April 1964, shortly after Walt Disney chose the site for his new theme park. Careful not to let property owners know the extent of their land-buying appetites, the agents quietly negotiated one deal after another, sometimes lining up contracts to buy huge tracts for little more than $100 an acre. Because they knew that recording the first deeds would trigger intense public questioning about what was going on, Disney's representatives waited until they had a large number of parcels locked up through options before filing their paperwork.
Rumors as to the purpose of the land purchases at first pointed towards development in support of the nearby Kennedy Space Center as well as a second Disney amusement park. An Orlando Sentinel news article in May 1965 believed Disney was behind the land purchases, but added that Walt Disney himself, when interviewed during a Kennedy Space Center visit, denied any connection, saying he was more concerned with expanding Disneyland than with building a second park. In October 1965, Emily Bavar, an editor from the Sentinel, visited Disneyland as the park was celebrating its 10th anniversary and asked Disney again if he was buying up the land for a second Disneyland park; Bavar later described that Disney "looked like I had thrown a bucket of water in his face" before denying the story. Disney's evasiveness, combined with other research during her California visit, prompted Bavar to author a story that the Sentinel ran in its October 21, 1965 edition where she predicted that Disney was purchasing the land in preparation for a second theme park. Three days later, the Sunday edition of the Sentinel proclaimed that Disney was indeed the mystery buyer.
Walt Disney had planned on revealing the Disney World project on November 15, 1965, but in light of the Sentinel story, Disney asked Florida Governor Haydon Burns to confirm to the press the following Monday that he planned to build "the greatest attraction in the history of Florida". Disney joined Burns in Orlando for the official reveal of Disney World on the previously-planned November 15 date.
Roy Disney's oversight of construction
Walt Disney died from lung cancer on December 15, 1966, before his vision was realized. His brother and business partner, Roy O. Disney, postponed his retirement to oversee construction of the resort's first phase.
On February 2, 1967, Roy O. Disney held a press conference at the Park Theatres in Winter Park, Florida. The role of EPCOT was emphasized in the film that was played. After the film, it was explained that for Disney World, including EPCOT, to succeed, a special district would have to be formed: the Reedy Creek Improvement District with two cities inside it, Bay Lake and Reedy Creek, now Lake Buena Vista. In addition to the standard powers of an incorporated city, which include the issuance of tax-free bonds, the district would have immunity from any current or future county or state land-use laws. The only areas where the district had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections. The legislation forming the district and the two cities was signed into law by Florida Governor Claude R. Kirk, Jr. on May 12, 1967. The Supreme Court of Florida then ruled in 1968 that the district was allowed to issue tax-exempt bonds for public projects within the district, despite the sole beneficiary being Walt Disney Productions.
The district soon began construction of drainage canals, and Disney built the first roads and the Magic Kingdom. The Contemporary Resort Hotel, the Polynesian Village, and Fort Wilderness were also completed in time for the park's opening on October 1, 1971. The Palm and Magnolia golf courses near Magic Kingdom had opened a few weeks before. At the park's opening, Roy O. Disney dedicated the property and declared that it would be known as "Walt Disney World" in his brother's honor. In his own words: "Everyone has heard of Ford cars. But have they all heard of Henry Ford, who started it all? Walt Disney World is in memory of the man who started it all, so people will know his name as long as Walt Disney World is here." After the dedication, Roy Disney asked Walt's widow, Lillian, what she thought of Walt Disney World. According to biographer Bob Thomas, she responded, "I think Walt would have approved." Roy O. Disney died on December 20, 1971, less than three months after the property opened.
Recent history
Much of Walt Disney's plans for his Progress City were abandoned after his death, after the company board decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city. The concept evolved into the resort's second theme park, EPCOT Center (renamed Epcot in 1996), which opened in 1982. While still emulating Walt Disney's original idea of showcasing new technology, it is closer to a world's fair than a "community of tomorrow". Some of the urban planning concepts from the original idea of EPCOT would instead be integrated into the community of Celebration much later. The resort's third theme park, Disney-MGM Studios (renamed Disney's Hollywood Studios in 2008), opened in 1989, and is inspired by show business. The resort's fourth theme park, Disney's Animal Kingdom, opened in 1998.
George Kalogridis was named president of the resort in December 2012, replacing Meg Crofton, who had overseen the site since 2006.
Timeline
Location
Despite marketing claims and popular misconceptions, the Florida resort is not within Orlando city limits, but is actually about southwest of downtown Orlando, much of it in southwestern Orange County, with the remainder in adjacent Osceola County. The property includes the cities of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake which are governed by the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The site is accessible from Central Florida's Interstate 4 via Exits 62B (World Drive), 64B (US 192 West), 65B (Osceola Parkway West), 67B (SR 536 West), and 68 (SR 535 North), and Exit 8 on SR 429, the Western Expressway. At its founding the park occupied approximately . Portions of the property have since been sold or de-annexed, including land now occupied by the Disney-built community of Celebration. Now the park occupies , about the size of San Francisco, or twice the size of Manhattan.
Attractions
Theme parks
Magic Kingdom, opened October 1, 1971
Epcot, opened October 1, 1982
Disney's Hollywood Studios, opened May 1, 1989
Disney's Animal Kingdom, opened April 22, 1998
Water parks
Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, opened June 1, 1989
Disney's Blizzard Beach, opened April 1, 1995
Other attractions
Disney Springs, opened March 22, 1975 (This was originally Downtown Disney)
Disney's Wedding Pavilion, opened July 15, 1995
Disney's BoardWalk, opened July 1, 1996
ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, opened March 28, 1997
DisneyQuest, opened June 19, 1998 and closing in 2016. Being replaced by NBA Experience.
La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil, opened December 23, 1998
NBA Experience, opening in 2016
Golf and recreation
Disney's property includes five golf courses. The four 18-hole golf courses are the Palm (4.5 Stars), the Magnolia (4 Stars), Lake Buena Vista (4 Stars) and Osprey Ridge (4.5 Stars). There is also a nine-hole walking course (no electric carts allowed) called Oak Trail, designed for young golfers. The Magnolia and Palm courses played home to the PGA Tour's Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic. Arnold Palmer Golf Management manages the Disney golf courses. Additionally, there are two themed miniature golf complexes, each with two courses, Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland.
Catch-and-release fishing excursions are offered daily on the resort's lakes. A Florida fishing license is not required, because it occurs on private property. Cane-pole fishing is offered from the docks at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground and Disney's Port Orleans Resort.
Additional recreational activities include watercraft rentals, surrey pedal car rentals, and firework cruises that launch from several resort marinas.
Former attractions
Discovery Island — an island in Bay Lake that was home to many species of animals and birds. It opened on April 8, 1974 and closed on April 8, 1999.
Disney's River Country — the first water park at the Walt Disney World Resort. It opened on June 20, 1976 and closed on November 2, 2001.
Walt Disney World Speedway — a racetrack at Walt Disney World and included the Richard Petty Driving Experience. It opened November 28, 1995 and closed on August 9, 2015.
Resorts
Of the thirty-four resorts and hotels on the Walt Disney World property, twenty-eight are owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. These are classified into four categories — Deluxe, Moderate, Value, and Disney Vacation Club Villas — and are located in one of five resort areas: the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Wide World of Sports, Animal Kingdom, or Disney Springs resort areas.
While all of the Deluxe resort hotels have achieved a AAA Four Diamond rating, Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa is considered the highest tier flagship luxury resort on the Walt Disney World Resort complex.
On-site Disney resorts
On-site non-Disney hotels
Former resorts
The Golf Resort — Became The Disney Inn, and later became Shades of Green.
Disney's Village Resort — Became the Villas at Disney Institute and then Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa. The "Tree House" Villas were decommissioned for a time because they were not accessible to disabled guests. Until early 2008, they were used for International Program Cast Member housing. In February 2008, Disney submitted plans to the South Florida Water Management District to replace the 60 existing villas with 60 new villas. The Treehouse Villas opened during the summer of 2009.
Celebration (A town designed and built by Disney, now managed by a resident-run association.)
Lake Buena Vista (Disney originally intended this area to become a complete community with multiple residences, shopping, and offices, but transformed the original homes into hotel lodging in the 1970s, which were demolished in the early 2000s to build Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa)
Proposed resorts
Disney's Asian Resort
Disney's Persian Resort
Disney's Venetian Resort
Disney's Mediterranean Resort
Fort Wilderness Junction
Disney's Magical Express
Guests with a Disney Resort reservation (excluding the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin) arriving at Orlando International Airport can be transported to their resort from the airport using the complimentary Disney Magical Express service, which is operated by Mears Destination Services as Disney Transport is not allowed to transport guests off resort property. Guests can also have their bags picked up and transported for them through a contract with BAGS Incorporated (not all airlines participate, check with Disney's Magical Express). Mears operates custom motor coaches and luggage is delivered to the guests' rooms by BAGS. Disney Cruise Line buses are also operated by Mears.
Executive management
Former executive management
Former President, Walt Disney World Resort 1994–2006 — Al Weiss
Former President, Walt Disney World Resort 2006–2013 — Meg Crofton
Current President, Walt Disney World Resort 2013 - present - George Kalogridis
Former Executive Vice President, Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort 1971–1980 — Richard A. "Dick" Nunis
Former Executive Vice President, Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort 2000–2001 — Erin Wallace
Former Vice Presidents of Disney's Epcot:
1984–1990 — Norm Doerges
1993–1995 — Linda Warren
1995-2000 — George Kalogridis
2000-2001 — Karl Holz
2001–2007 — Brad Rex
2007–2009 — Jim MacPhee
2009–2011 — Dan Cockerell
2011 - Rilous Carter
Former Vice Presidents of Disney's Hollywood Studios (previously Disney-MGM Studios):
1989-1994 — Bruce Laval
2000-2004 — Tom Wolber
2008-2011 — Rilous Carter
Former Vice Presidents of Disney's Animal Kingdom:
2001-2007 — Dr. Beth Stevens
2013-2014 — Josh D'Amaro
Former Vice Presidents of Downtown Disney (now known as Disney Springs):
2000-2003 — Mark Mrozinski
Attendance
In 2014, the resort's four theme parks all ranked in the top 8 on the list of the 25 most visited theme parks in the world; (1st) Magic Kingdom - 19,332,000 visitors, (6th) Epcot - 11,454,000 visitors, (7th) Disney's Animal Kingdom - 10,402,000 visitors, and (8th) Disney's Hollywood Studios - 10,312,000 visitors.
Operations
Employment
When the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the site employed about 5,500 "cast members". Today Walt Disney World employs more than 70,000 cast members, spending more than $1.2 billion on payroll and $474 million on benefits each year. The largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World has more than 3,700 job classifications. The resort also sponsors and operates the Walt Disney World College Program, an internship program that offers American college students (CP's) the opportunity to live about off-site in four Disney-owned apartment complexes and work at the resort, and thereby provides much of the theme park and resort "front line" cast members. There is also the Walt Disney World International College Program, an internship program that offers international college students (ICP's) from all over the world the same opportunity.
Corporate culture
Walt Disney World's corporate culture is based in some respects on that of its older sibling Disneyland, of which the most interesting is the use of a unique jargon based on theatrical terminology. This phenomenon is so well known that travel guidebooks have to include lists of common terms and abbreviations. For example, park visitors are always "guests", employees are "cast members," rides are "attractions" or "adventures", cast members costumed as famous Disney characters in a way that does not cover their faces are known as "face characters", jobs are "roles", and public and nonpublic areas are respectively labeled "onstage" and "backstage".
Maintenance
In a March 30, 2004 article in the Orlando Sentinel, then-Walt Disney World president Al Weiss gave some insight into how the parks are maintained:
More than 5,000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering, including 750 horticulturists and 600 painters.
Disney spends more than $100 million every year on maintenance at the Magic Kingdom. In 2003, $6 million was spent on renovating its Crystal Palace restaurant. 90 percent of guests say that the upkeep and cleanliness of the Magic Kingdom are excellent or very good.
The streets in the parks are steam cleaned every night.
There are cast members permanently assigned to painting the antique carousel horses; they use genuine gold leaf.
There is a tree farm on site so that when a mature tree needs to be replaced, a thirty-year-old tree will be available to replace it.
Transportation
A fleet of Disney-operated buses on property, branded Disney Transport, is complimentary for guests. In 2007, Disney Transport started a guest services upgrade to the buses. SatellGPS systems controlling new public address systems on the buses give safety information, park tips and other general announcements, with music. They are not to be confused with the Disney Cruise Line and Disney's Magical Express buses, which are operated by Mears Transportation. The Walt Disney World Monorail System also provides transportation at Walt Disney World. They operate on three routes that interconnect at the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), adjacent to the Magic Kingdom's parking lot. One line provides an express non-stop link from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom, while a second line provides a link from the TTC to Epcot. The third line links the TTC and the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian resorts. Disney Transport also operates a fleet of watercraft, ranging in size from water taxis up to the ferries that connect the Magic Kingdom to the Transportation and Ticket Center. Additionally, it is also responsible for maintaining the fleet of parking lot trams used for shuttling visitors between the various theme park parking lots and their respective main entrances.
The major roads within the resort (World Drive, Osceola Parkway and Epcot Center Drive) have segments that are built as freeways with full grade-separated interchanges. World Drive enters Walt Disney World from U.S. Route 192 and heads north to the Magic Kingdom Resort Area. Osceola Parkway heads east from the Animal Kingdom Resort Area to Interstate 4. Epcot Center Drive is a freeway for most of its route, running east from World Drive, past the Epcot parking lot to Interstate 4. Buena Vista Drive is a major surface street, running east from the Animal Kingdom Resort Area to Disney's Hollywood Studios, the Epcot Resort Area, and Disney Springs.
Name and logo
During the resort's early planning stages, Walt Disney referred to the project as Project X, The Florida Project, Disney World, and The Disney World. Early visual references used the same medieval font as Disneyland. Walt Disney was very involved in the site selection and project planning in the years before his death. The secretive names were chosen because of the high confidentiality of the project during the initial planning. After Walt Disney's death, Roy O. Disney added the name Walt to Disney World as a permanent tribute to his brother.
The original Walt Disney World logo featured an over-sized "D" with a Mickey Mouse-shaped globe containing latitude and longitude lines, with the property's name presented in a blocky, modern, sans-serif font. The original logo was retired during the resort's 25th anniversary celebration in 1996 and was replaced with the current logo, which features the "Walt Disney" portion of the logo in the typical Disney corporate signature font and "World" in a serif font. Remnants of the original logo can still be found in many places throughout the resort, including the SpectroMagic title float, on the front car of each monorail, manhole covers, survey markers, and flags flown at several sites across the property. During the resort's 40th anniversary celebration in 2011, the original logo began to reappear on merchandise sold at the resort and can still be found on select items sold at various gift shops and stores at Walt Disney World.
Twin town
As part of a competition run by Disney for 2010, Walt Disney World has an unofficial twinning (sister city) with Swindon, England, since 2009. Rebecca Warren's submission to the competition granted Swindon to be the twin town of Walt Disney World, which is famous for its intersection with six roundabouts. Warren and the mayor of Swindon were invited to a "twinning" ceremony, where a plaque revealing the connection will be placed.
See also
Disney College Program
Incidents at Walt Disney World
Rail transport in Disney Parks
Walt Disney Travel Company
Walt Disney World Casting Center
Walt Disney World Company
Walt Disney World Explorer
Walt Disney World Hospitality and Recreation Corporation
Walt Disney World International Program
References
External links
Category:1971 establishments in Florida
Category:Amusement parks in Florida
Category:Buildings and structures in Lake Buena Vista, Florida
Category:Buildings and structures in Osceola County, Florida
Category:Resorts in Florida
Category:Visitor attractions in Greater Orlando
Category:Visitor attractions in Orange County, Florida
Category:Visitor attractions in Osceola County, Florida
Category:Walt Disney Parks and Resorts |
2016-01 | DragonForce-696186804 | DragonForce | DragonForce
DragonForce are a British power metal band based in London, England. Formed in 1999, the group are known for their long and fast guitar solos, fantasy-themed lyrics, and electronic sounds in their music to add to their retro video game-influenced sound. As of August 2014, DragonForce have released six studio albums, one live album, one live DVD and one demo.
History
Early years and Valley of the Damned (1999–2003)
DragonForce were founded in 1999 by guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman, under the name of DragonHeart. Totman and Li had both experienced being in a band previously, with both having come from heavy metal band Demoniac. The two later found vocalist ZP Theart through an advertisement, and soon acquired former Demoniac drummer Matej Setinc, bassist Steve Scott and keyboardist Steve Williams. Setinc left the band in December 1999 to continue his studies in Slovenia, and was replaced by Didier Almouzni. The band also parted ways with Williams and Scott in 2000. Williams later rejoined the band as they recorded their first demo later that year, but left once again in December 2000, days ahead of the band's tour with Halford and Stratovarius to promote the demo. Bassist Diccon Harper joined the band in November that year, with keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov joining in February 2001 to complete the line-up for recording their debut studio album.
Although it was an independent release, their demo was enough to make them one of the most popular independent power metal bands in the UK at the time. Their song "Valley of the Damned" was released as their debut single shortly after they changed their name permanently to DragonForce in 2002 (after finding out another power metal band already had the name DragonHeart). A promotional video featuring live footage from their tour around Europe was released along with the song. The song was also a huge success on MP3.com where it charted at No. 1 for 2 weeks as the most downloaded song. In 2002, the band signed to Noise Records and began recording their debut album, Valley of the Damned. Harper performed the bass tracks for the album, but left the band in 2002 because of a tendon problem that required surgery. The title track, re-released in promotion of the album, is one of the best-known DragonForce songs to date and is a staple of their live performances to this day. The band's tour for Valley of the Damned lasted until 2004, with the tour ending in Tokyo, Japan.
Sonic Firestorm and Inhuman Rampage (2004–2007)
DragonForce's second studio album, Sonic Firestorm, proved to be even more successful than their previous album, with the help of the album's lead single, "Fury of the Storm". Sonic Firestorm was the first DragonForce album to feature new bassist Adrian Lambert and drummer Dave Mackintosh. When Mackintosh entered the band in 2004, they began referring to their style of music as "extreme power metal" due to his fast blast beats and double bass rhythms. The tour was longer than the band's previous tour for Valley of the Damned, and featured many more headlining shows. The band toured with many well-known metal bands such as W.A.S.P. and Iron Maiden. On the album, they also added a video commentary focusing on the making of Sonic Firestorm.
The band went mainstream with their third album, Inhuman Rampage, which was released on 9 January 2006 after signing with Roadrunner Records. The first song on the album, "Through the Fire and Flames", is perhaps their most famous song to date, and is featured on the video games Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits and Brutal Legend, and as downloadable content for the Rock Band franchise. Former Demoniac frontman Lindsay Dawson appeared as a backing vocalist for the album. In November 2005, prior to the release of the album, Lambert left the band to raise his newborn son, and the band enlisted Frédéric Leclercq for the remaining of the Sonic Firestorm Tour. Leclercq later became an official member of the band in January 2006 following the release of Inhuman Rampage, and was also featured in the band's music video for their second single from the album, "Operation Ground and Pound". The "Through the Fire and Flames" single later reached gold status in USA and Canada.
Ultra Beatdown and world tour (2007–2009)
DragonForce toured with Disturbed and Slipknot during the inaugural Mayhem Festival in 2008; the band then returned in autumn with the release of their fourth studio album, Ultra Beatdown. The album's lead single, "Heroes of Our Time", was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance on 3 December 2008, eventually losing out to Metallica with their song "My Apocalypse". A short version of "Heroes Of Our Time" is also featured in the video game Skate 2, and the full version in NHL 10. On 22 January 2009, the music video for their song "The Last Journey Home" was released to the Xbox Live Community a week before it was released online.
The band carried out the Ultra Beatdown world tour in Europe, North America and South America. They were supposed to play in South America in May but the tour was postponed due to the swine flu outbreak. They performed at the Two Days a Week Festival in Wiesen, Austria on 4 September, before performing in the United States and Canada from 15 September to 11 October, with special guests Sonata Arctica and Taking Dawn. The next leg of the tour was in Germany, from 16–30 October, followed by a single live performance in Luxembourg on 31 October. They then travelled to South America to perform in Curitiba, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Mexico City, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Bogotá from 6–14 November. The final part of the tour was carried out entirely in the UK from 19 November to 12 December.
Departure of Theart and Twilight Dementia (2010)
Li stated in late 2009 that DragonForce would stop touring in December and spend Christmas at home, before beginning to write and record their next studio album in January. On 22 February 2010, the band re-released their first two albums, Valley of the Damned and Sonic Firestorm. Valley of the Damned included newly remixed and remastered tracks while both albums included bonus tracks, updated packaging and DVDs featuring live footage, commentary and more. Both albums were also released in a box set which featured a T-shirt, a card of guitar picks, and an inflatable guitar. On 8 March 2010, it was announced via the band's record label at the time, Roadrunner, that Theart had parted ways with DragonForce due to "insurmountable differences of musical opinion", and that the band would be seeking a new frontman. The next day, the band released a press statement confirming the news and containing a link to request an audition.
The band released their first live album, Twilight Dementia, on 13 September 2010, in Europe and 14 September 2010, in US and Canada. The album art, title, and release date were revealed on the band's official website on 22 June 2010. The performances were recorded on the final leg of the Ultra Beatdown world tour. Regarding the album, Li stated:
The band then began working on their new studio album in early 2010, recording in various studios in California, London and the South of France. The band later confirmed that they would be the opening act for Iron Maiden in two UK shows in August 2011, with the first at Odyssey Arena in Belfast on 3 August and the second at The O2 Arena in London on 5 August.
The Power Within and Maximum Overload (2011–present)
On 2 March 2011, DragonForce announced their new vocalist and frontman, Marc Hudson. He had previous experience performing in a band, but was not a professional musician before joining DragonForce. His first show with DragonForce was the band's first opening for Iron Maiden in August 2011, where they started performing a new song titled "Cry Thunder". DragonForce released their fifth studio album, The Power Within, on 15 April 2012. Mediæval Bæbes and Pythia vocalist Emily Ovenden appeared as a backing vocalist for the album. During their North American tour, the band performed a new song titled "Fallen World", along with "Cry Thunder". "Fallen World" is DragonForce's fastest, most intense song to date. Starting from late September 2012, the band embarked on a UK and Ireland tour, and were supported by The Defiled, Cavorts and Alestorm.
DragonForce also played at Soundwave Festival in Australia in February 2013.
On 12 April 2013, the band announced that writing for a follow-up to The Power Within had been completed, and on 19 May 2013, DragonForce entered Fascination Street Studios in Sweden with Jens Bogren as the producer of the band's sixth album, Maximum Overload. On 31 March 2014, it was revealed that Trivium vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy would appear as a backing vocalist for the album, and that Ovenden would return after providing backing vocals for The Power Within. On 3 June 2014, DragonForce announced that they had parted ways with Mackintosh and had enlisted former Braindamage and Kill Ritual drummer Gee Anzalone. Maximum Overload was released in the UK on 18 August, in North America on 19 August and in Australia on 22 August, and a special edition which included five bonus songs was released in Japan on 19 August (the same date as the normal edition's release in North America) and in Australia on 22 August, at the same time as the release of the normal edition. To promote the album, the band embarked on their second world tour, beginning in Edinburgh on 17 September and ending in Brussels, Belgium on 1 February 2015. On 12th of February 2015 DragonForce announced that they would release a debut live DVD performance at Loud Park Festival 2014 that was recorded in November which would also include bonus behind the scenes content such as "Tokyo Party* and "Herman’s Time Off". The band performed at Download Festival in June 2015, with a surprise guest appearance by Babymetal during the set., DragonForce would then act as Babymetal's backing band at the 2015 Metal Hammer Golden Gods (Li and Totman had previously collaborated on the track "Road of Resistance" for Babymetal).
Musical style
Much of DragonForce's idiosyncratic style comes from the high-speed dual guitar sounds of Herman Li and Sam Totman. By playing at a high tempo within the upper registers of their instruments, their sound becomes similar to the "bleepy" arpeggios and quick pitch-bends normally associated with chiptunes, usually heard in the third generation of video game music. The band often pays homage to this influence in their music videos.
Although the band has frequently referred to their style as power metal, Li commented on descriptions of the band's style in an interview with Guitar World: "'Nintendo metal', 'extreme power metal', 'Bon Jovi on speed', 'Journey meets Slayer', ... people are always coming up with weird labels for us." The band has sometimes been labeled as a speed metal band.
Band members
Current members
Marc Hudson – lead vocals (2011–present)
Herman Li – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Sam Totman – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Frédéric Leclercq – bass, backing vocals (2005–present)
Vadim Pruzhanov – keyboard, keytar, synthesizer, theremin, backing vocals (2001–present)
Gee Anzalone – drums, percussion (2014–present)
Former members
ZP Theart – lead vocals (1999–2010)
Steve Scott – bass, backing vocals (1999–2000)
Diccon Harper – bass, backing vocals (2000–2002)
Adrian Lambert – bass, backing vocals (2002–2005)
Steve Williams – keyboard, keytar, backing vocals (1999–2000)
Matej Setinc – drums, percussion (1999)
Didier Almouzni – drums, percussion (1999–2003)
Dave Mackintosh – drums, percussion (2003–2014)
Timeline
Discography
Valley of the Damned (2003)
Sonic Firestorm (2004)
Inhuman Rampage (2006)
Ultra Beatdown (2008)
The Power Within (2012)
Maximum Overload (2014)
References
External links
Category:Speed metal musical groups
Category:English power metal musical groups
Category:Musical groups from London
Category:Musical groups established in 1999
Category:Musical sextets
Category:Roadrunner Records artists
Category:1999 establishments in England |
2016-01 | Aang-697694854 | Aang | Aang
is a fictional character and the protagonist of Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender (created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko), voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen.
Aang is the last surviving Airbender, a monk of the Air Nomads' Southern Air Temple. He is an incarnation of the "Avatar", the spirit of light and peace manifested in human form. As the Avatar, Aang controls all four elements and is tasked with keeping the Four Nations at peace. At 12 years old, Aang is the series' reluctant hero, spending a century in suspended animation before joining new friends Katara and Sokka on a quest to master the elements and save their world from the imperialist Fire Nation.
Aang's character has appeared in other media, such as trading cards, video games, T-shirts, and web comics. Aang has also been portrayed by Noah Ringer in the feature film The Last Airbender, and voiced by D.B. Sweeney in the sequel animated series The Legend of Korra.
Creation and conception
Aang's character was developed from a drawing by Bryan Konietzko, depicting a bald man with an arrowlike design on his head, which the artist developed into a picture of a child with a flying bison. Meanwhile, Michael Dante DiMartino was interested in a documentary about explorers trapped in the South Pole, which he later combined with Konietzko's drawing.
The plot they described corresponds with the first and second episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the "water people" (Katara and Sokka) rescue the "air guy" (Aang) while "trapped in a snowy wasteland" (the Southern Water Tribe) with "some fire people [that] are pressing down on them" (Fire Nation Troops and Zuko). The creators of the show intended Aang to be trapped in an iceberg for one thousand years, later to wake inside a futuristic world, wherein he would have a robot named Momo and a dozen bison. The creators lost interest in this theme, and changed it to one hundred years of suspended animation. The robotic Momo became a flying lemur, and the herd of bison was reduced to one.
Airbending, the martial art Aang primarily uses in the show, is based on an "internal" Chinese martial art called Baguazhang. This fighting style focuses on circular movements, and does not have many finishing moves; traits meant to represent the unpredictability of air and the peaceful character of Airbenders.
In the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Aang’s name was written as 安昂 (ān áng) in Chinese.
Personality and characteristics
Michael Dante DiMartino, the show's co-creator, said:
According to the show's creators, "Buddhism and Taoism have been huge inspirations behind the idea for Avatar." As shown in "The King of Omashu" and "The Headband", a notable aspect of Aang's character is his vegetarian diet, which is consistent with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. In the Brahmajala Sutra, a Buddhist code of ethics, vegetarianism is encouraged. Furthermore, the writers gave Aang a consistent reluctance to fight and an aversion to killing. In "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)", Aang encounters an angry spirit destroying a village and kidnapping villagers; but instead of fighting the spirit, Aang negotiates. He is also depicted showing ethical reluctance in killing Firelord Ozai, and eventually strips Ozai of his bending instead of killing him.
Appearances
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pre-series
Upon death, Avatar Roku was reincarnated and Aang was born, and later raised by Monk Gyatso, a senior monk at the Southern Air Temple and friend of the late Avatar Roku. Even prior to learning he was the Avatar, Aang distinguished himself by becoming one of the youngest Airbending Masters in history by inventing a new technique. As a result of Fire Lord Sozin's increasingly hostile attitude towards the other nations, the senior monks decided to reveal Aang's nature as the Avatar four years before the traditional age (Avatars are usually told of their status once they turn 16) and relocate him to one of the other Air Temples. Learning that he was to be taken from Gyatso caused Aang to flee the monastery on his flying bison, Appa, before being caught by a storm; the life-or-death conditions triggered the Avatar State, encasing the young Avatar and his bison in an air-pocket among icebergs, where he remained suspended for a century.
Book One: Water
After one hundred years of suspended animation in an iceberg, twelve-year-old Aang was freed when found by Katara and Sokka, yet unaware of the events that occurred during his rest. His reawakening catches the attention of Zuko, the banished prince of the Fire Nation, and Aang is forced to leave, with Katara and Sokka accompanying him after they learn that he is the Avatar. Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple, where they meet a winged lemur whom Aang later names Momo. It is there that Aang learns that he was in the ice for a whole century, and that the Fire Nation wiped out his people, including Gyatso.
After a series of misadventures, Aang meets his previous incarnation, Roku, who informs him that he must master all four bending arts and end the war before the coming of Sozin's Comet at the end of summer. Upon arriving to the Northern Water Tribe, after a few conflicts, Aang became an apprentice of Waterbending Master Pakku alongside Katara. After helping the Water Tribe drive off a Fire Nation invasion headed by Admiral Zhao, with Katara as his teacher, Aang and his group journey to the Earth Kingdom to find an Earthbending teacher.
Book Two: Earth
In the second season, Aang learns Earthbending from Toph Beifong after he has a vision of the blind Earthbending prodigy in a swamp. On their journey, they are chased by Fire Princess Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee. After learning of the Day of Black Sun in a secret underground library, Aang and his group attempt to reveal the information to the Earth King at Ba Sing Se. However, their flying bison, Appa, is captured by Sandbenders. Aang grows upset and angry and confronts the Sandbenders, learning that Appa has been sold. After stopping a Fire Nation drill threatening the safety of Ba Sing Se, they look for Appa only to find themselves dealing with the Dai Li before exposing their leader's deception. The group reunites with Jet helping them find Appa at Dai Li headquarters. They expose the Hundred Year War to the Earth King, who promises to help them invade the Fire Nation. Soon after, Aang meets a guru who attempts to teach Aang to open his seven chakras in order to control the defensive 'Avatar State'; but when Aang perceives Katara in danger, he leaves before the seventh chakra is opened, and thus loses his progress until the seventh is opened. Though Aang manages to unlock the Seventh Chakra, he is mortally wounded by Azula, yet was saved by Katara before the injury became truly fatal.
Book Three: Fire
In the third and final season, Aang is unable to use the Avatar State. Although reluctant with the plan at first, Aang accepts to have everyone think he had died and his remaining allies attack the Fire Nation's capital, but are thwarted by Azula. However, Zuko has a change of heart, rebels against his father, and offers to teach Aang Firebending. Aang and Zuko also improve their Firebending powers with the help of their world's last two dragons.
During the finale, finding himself on a strange island, Aang is reluctant to actually kill Fire Lord Ozai, despite his four previous past lives convincing him it is the only way. But upon learning that he was actually on the back of a Lion Turtle, one of four that made the first benders by manipulating humans' chi, Aang receives the Lion Turtles' Energybending ability. With this ability, as he regained his Avatar State, Aang removes Ozai's bending ability, rendering him harmless and ending the Hundred Year War. Later, in the Fire Nation capital, Aang is seen beside Zuko, the new Fire Lord. The series ends with Aang and his friends relaxing at Iroh's tea shop at Ba Sing Se, where Aang and Katara share a kiss.
Comics
Aang appears in the comic Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise that follows Aang and his friends after the events of the third season. In the comic, Zuko asks Aang to kill him if Zuko follows his father's footsteps. Additionally, Aang is confronted with the "Avatar Fan Movement", a growing group of young individuals trying to live as the Air Nomads did, but Aang views these people as parodying and denigrating the memory of his people. He also has a more limited role in the direct sequel Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Search. He has a more direct role in the third comic arc, Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift, where he is trying to reconcile respecting the past and teaching others Air Nomad culture, while also adapting to the world's political and technological changes. He also witnesses Toph's conflict with her father and tries to sort out an angered spirit dating back to the days of Avatar Yangchen.
The Legend of Korra
Pre-series
Some sixty years prior to the series, Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko founded the United Republic of Nations, and its capital Republic City. In the following years, Aang married Katara and they have three children: Bumi (named for Aang's old friend), Kya (after Katara's deceased mother), and Tenzin. In his adult years, Aang grew a neatly cropped chinstrap beard, which many statues of Aang's adult form depict him with, including the one in the restored Southern Air Temple. He also founded the Air Acolytes, a sect who eschewed their home cultures in favor of following the Air Nomads' way of life (the comics reveal that the first Air Acolytes were the reorganized Avatar Fan Club).
In 128 AG, forty-year-old Aang assisted Toph in arresting Water Tribe crime lord Yakone. As Aang watched the trial where Yakone was convicted of using the rare and illegal technique Bloodbending, Yakone tried to escape Republic City, using his unique abilities to subdue everyone in the court room, thus leaving them unconscious. Able to resist Yakone's Bloodbending through the Avatar State, Aang used his Energybending abilities to put a halt to Yakone's plans.
Being frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years while in the Avatar State drained much of Aang's life energy. While he did not feel the effects for many years, after he entered middle age in his 50's the strain of this exertion increasingly weighed upon his body. Ultimately, it resulted in Aang dying at the relatively young biological age of 66, in 153 AG. Aang was survived by his wife, Katara, and his three children, but he did not live to see his grandchildren, all of whom would be powerful Airbenders. Prior to his death, Aang tasked the Order of the White Lotus with finding and guiding the new Avatar after him. When Aang died, the Avatar spirit reincarnated into the Southern Water Tribe female Korra. Aang intended for the Order to simply guide and guard Korra, but several mishaps in the aftermath of Aang's death (including a kidnapping attempt by the anarchist Zaheer) and the still-fragile state of relations between the now-Five Nations resulted in Katara and Tenzin sequestering Korra in a compound at the South Pole, bringing teachers to her instead of allowing her to seek out her own.
Book One: Air
In the sequel series' first season, Avatar Aang's spirit occasionally serves as the spiritual advisor to seventeen-year-old Korra (much like the previous Avatar incarnation, Roku, did for Aang). Initially, Aang is only able to give Korra glimpses of his memory concerning Yakone in relation to her confrontations with his two sons, Amon and Tarrlok, the products of Yakone's Bloodbending vendetta on the Avatar. It is only after she loses her ability to bend that Korra allows herself to listen to her past lives, at which point Aang restores her powers by triggering the Avatar State and teaching her to Energybend.
Book Two: Spirits
The sequel series' second season reveals that Avatar Aang apparently treated Tenzin as his favorite child, due to his son's Airbender status; Kya and Bumi mentioned to Tenzin that Aang always took Tenzin on vacations with him, but never them. Aang's Air Acolytes also were unaware that Aang had two other children besides Tenzin. Aang himself later appears, along with Roku, Kyoshi and Kuruk, before Korra in a vision and encourages her to learn the origins of Wan (the first Avatar) and Raava. Aang, or possibly a vision of him, later appears in the Spirit World, encouraging Tenzin to move past the enormous legacy of being Aang's son and find his own path. Korra's connection to Aang and the other preceding Avatars is severed when Vaatu extracts and subsequently kills Raava, the divine Avatar Spirit entity within her. Even though Raava is reborn and fused again with Korra, she discovers, to her dismay, that her spiritual connection to Aang and all past Avatars is gone forever.
Appearances in other media
Games
Aang's character appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Trading Card Game on a multitude of cards. He appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender video game as one of the four playable characters. Two sequels were made: Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth, followed by Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno.
Aang also appeared in Escape from the Spirit World, an online video game that can be found on Nickelodeon's official website. The game includes certain plot changes that are not shown in the show. The show's directors, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, claim the events are canon.
Films
Tokyopop has published a films comic (sometimes referred to as cine-manga), in which Aang, being the main character of the show, appears repeatedly.
In 2010, director M. Night Shyamalan cast 12-year-old Tae Kwon Do practitioner Noah Ringer as Aang in the film adaptation of the series, The Last Airbender. The casting of a presumed white actor in the role of Aang (as well as a primarily Caucasian cast) in the Asian-influenced Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans, marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and a protest outside of a Philadelphia casting call for movie extras. A counter-movement was spawned in response by other fans who believed the casting was appropriate. The casting decisions were also negatively received by several critics, who stated that the original casting call expressed a preference for Caucasian actors over others. Noah Ringer later identified himself to Entertainment Weekly as an American Indian.
Critical reception
In the show's intended demographics, Aang has been received exceptionally. Kendall Lyons stated, "Aang seems to be the lighthearted kid that you can easily familiarize yourself with", and that he "seems to bring comfort in the most dangerous or hostile situations." There are many similar descriptions about Aang as a childlike character who is "reckless and excitable". Reviews point out that "as the Avatar, Aang seems unstoppable, but as Aang, he is just another Airbender"; the review states later that the show continues to focus on a more realistic character instead of a perfect one by revealing many character flaws.
References
External links
Official TV Show Website at Nick.com
Aang at Nick.com
Category:Avatar: The Last Airbender characters
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Category:Child superheroes
Category:Fictional characters introduced in 2005
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2016-01 | Atlanta-697277866 | Atlanta | Atlanta
Atlanta is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia, with an estimated 2013 population of 447,841. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 5,522,942 people and the ninth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County.
Atlanta was established in 1837 at the intersection of two railroad lines, and the city rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a national center of commerce. In the decades following the Civil Rights Movement, during which the city earned a reputation as "too busy to hate" for the progressive views of its citizens and leaders, Atlanta attained international prominence. Atlanta is the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States, via highway, railroad, and air, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998.
Atlanta is considered an "alpha-" or "world city", ranking 36th among world cities and 8th in the nation with a gross domestic product of $270 billion. Atlanta's economy is considered diverse, with dominant sectors including logistics, professional and business services, media operations, and information technology. Topographically, Atlanta is marked by rolling hills and dense tree coverage. Revitalization of Atlanta's neighborhoods, initially spurred by the 1996 Olympics, has intensified in the 21st century, altering the city's demographics, politics, and culture.
History
Prior to the arrival of European settlers in north Georgia, Creek and Cherokee Indians inhabited the area. Standing Peachtree, a Creek village located where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Indian settlement to what is now Atlanta. As part of the systematic removal of Native Americans from northern Georgia from 1802 to 1825, the Creek ceded the area in 1821, and white settlers arrived the following year.
In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest. The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would then be linked to Savannah. After engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Five Points. A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as "Terminus", and later as "Thrasherville" after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area. By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents, and was renamed "Marthasville" to honor the Governor's daughter. J. Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica," which was shortened to "Atlanta". The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.
By 1860, Atlanta's population had grown to 9,554. During the Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a hub for the distribution of military supplies. In 1864, following the capture of Chattanooga, the Union Army moved southward and began its invasion of north Georgia. The region surrounding Atlanta was the location of several major army battles, culminating with the Battle of Atlanta and a four-month-long siege of the city by the Union Army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood made the decision to retreat from Atlanta, ordering all public buildings and possible assets to the Union Army destroyed. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, and on September 7, General Sherman ordered the city's civilian population to evacuate. On November 11, 1864, in preparation of the Union Army's march to Savannah, Sherman ordered Atlanta to be burned to the ground, sparing only the city's churches and hospitals.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt. Due to the city's superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved to Atlanta from Milledgeville in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta surpassed Savannah as Georgia's largest city.
Beginning in the 1880s, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, promoted Atlanta to potential investors as a city of the "New South" that would be based upon a modern economy and less reliant on agriculture. By 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech) and the city's black colleges had established the city as a center for higher education. In 1895, Atlanta hosted the Cotton States and International Exposition, which attracted nearly 800,000 attendees and successfully promoted the New South's development to the world.
During the first decades of the 20th century, Atlanta experienced a period of unprecedented growth. In three decades' time, Atlanta's population tripled as the city limits expanded to include nearby streetcar suburbs; the city's skyline emerged with the construction of the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings; and Sweet Auburn emerged as a center of black commerce. However, the period was also marked by strife and tragedy. Increased racial tensions led to the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, which left at least 27 people dead and over 70 injured. In 1915, Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent, convicted of murder, was hanged by a lynch mob, drawing attention to antisemitism in the United States. On May 21, 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now the Old Fourth Ward, resulting in one fatality and the displacement of 10,000 people.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the film premiere of Gone with the Wind, the epic film based on the best-selling novel by Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell. The film's legendary producer, David O. Selznick, as well as the film's stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland attended the gala event at Loew's Grand Theatre, but Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel, an African American, was barred from the event due to racial segregation laws and policies.
Atlanta played a vital role in the Allied effort during World War II due the city's war-related manufacturing companies, railroad network, and military bases, leading to rapid growth in the city's population and economy. In the 1950s, the city's newly constructed freeway system allowed middle class Atlantans the ability to relocate to the suburbs. As a result, the city began to make up an ever smaller proportion of the metropolitan area's population.
During the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. While minimal compared to other cities, Atlanta was not completely free of racial strife. In 1961, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate". Desegregation of the public sphere came in stages, with public transportation desegregated by 1959, the restaurant at Rich's department store by 1961, movie theaters by 1963, and public schools by 1973.
In 1960, whites comprised 61.7% of the city's population. By 1970, African Americans were a majority of the city's population and exercised new-found political influence by electing Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. Under Mayor Jackson's tenure, Atlanta's airport was modernized, solidifying the city's role as a transportation center. The opening of the Georgia World Congress Center in 1976 heralded Atlanta's rise as a convention city. Construction of the city's subway system began in 1975, with rail service commencing in 1979. However, despite these improvements, Atlanta lost over 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, over 20% of its population.
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Following the announcement, the city government undertook several major construction projects to improve Atlanta's parks, sporting venues, and transportation infrastructure. While the games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, they were a watershed event in Atlanta's history, initiating a fundamental transformation of the city in the decade that followed.
During the 2000s, Atlanta underwent a profound transformation demographically, physically, and culturally. Suburbanization, a booming economy, and new migrants decreased the city's black percentage from a high of 67% in 1990 to 54% in 2010. From 2000 to 2010, Atlanta gained 22,763 white residents, 5,142 Asian residents, and 3,095 Hispanic residents, while the city's black population decreased by 31,678. Much of the city's demographic change during the decade was driven by young, college-educated professionals: from 2000 to 2009, the three-mile radius surrounding Downtown Atlanta gained 9,722 residents aged 25 to 34 holding at least a four-year degree, an increase of 61%. Between the mid-1990s and 2010, stimulated by funding from the HOPE VI program, Atlanta demolished nearly all of its public housing, a total of 17,000 units and about 10% of all housing units in the city. In 2005, the $2.8 billion BeltLine project was adopted, with the stated goals of converting a disused 22-mile freight railroad loop that surrounds the central city into an art-filled multi-use trail and increasing the city's park space by 40%. Lastly, Atlanta's cultural offerings expanded during the 2000s: the High Museum of Art doubled in size; the Alliance Theatre won a Tony Award; and numerous art galleries were established on the once-industrial Westside.
Geography
Atlanta encompasses , of which is land and is water. The city is situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and at above mean sea level, Atlanta has the highest elevation of major cities east of the Mississippi River. Atlanta straddles the Eastern Continental Divide, such that rainwater that falls on the south and east side of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Atlanta sits atop a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River, which is part of the ACF River Basin. Located at the far northwestern edge of the city, much of the river's natural habitat is preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.
Cityscape
Most of Atlanta was burned during the Civil War, depleting the city of a large stock of its historic architecture. Yet architecturally, the city had never been particularly "southern"—because Atlanta originated as a railroad town, rather than a patrician southern seaport like Savannah or Charleston, many of the city's landmarks could have easily been erected in the Northeast or Midwest.
During the Cold War era, Atlanta embraced global modernist trends, especially regarding commercial and institutional architecture. Examples of modernist architecture include the Westin Peachtree Plaza (1976), Georgia-Pacific Tower (1982), the State of Georgia Building (1966), and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (1985). In the latter half of the 1980s, Atlanta became one of the early adopters of postmodern designs that reintroduced classical elements to the cityscape. Many of Atlanta's tallest skyscrapers were built in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with most displaying tapering spires or otherwise ornamented crowns, such as One Atlantic Center (1987), 191 Peachtree Tower (1991), and the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta (1992). Also completed during the era is Atlanta's tallest skyscraper, the Bank of America Plaza (1992), which, at , is the 61st-tallest building in the world and the 9th-tallest building in the United States. The Bank of America Plaza is the tallest building outside of New York City and Chicago, and was the last building built in the United States to be in the top 10 tallest buildings in the world until One World Trade Center was completed externally on May 2013. The city's embrace of modern architecture, however, translated into an ambivalent approach toward historic preservation, leading to the destruction of notable architectural landmarks, including the Equitable Building (1892–1971), Terminal Station (1905–1972), and the Carnegie Library (1902–1977). The Fox Theatre (1929)—Atlanta's cultural icon—would have met the same fate had it not been for a grassroots effort to save it in the mid-1970s.
Atlanta is divided into 242 officially defined neighborhoods. The city contains three major high-rise districts, which form a north-south axis along Peachtree: Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead. Surrounding these high-density districts are leafy, low-density neighborhoods, most of which are dominated by single-family homes.
Downtown Atlanta contains the most office space in the metro area, much of it occupied by government entities. Downtown is also home to the city's sporting venues and many of its tourist attractions. Midtown Atlanta is the city's second-largest business district, containing the offices of many of the region's law firms. Midtown is also known for its art institutions, cultural attractions, institutions of higher education, and dense form. Buckhead, the city's uptown district, is eight miles (13 km) north of Downtown and the city's third-largest business district. The district is marked by an urbanized core along Peachtree Road, surrounded by suburban single-family neighborhoods situated among dense forests and rolling hills.
Surrounding Atlanta's three high-rise districts are the city's low- and medium-density neighborhoods, where the craftsman bungalow single-family home is dominant. The eastside is marked by historic streetcar suburbs built from the 1890s-1930s as havens for the upper middle class. These neighborhoods, many of which contain their own villages encircled by shaded, architecturally-distinct residential streets, include the Victorian Inman Park, Bohemian East Atlanta, and eclectic Old Fourth Ward. On the westside, former warehouses and factories have been converted into housing, retail space, and art galleries, transforming the once-industrial West Midtown into a model neighborhood for smart growth, historic rehabilitation, and infill construction. In southwest Atlanta, neighborhoods closer to downtown originated as streetcar suburbs, including the historic West End, while those farther from downtown retain a postwar suburban layout, including Collier Heights and Cascade Heights, home to much of the city's affluent African American population. Northwest Atlanta contains the areas of the city to west of Marietta Boulevard and to the north of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, including those neighborhoods remote to downtown, such as Riverside, Bolton and Whittier Mill, which is one of Atlanta's designated Landmark Historical Neighborhoods. Vine City, though technically Northwest, adjoins the city's Downtown area and has recently been the target of community outreach programs and economic development initiatives.
Gentrification of the city's neighborhoods is one of the more controversial and transformative forces shaping contemporary Atlanta. The gentrification of Atlanta has its origins in the 1970s, after many of Atlanta's neighborhoods had undergone the urban decay that affected other major American cities in the mid-20th century. When neighborhood opposition successfully prevented two freeways from being built through city's the east side in 1975, the area became the starting point for Atlanta's gentrification. After Atlanta was awarded the Olympic games in 1990, gentrification expanded into other parts of the city, stimulated by infrastructure improvements undertaken in preparation for the games. Gentrification was also aided by the Atlanta Housing Authority's eradication of the city's public housing.
Climate
Under the Köppen classification, Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) with four distinct seasons and generous precipitation year-round, typical for the inland South. Summers are hot and humid, with temperatures somewhat moderated by the city's elevation. Winters are cool but variable, with an average of 48 freezing days per year and temperatures dropping to on rare occasions. Warm air from the Gulf of Mexico can bring spring-like highs while strong Arctic air masses can push lows into the teens (≤ −7 °C).
July averages , with high temperatures reaching on an average 44 days per year, though readings are not seen most years. January averages , with temperatures in the suburbs slightly cooler due largely to the urban heat island effect. Lows at or below freezing can be expected 40 nights annually, but extended stretches with daily high temperatures below are very rare, with a recent exception in January 2014. Extremes range from on February 13, 1899 to on June 30, 2012. Dewpoints in the summer range from in June to in July.
Typical of the southeastern U.S., Atlanta receives abundant rainfall that is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year, though spring and early fall are markedly drier. The average annual rainfall is , while snowfall is typically light at around per year. The heaviest single snowfall occurred on January 23, 1940, with around of snow. However, ice storms usually cause more problems than snowfall does, the most severe occurring on January 7, 1973. Tornadoes are rare in the city itself, but the March 15, 2008 EF2 tornado damaged prominent structures in downtown Atlanta.
Demographics
The 2010 United States Census reported that Atlanta had a population of 420,003. The population density was 3,154 per square mile (1232/km2). The racial makeup and population of Atlanta was 54.0% Black or African American, 38.4% White, 3.1% Asian and 0.2% Native American. Those from some other race made up 2.2% of the city's population, while those from two or more races made up 2.0%. Hispanics of any race made up 5.2% of the city's population. The median income for a household in the city was $45,171. The per capita income for the city was $35,453. 22.6% percent of the population was living below the poverty line. However, compared to the rest of the country, Atlanta's cost of living is 6.00% lower than the U.S. average. Atlanta has one of the highest LGBT populations per capita, ranking third among major American cities, behind San Francisco and slightly behind Seattle, with 12.8% of the city's total population recognizing themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. 7.3% of Atlantans were born abroad.
In the 2010 Census, Atlanta was recorded as the nation's fourth largest majority black city, and the city has long been known as a center of African American political power, education, and culture, often called a black mecca. However, African American Atlantans have rapidly suburbanized in recent decades, and from 2000 to 2010, the city's black population decreased by 31,678 people, shrinking from 61.4% of the city's population in 2000 to 54.0% in 2010.
Atlanta has recently undergone a drastic demographic increase in its white population. Between 2000 and 2010, the proportion of whites in the city's population grew faster than that of any other U.S. city. In that decade, Atlanta's white population grew from 31% to 38% of the city's population, an absolute increase of 22,753 people, more than triple the increase that occurred between 1990 and 2000.
Out of the total population five years and older, 83.3% spoke only English at home, while 8.8% spoke Spanish, 3.9% another Indo-European language and 2.8% an Asian language. Atlanta's dialect has traditionally been a variation of Southern American English. The Chattahoochee River long formed a border between the Coastal Southern and Southern Appalachian dialects. However, by 2003, Atlanta magazine concluded that Atlanta had become significantly "de-Southernized", with a Southern accent considered a handicap in some circumstances. In general, Southern accents are less prevalent among residents of the city and inner suburbs and among younger people, while they are more common in the outer suburbs and among older people; this pattern coexists alongside Southern variations of African American Vernacular English.
Religion in Atlanta, while historically centered on Protestant Christianity, now involves many faiths as a result of the city and metro area's increasingly international population. While Protestant Christianity still maintains a strong presence in the city (63%), in recent decades Catholicism has gained a strong foothold due to migration patterns. Metro Atlanta also has a considerable number of ethnic Christian congregations, including Korean and Indian churches. Large non-Christian faiths are present in the form of Judaism, Islam and Hinduism. Overall, there are over 1,000 places of worship within Atlanta.
Economy
Encompassing $304 billion, the Atlanta metropolitan area is the eighth-largest economy in the country and 17th-largest in the world. Corporate operations comprise a large portion of the Atlanta's economy, with the city serving as the regional, national, or global headquarters for many corporations. Atlanta contains the country's third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, and the city is the global headquarters of corporations such as The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, AT&T Mobility, Chick-fil-A, UPS, and Newell-Rubbermaid. Over 75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies conduct business operations in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and the region hosts offices of about 1,250 multinational corporations. Many corporations are drawn to Atlanta on account of the city's educated workforce; as of 2010, nearly 43% of adults in the city of Atlanta have college degrees, compared to 27% in the nation as a whole.
Atlanta began as a railroad town and logistics has remained a major component of the city's economy to this day. Atlanta is an important rail junction and contains major classification yards for Norfolk Southern and CSX. Since its construction in the 1950s, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has served as a key engine of Atlanta's economic growth. Delta Air Lines, the city's largest employer and the metro area's third largest, operates the world's largest airline hub at Hartsfield-Jackson and has helped make it the world's busiest airport, both in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft operations. Partly due to the airport, Atlanta has become a hub for diplomatic missions; as of 2012, the city contains 25 general consulates, the seventh-highest concentration of diplomatic missions in the United States.
Media is also an important aspect of Atlanta's economy. The city is a major cable television programming center. Ted Turner established the headquarters of both the Cable News Network (CNN) and the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in Atlanta. Cox Enterprises, the country's third-largest cable television service and the publisher of over a dozen major American newspapers, is headquartered in the city. The Weather Channel, owned by NBCUniversal, Bain Capital, and The Blackstone Group, is headquartered just outside of Atlanta in Cobb County.
Information technology, an economic sector that includes publishing, software development, entertainment and data processing has garnered a larger percentage of Atlanta's economic output. Indeed, Atlanta has been nicknamed the Silicon peach due to its burgeoning technology sector. As of 2013, Atlanta contains the fourth-largest concentration of information technology jobs in the United States, numbering 85,000. Atlanta also ranks as the sixth fastest-growing city for information technology jobs, with an employment growth of 4.8% in 2012 and a three-year growth near 9%, or 16,000 jobs. Information technology companies are drawn to Atlanta's lower costs and educated workforce.
Largely due to a statewide tax incentive enacted in 2005, the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which awards qualified productions a transferable income tax credit of 20% of all in-state costs for film and television investments of $500,000 or more, Atlanta has become a center for film and television production. Film and television production facilities in Atlanta include Turner Studios, Pinewood Studios (Pinewood Atlanta), Tyler Perry Studios, Williams Street Productions, and the EUE/Screen Gems soundstages. Film and television production injected $1 billion into Georgia's economy in 2010, with Atlanta garnering most of the projects. Atlanta has gained recognition as a center of production of horror and zombie-related productions, with Atlanta magazine dubbing the city the "Zombie Capital of the World".
Compared to other American cities, Atlanta's economy has been disproportionately affected by the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, with the city's economy earning a ranking of 68 among 100 American cities in a September 2014 report due to an elevated unemployment rate, declining real income levels, and a depressed housing market. From 2010–2011, Atlanta saw a 0.9% contraction in employment and only a 0.4% rise in income. Though unemployment had dropped to 7% by late 2014, this was still higher than the national unemployment rate of 5.8% Atlanta's housing market has also struggled, with home prices falling by 2.1% in January 2012, reaching levels not seen since 1996. Compared with a year earlier, the average home price in Atlanta fell 17.3% in February 2012, the largest annual drop in the history of the index for any city. Atlanta home values average $85,000 as of January 2012, second-lowest among major metropolitan areas, ranking slightly behind Detroit. The collapse in home prices has led some economists to deem Atlanta the worst housing market in the country. Nevertheless, in August 2013, Atlanta appeared on Forbes magazine's list of the Best Places for Business and Careers.
Culture
Atlanta, while located in the South, has a culture that is no longer strictly Southern. This is due to a large population of migrants from other parts of the U.S., in addition to many recent immigrants to the U.S. who have made the metropolitan area their home, establishing Atlanta as the cultural and economic hub of an increasingly multi-cultural metropolitan area. Thus, although traditional Southern culture is part of Atlanta's cultural fabric, it is mostly the backdrop to one of the nation's most cosmopolitan cities. This unique cultural combination reveals itself in the arts district of Midtown, the quirky neighborhoods on the city's eastside, and the multi-ethnic enclaves found along Buford Highway.
Arts and theater
Atlanta is one of few United States cities with permanent, professional, resident companies in all major performing arts disciplines: opera (Atlanta Opera), ballet (Atlanta Ballet), orchestral music (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), and theater (the Alliance Theatre). Atlanta also attracts many touring Broadway acts, concerts, shows, and exhibitions catering to a variety of interests. Atlanta's performing arts district is concentrated in Midtown Atlanta at the Woodruff Arts Center, which is home to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre. The city also frequently hosts touring Broadway acts, especially at The Fox Theatre, a historic landmark that is among the highest grossing theatres of its size.
As a national center for the arts, Atlanta is home to significant art museums and institutions. The renowned High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum and among the most-visited art museums in the world. The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), a design museum, is the only such museum in the Southeast. Contemporary art museums include the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Institutions of higher education also contribute to Atlanta's art scene, with the Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus providing the city's arts community with a steady stream of curators, and Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum containing the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast.
Music
Atlanta has played a major or contributing role in the development of various genres of American music at different points in the city's history. Beginning as early as the 1920s, Atlanta emerged as a center for country music, which was brought to the city by migrants from Appalachia. During the countercultural 1960s, Atlanta hosted the Atlanta International Pop Festival, with the 1969 festival taking place more than a month before Woodstock and featuring many of the same bands. The city was also a center for Southern rock during its 1970s heyday: the Allman Brothers Band's hit instrumental "Hot 'Lanta" is an ode to the city, while Lynyrd Skynyrd's famous live rendition of "Free Bird" was recorded at the Fox Theatre in 1976, with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant directing the band to "play it pretty for Atlanta". During the 1980s, Atlanta had an active Punk rock scene that was centered on two of the city's music venues, 688 Club and the Metroplex, and Atlanta famously played host to the Sex Pistols first U.S. show, which was performed at the Great Southeastern Music Hall. The 1990s saw the birth of Atlanta hip hop, a subgenre that gained relevance following the success of home-grown duo OutKast; however, it was not until the 2000s that Atlanta moved "from the margins to becoming hip-hop's center of gravity, part of a larger shift in hip-hop innovation to the South". Also in the 2000s, Atlanta was recognized by the Brooklyn-based Vice magazine for its impressive yet under-appreciated Indie rock scene, which revolves around the various live music venues found on the city's alternative eastside.
Tourism
As of 2010, Atlanta is the seventh-most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year. Although the most popular attraction among visitors to Atlanta is the Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest indoor aquarium, Atlanta's tourism industry mostly driven by the city's history museums and outdoor attractions. Atlanta contains a notable amount of historical museums and sites, including the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, which includes the preserved childhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as his final resting place; the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum, which houses a massive painting and diorama in-the-round, with a rotating central audience platform, depicting the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War; the World of Coca-Cola, featuring the history of the world famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising; the College Football Hall of Fame which honors college football and its athletes; the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which explores the American Civil Rights Movement and its connection to contemporary human rights movements throughout the world; the Carter Center and Presidential Library, housing U.S. President Jimmy Carter's papers and other material relating to the Carter administration and the Carter family's life; and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, site of the writing of the best-selling novel Gone with the Wind.
Atlanta also contains various outdoor attractions. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, is home to the Kendeda Canopy Walk, a skywalk that allows visitors to tour one of the city's last remaining urban forests from . The Canopy Walk is considered the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the United States. Zoo Atlanta, located in Grant Park, accommodates over 1,300 animals representing more than 220 species. Home to the nation's largest collections of gorillas and orangutans, the Zoo is also one of only four zoos in the U.S. to house giant pandas. Festivals showcasing arts and crafts, film, and music, including the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Music Midtown, respectively, are also popular with tourists.
Tourists are also drawn to the city's culinary scene, which comprises a mix of urban establishments garnering national attention, ethnic restaurants serving cuisine from every corner of the world, and traditional eateries specializing in Southern dining. Since the turn of the 21st century, Atlanta has emerged as a sophisticated restaurant town. Many restaurants opened in the city's gentrifying neighborhoods have received praise at the national level, including Bocado, Bacchanalia, and Miller Union in West Midtown, Empire State South in Midtown, and Two Urban Licks and Rathbun's on the east side. In 2011, the New York Times characterized Empire State South and Miller Union as reflecting "a new kind of sophisticated Southern sensibility centered on the farm but experienced in the city." Visitors seeking to sample international Atlanta are directed to Buford Highway, the city's international corridor. There, the million-plus immigrants that make Atlanta home have established various authentic ethnic restaurants representing virtually every nationality on the globe. For traditional Southern fare, one of the city's most famous establishments is The Varsity, a long-lived fast food chain and the world's largest drive-in restaurant. Mary Mac's Tea Room and Paschal's are more formal destinations for Southern food.
Sports
Atlanta is home to professional franchises for three major team sports: the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, and the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League. The Braves, who moved to Atlanta in 1966, were established as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871 and are the oldest continually operating professional sports franchise in the United States. The Braves won the World Series in 1995, and had an unprecedented run of 14 straight divisional championships from 1991 to 2005.
The Atlanta Falcons have played in Atlanta since their inception in 1966. The Falcons have won the division title five times (1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012) and the conference championship once, when they finished as the runner-up to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999. The Atlanta Hawks began in 1946 as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, playing in Moline, Illinois. The team moved to Atlanta in 1968, and they currently play their games in Philips Arena. The Atlanta Dream is the city's Women's National Basketball Association franchise.
Atlanta has also had its own professional ice hockey and soccer franchises. The National Hockey League (NHL) has had two Atlanta franchises: the Atlanta Flames began play in 1972 before moving to Calgary in 1980, while the Atlanta Thrashers began play in 1999 before moving to Winnipeg in 2011. The Atlanta Chiefs was the city's professional soccer team from 1967 to 1972, and the team won a national championship in 1968. In 1998 another professional soccer team was formed, the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League. In April 2014, a Major League Soccer team, Atlanta United FC, was formed as an expansion team to begin play in 2017.
Atlanta has been the host city for various international, professional and collegiate sporting events. Most famously, Atlanta hosted the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics. Atlanta has also hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994 and Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. In professional golf, The Tour Championship, the final PGA Tour event of the season, is played annually at East Lake Golf Club. In 2001 and 2011, Atlanta hosted the PGA Championship, one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, at the Atlanta Athletic Club. In professional ice hockey, the city hosted the 56th NHL All-Star Game in 2008, three years before the Thrashers moved. In 2011, Atlanta hosted professional wrestling's annual WrestleMania. The city has hosted the NCAA Final Four Men's Basketball Championship four times, most recently in 2013. In college football, Atlanta hosts the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, the SEC Championship Game, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Parks and recreation
Atlanta's 343 parks, nature preserves, and gardens cover , which amounts to only 5.6% of the city's total acreage, compared to the national average of just over 10%. However, 64% of Atlantans live within a 10-minute walk of a park, a percentage equal to the national average. Furthermore, in its 2013 ParkScore ranking, the The Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization, reported that among the park systems of the 50 most populous U.S. cities, Atlanta's park system received a ranking of 31. Piedmont Park, located in Midtown is Atlanta's most iconic green space. The park, which has undergone a major renovation and expansion in recent years, attracts visitors from across the region and hosts cultural events throughout the year. Other notable city parks include Centennial Olympic Park, a legacy of the 1996 Summer Olympics that forms the centerpiece of the city's tourist district; Woodruff Park, which anchors the campus of Georgia State University; Grant Park, home to both Zoo Atlanta and the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum; and Chastain Park, which houses an amphitheater used for live music concerts. The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, located in the northwestern corner of the city, preserves a stretch of the river for public recreation opportunities. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, contains formal gardens, including a Japanese garden and a rose garden, woodland areas, and a conservatory that includes indoor exhibits of plants from tropical rainforests and deserts. The BeltLine, a former rail corridor that forms a loop around Atlanta's core, will eventually be transformed into a series of parks, connected by a multi-use trail, increasing Atlanta's park space by 40%.
Atlanta offers resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. Jogging is a particularly popular local sport. The Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest race, is held annually on Independence Day. The Georgia Marathon, which begins and ends at Centennial Olympic Park, routes through the city's historic east side neighborhoods. Golf and tennis are also popular in Atlanta, and the city contains six public golf courses and 182 tennis courts. Facilities located along the Chattahoochee River cater to watersports enthusiasts, providing the opportunity for kayaking, canoeing, fishing, boating, or tubing. The city's only skate park, a facility that offers bowls, curbs, and smooth-rolling concrete mounds, is located at Historic Fourth Ward Park.
Government and politics
Atlanta is governed by a mayor and the Atlanta City Council. The city council consists of 15 representatives—one from each of the city's 12 districts and three at-large positions. The mayor may veto a bill passed by the council, but the council can override the veto with a two-thirds majority. The mayor of Atlanta is Kasim Reed, a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan ballot whose first term in office expired at the end of 2013. Reed was elected to a second term on November 5, 2013.
Every mayor elected since 1973 has been black. In 2001, Shirley Franklin became the first woman to be elected Mayor of Atlanta, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Atlanta city politics suffered from a notorious reputation for corruption during the 1990s administration of Bill Campbell, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2006 on three counts of tax evasion in connection with gambling income he received while Mayor during trips he took with city contractors.
As the state capital, Atlanta is the site of most of Georgia's state government. The Georgia State Capitol building, located downtown, houses the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, as well as the General Assembly. The Governor's Mansion is located in a residential section of Buckhead. Atlanta serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Atlanta also plays an important role in federal judiciary system, containing the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Historically, Atlanta has been a stronghold for the Democratic Party. Although municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, nearly all of the city's elected officials are registered Democrats. The city is split among 14 state house districts and four state senate districts, all held by Democrats. At the federal level, Atlanta is split between two congressional districts. The northern three-fourths of the city is located in the 5th district, represented by Democrat John Lewis. The southern fourth is in the 13th district, represented by Democrat David Scott.
The city is served by the Atlanta Police Department, which numbers 2,000 officers and oversaw a 40% decrease in the city's crime rate between 2001 and 2009. Specifically, homicide decreased by 57%, rape by 72%, and violent crime overall by 55%. Crime is down across the country, but Atlanta's improvement has occurred at more than twice the national rate. Nevertheless, Forbes ranked Atlanta as the sixth most dangerous city in the United States in 2012.
Education
Due to the more than 30 colleges and universities located in the city, Atlanta is considered a center for higher education. Among the most prominent public universities in Atlanta is the Georgia Institute of Technology, a research university located in Midtown that has been consistently ranked among the nation's top ten public universities for its degree programs in engineering, computing, management, the sciences, architecture, and liberal arts. Georgia State University, a public research university located in Downtown Atlanta, is the second largest of the 35 colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia and a major contributor to the revitalization of the city's central business district. Atlanta is also home to nationally renowned private colleges and universities, most notably Emory University, a leading liberal arts and research institution that ranks among the top 20 schools in the United States and operates Emory Healthcare, the largest health care system in Georgia.
Also located in the city is the Atlanta University Center, the largest contiguous consortium of historically black colleges, comprising Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Interdenominational Theological Center. Atlanta also contains a campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, a private art and design university that has proven to be a major factor in the recent growth of Atlanta's visual art community.
Atlanta Public Schools enrolls 55,000 students in 106 schools, some of which are operated as charter schools. The district has been plagued by a widely publicized cheating scandal exposed in 2009. Atlanta is also served by many private schools, including parochial Roman Catholic schools operated by the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
Media
The primary network-affiliated television stations in Atlanta are WXIA-TV (NBC), WGCL-TV (CBS), WSB-TV (ABC), and WAGA-TV (FOX). The Atlanta metropolitan area is served by two public television stations and one public radio station. WGTV is the flagship station of the statewide Georgia Public Television network and is a PBS member station, while WPBA is owned by Atlanta Public Schools. Georgia Public Radio is listener-funded and comprises one NPR member station, WABE, a classical music station operated by Atlanta Public Schools.
Atlanta is served by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of a 1950 merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, with staff consolidation occurring in 1982 and separate publication of the morning Constitution and afternoon Journal ceasing in 2001. Alternative weekly newspapers include Creative Loafing, which has a weekly print circulation of 80,000. Atlanta magazine is an award-winning, monthly general-interest magazine based in and covering Atlanta.
Transportation
Atlanta's transportation infrastructure comprises a complex network that includes a heavy rail line, a streetcar line, multiple interstate highways, the world's busiest airport, and over of bike paths.
With a network of freeways that radiate out from the city, automobiles are the dominant mode of transportation in the region. Three major interstate highways converge in Atlanta: I-20 (east-west), I-75 (northwest-southeast), and I-85 (northeast-southwest). The latter two combine in the middle of the city to form the Downtown Connector (I-75/85), which carries more than 340,000 vehicles per day and is one of the most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States. Atlanta is mostly encircled by Interstate 285, a beltway locally known as "the Perimeter" that has come to mark the boundary between "Inside the Perimeter" (ITP), the city and close-in suburbs, and "Outside the Perimeter" (OTP), the outer suburbs and exurbs. The heavy reliance on automobiles for transportation in Atlanta has resulted in traffic, commute, and air pollution rates that rank among the worst in the country.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) provides public transportation in the form of buses and heavy rail. Notwithstanding heavy automotive usage in Atlanta, the city's subway system is the eighth busiest in the country. MARTA rail lines connect many key destinations, such as the airport, Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and Perimeter Center. However, significant destinations, such as Emory University and Cumberland, remain unserved. As a result, a 2012 Brookings Institution study placed Atlanta 87th of 100 metro areas for transit accessibility. Emory University operates its Cliff shuttle buses with 200,000 boardings per month, while private minibuses ply Buford Highway. Amtrak, the national rail passenger system, provides service to Atlanta via the Crescent train (New York–New Orleans), which stops at Peachtree Station. In 2014, the Atlanta Streetcar opened to the public. The streetcar's line, which is also known as the Downtown Loop, runs 2.7 miles around the downtown tourist areas of Peachtree Center, Centennial Olympic Park, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, and Sweet Auburn. The Atlanta Streetcar line is also being expanded on in the coming years to include a wider range of Atlanta's neighborhoods and important places of interest, with a total of 66 miles of track being laid in the near future.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport as measured by passenger traffic and aircraft traffic, offers air service to over 150 U.S. destinations and more than 80 international destinations in 52 countries, with over 2,700 arrivals and departures daily. Delta Air Lines maintains its largest hub at the airport. Situated () south of downtown, the airport covers most of the land inside a wedge formed by Interstate 75, Interstate 85, and Interstate 285.
Cycling is a growing mode of transportation in Atlanta, more than doubling since 2009, when it comprised 1.1% of all commutes (up from 0.3% in 2000). Although Atlanta's lack of bike lanes and hilly topography may deter many residents from cycling, the city's transportation plan calls for the construction of of bike lanes by 2020, with the BeltLine helping to achieve this goal. In 2012, Atlanta's first "bike track" was constructed on 10th Street in Midtown. The two lane bike track runs from Monroe Drive west to Charles Allen Drive, with connections to the Beltline and Piedmont Park.
Tree canopy
Atlanta has a reputation as a "city in a forest" due to an abundance of trees that is rare among major cities. The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs. The city is home to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual arts and crafts festival held one weekend during early April, when the native dogwoods are in bloom. However, the nickname is also factually accurate, as the city's tree coverage percentage is at 36%, the highest out of all major American cities, and above the national average of 27%. Atlanta's tree coverage does not go unnoticed—it was the main reason cited by National Geographic in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime".
The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction. A 2001 study found that Atlanta's heavy tree cover declined from 48% in 1974 to 38% in 1996. However, the problem is being addressed by community organizations and city government: Trees Atlanta, a non-profit organization founded in 1985, has planted and distributed over 75,000 shade trees in the city, while Atlanta's government has awarded $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees.
Sister cities
Atlanta has 18 sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):
See also
List of people from Atlanta
Urban forest
References
Further reading
Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events: Years of Change and Challenge, 1940–1976 by Franklin M. Garrett, Harold H. Martin
Atlanta, Then and Now. Part of the Then and Now book series.
Darlene R. Roth and Andy Ambrose. Metropolitan Frontiers: A Short History of Atlanta. Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1996. An overview of the city's history with an emphasis on its growth.
Sjoquist, Dave (ed.) The Atlanta Paradox. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2000.
Stone, Clarence. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988. University Press of Kansas. 1989.
Elise Reid Boylston. Atlanta: Its Lore, Legends and Laughter. Doraville: privately printed, 1968. Lots of neat anecdotes about the history of the city.
Frederick Allen. Atlanta Rising. Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1996. A detailed history of Atlanta from 1946 to 1996, with much about City Councilman, later Mayor, William B. Hartsfield's work in making Atlanta a major air transport hub, and about the American Civil Rights Movement as it affected (and was affected by) Atlanta.
External links
Official website
Atlanta Department of Watershed Management
Atlanta Police Department
Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau
Entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia
Atlanta Historic Newspapers Archive Digital Library of Georgia
Atlanta Time Machine
Atlanta, Georgia, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
Atlanta City Online Travel Guide
Category:1847 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:Atlanta metropolitan area cities
Category:Cities in DeKalb County, Georgia
Category:Cities in Fulton County, Georgia
Category:Cities in Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:County seats in Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:Populated places established in 1837
Category:Populated places on the Chattahoochee River
Category:Urban forests in the United States
Category:Burial sites of the Martin Luther King family |
2016-01 | Mary_J._Blige-697672497 | Mary_J._Blige | Mary J. Blige
Mary Jane Blige (; born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, model, record producer and actress. Starting her career as a background singer on Uptown Records in 1989, Blige released her first album, What's the 411?, in 1992, and has released 11 studio albums since and made over 150 guest appearances on other albums and soundtracks.
A recipient of nine Grammy Awards, in addition to receiving a record of thirty Grammy nominations, Blige is one of few entertainers in history to have eight or more albums to reach multi-platinum status. My Life, in particular, is considered among the greatest albums ever recorded according to Rolling Stone, Time, and Vibe. For her part in combining hip-hop and soul in the early-1990s and its subsequent commercial success, Blige received the Legends Award at the World Music Awards. Blige also received the Voice of Music Award from performance rights organization ASCAP, with its official Jeanie Weems stating that "[Blige's] music has been the voice of inspiration to women worldwide in both struggle and triumph." Blige made Time magazine's "Time 100" list of influential individuals around the world in 2007.
As of 2013, Blige has sold more than 50 million albums and 25 million singles worldwide. Billboard ranked Blige as the most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years. The magazine also lists her 2006 song "Be Without You" as the top R&B song of the 2000s, as it spent an unparalleled 15 weeks atop the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In 2011, VH1 ranked Blige as the 80th greatest artist of all time. Moreover, she is ranked number 100 on the list of "100 greatest singers of all time" by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2012, VH1 ranked Blige at number 9 in "The 100 Greatest Women in Music."
Blige also earned high remarks for her work in film. She starred in the 2009 Tyler Perry box-office hit I Can Do Bad All By Myself and played a role in the film Rock of Ages (2012). She received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her musical contribution to the film The Help. In partnership with the Home Shopping Network (HSN) and Carol's Daughter, Blige released her "My Life" perfume. The perfume broke HSN records by selling 65,000 bottles during its premiere. The scent went on to win two FiFi Awards, including the "Fragrance Sales Breakthrough" award.
Life and career
1971–91: Early life and career beginnings
Blige was born on January 11, 1971 in The Bronx, New York. She is the second of four children born to parents Cora, a nurse, and Thomas Blige, a jazz musician. At the age of five she moved to a house in Richmond Hill, Georgia. The small dirt road on which the house was located was later named Blige Road out of the family she moved back to New York and went to presume her fame later on. For a short period of time Blige was in a small Yonkers band named Pride with band drummer Eddie D'Aprile. Blige's mother was an avid fan of the philly soul, soul and R&B sound and constantly spun Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, and Jean Carne records when Blige was a child. These artists had a profound impact on Blige at a very young age. Blige was taught to sing by her father, who later abandoned Blige and sister LaTonya following his divorce from Cora Blige in 1980. At the age of five, Blige was molested by a family friend.
Blige spent her early years in Richmond Hill, Georgia, where she sang in a Pentecostal church. She later moved to Schlobohm Houses in Yonkers, New York, where she lived with her mother, older sister, five cousins, and two aunts.
As Blige grew into adolescence, whilst dealing with the absence with her father, Thomas, she began to act accordingly amongst people and became addicted to partying. In one instance, she was introduced to cocaine and alcohol, both of which played a major part in the early years of her career. This outright caused a rift between Blige and her mother. By 1987, at seventeen, Blige dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the eleventh grade, leaving her mother infuriated and disappointed. She stayed with various friends and did hair braiding for a time until she moved back with her mother, who by this time was rather cordial.
In the spring of 1988, Blige recorded an impromptu cover of Anita Baker's "Caught Up in the Rapture" at a recording booth in the Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York. Her mother's boyfriend at the time later played the cassette for Jeff Redd, a recording artist and A&R runner for Uptown Records. Redd sent it to the president and CEO of the label, Andre Harrell. Harrell met with Blige and in 1989 she was signed to the label, becoming the company's youngest and first female artist. Blige's early years consisted of session work for the likes of Jeff Redd, who introduced her during a live performance at the Apollo Theater. A year later, she sang the hook on Father MC's hit "I'll Do 4 U" and was prominently featured, singing, at the end of the video.
1992–96: What's the 411? and My Life
Production for Blige's debut album began in 1991. When first introducing Mary J. Blige to Uptown Executives at a convention, Love". Andre Harrell dubbed her the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul".
From her fashion style to her sound, Blige was completely different from most female artists in the early 1990s. Baseball caps, combat boots, and baggy clothes constituted her signature style. In regards to her music, on July 28, 1992, Uptown Records released What's the 411?. Blige's inaugural album ushered in a new era and genre of R&B music. Blige's raw and gritty sound was utterly antithetical to that of pop icons Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Janet Jackson. Her East Coast hip hop, Northern Urban City-influenced sound became the blueprint for other artists. "You Remind Me", the album's first single, peaked at number one on the R&B singles chart that summer. The second single, "Real Love", was released in the fall. It too topped the R&B singles chart, and became Blige's first top ten Hot 100 single, peaking at number seven. Both singles were certified gold for their sales volume. More What's the 411? singles followed into 1993, including "Sweet Thing", a cover of Rufus's "Sweet Thing", and "Love No Limit". By the end of the year, What's the 411? had sold three million copies. Blige, meanwhile, released a hip hop single "You Don't Have to Worry". After the success of What's the 411. The album's success spun off What's the 411? Remix, a remix album released in December that was used to extend the life of the What's the 411? singles on the radio into 1994, as Blige recorded her follow-up album. With combined sales of over 5 million albums and singles from her debut album, Blige was the best selling female artist on the Uptown label.
On November 29, 1994, Uptown Records released Blige's second album, My Life Washington DC native Carl "Chucky" Thompson (despite his having recently left the label). Unlike What's the 411?, Blige co-wrote a large body of the material, basing it on her personal life. In its first week, My Life debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200, and debuting at number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, for eight consecutive weeks. Blige's songwriting and vocals, and today, is still regarded as one of the best albums in Blige's discography. In 2003, the album was ranked at #279 on The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by magazine Rolling Stone. In late 1995, Blige topped the Billboard Year-End chart toppers as Top R&B Album, Top R&B Album Artist, Top R&B Album Artist — Female, and Top-Hot Dance Maxi-Single Sales (for her collaboration with Method Man on "All I Need"). "Be Happy", the album's lead single, peaked at number 29 and number six on the Hot 100 and R&B singles chart, respectively. In early 1995, it was followed up with a cover of Rose Royce's 1976 hit "I'm Goin' Down", which became her first top 20 hit in the UK, peaking at number 12, it also reached number 22 and number 13 on the Hot 100 and R&B singles chart. Other My Life singles include "You Bring Me Joy" and "I Love You". "Mary Jane (All Night Long)" and "My Life" received heavy radio play, despite never being officially released as singles apart from the UK, where "Mary Jane (All Night Long)" became Blige's second top 20 hit from the album there. My Life was eventually certified triple platinum. In spite of its success and her growing fame, Blige later admitted that she was simultaneously dealing with longtime bouts of drug addiction, alcoholism, and depression, as well as an abusive relationship with then-boyfriend K-Ci Hailey of Jodeci.
Blige involved herself in several outside projects, recording a cover of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" for the soundtrack to the FOX series New York Undercover, and "Everyday It Rains" (co-written by R&B singer Faith Evans) for the soundtrack to the hip hop documentary, The Show. That summer she collaborated with rapper Method Man on his song, "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By". Later in the year, she recorded the Babyface-penned and produced "Not Gon' Cry", for the soundtrack to the motion picture Waiting to Exhale. The platinum-selling single rose to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs in early 1996, and became her biggest commercial hit at the time. Blige gained her first two Grammy nominations, and won the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for her collaboration with Method Man. My Life was also nominated for Best R&B Album. In addition, My Life received a nomination for the 1996 American Music Awards for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album". In addition she and Faith Evans provided backing vocals to The Notorious B.I.G.'s "One More Chance" single remix version, which at the time, became his biggest hit peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Blige also made an appearance in the music video for the single.
Throughout 1996, Blige appeared in collaborations with Ghostface Killah, on their co-written single, "All That I Got Is You", though in the video, Blige was replaced by Wu-Tang affiliate, Tekitha, due to scheduling conflicts. She also collaborated with then up-and-coming musicians, singer Case, on his breakthrough single, "Touch Me, Tease Me", featuring Foxy Brown and also appeared on rapper Jay-Z's single, "Can't Knock the Hustle", released off the rapper's debut album, Reasonable Doubt.
1997–2000: Share My World and Mary
On April 22, 1997, MCA Records (parent company to Uptown Records, which was in the process of being dismantled) released Blige's third album, Share My World. By then, she and Combs had dissolved their working relationship. In his place were the Trackmasters, who executive-produced the project along with Steve Stoute. Sharing production duties were producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, R. Kelly, Babyface and Rodney Jerkins. The album was made at a time when Blige was trying to "get her life together", by trying to overcome drugs and alcohol, as well as the ending of her relationship with Hailey. After an encounter with a person who threatened her life the previous year, she tried to quit the unhealthy lifestyle and make more upbeat, happier music. As a result, songs such as "Love Is All We Need" and "Share My World" were made. Share My World debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and spawned five hit singles: "Love Is All We Need" (featuring Nas), "I Can Love You" (featuring Lil' Kim), "Everything", "Missing You" (UK only) and "Seven Days" (featuring George Benson). The album became Blige's most commercially successful, selling three million copies in the U.S. In February 1997, Blige performed her hit at the time, "Not Gon' Cry", at the 1997 Grammy Awards, which gained her a third Grammy Award nomination, her first for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, as Blige was recording the follow-up to My Life. In early 1998, Blige won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album". That summer, she embarked on the Share My World Tour, which resulted in a Gold-certified live album released later that year, simply titled The Tour. The album spawned one single, "Misty Blue".
On August 17, 1999, Blige's fourth album, titled Mary was released. It marked a departure from her more familiar hip hop-oriented sound; this set featured a more earthy, whimsical, and adult contemporary-tinged collection of songs, reminiscent of 1970s to early 1980s soul.
On December 14, 1999, the album was re-released as a double-disc set. The second disc was enhanced with the music videos for the singles "All That I Can Say" and "Deep Inside" and included two bonus tracks: "Sincerity" (featuring Nas, Andy Hogan and DMX) and "Confrontation" (a collaboration with hip hop duo Funkmaster Flex & Big Kap originally from their 1999 album The Tunnel). The Mary album was critically praised, becoming her most nominated release to date, and was certified double platinum (selling over two million in sales.) It was not as commercially successful as Blige's prior releases, though all of the singles: "All That I Can Say", "Deep Inside", "Your Child", and "Give Me You" performed considerably on radio. In the meantime, MCA used the album to expand Blige's demographic into the nightclub market, as club-friendly dance remixes of the Mary singles were released. The club remix of "Your Child" peaked at number-one on the Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart in October 2000. In 2001, a Japan-only compilation, Ballads, was released. The album featured covers of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed", and previous recordings of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and Dorothy Moore's "Misty Blue".
2001–04: No More Drama and Love & Life
On August 28, 2001, MCA released Blige's fifth studio album, No More Drama. The album's first single, "Family Affair" (produced by Dr. Dre) became her first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for six consecutive weeks. It was followed by two further hit singles, the European only single "Dance for Me" featuring Common with samples from "The Bed's Too Big Without You" by The Police, and the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-produced title track (originally recorded for the Mary album), which sampled "Nadia's Theme", the piano-driven theme song to the daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Though the album sold nearly two million copies in the U.S., MCA was underwhelmed by its sales, and subsequently repackaged and re-released the album on January 29, 2002. The No More Drama re-release featured a new album cover, deleted three of the songs from the original track listing, while adding two brand-new songs—one of which was the fourth single and top twenty Hot 100 hit "Rainy Dayz", (featuring Ja Rule), plus two remixes; one of the title track, serviced by Puff Daddy and the single version of "Dance for Me" featuring Common. The album sold another million-plus units (3.2 million in total) in the U.S. and seven million worldwide. Blige won a Grammy for 'Best Female R&B Vocal Performance' for the song "He Think I Don't Know." In April 2002, Blige performed with Shakira with the song "Love Is a Battlefield" on VH1 Divas show live in Las Vegas, she also performed "No More Drama" and "Rainy Dayz" as a duet with the returning Whitney Houston.
On July 22, 2002, MCA released Dance for Me, a collection of club remixes of some of her past top hits including the Junior Vasquez remix of "Your Child", and the Thunderpuss mix of "No More Drama." This album was released in a limited edition double pack 12" vinyl for DJ-friendly play in nightclubs.
On August 26, 2003, Blige's sixth album Love & Life was released on Geffen Records (which had absorbed MCA Records.) Blige heavily collaborated with her one-time producer Sean Combs for this set. Due to the history between them on What's the 411? and My Life, which is generally regarded as their best work, and Blige having just come off of a successful fifth album, expectations were high for the reunion effort.
Despite the album debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 and becoming Blige's fourth consecutive UK top ten album, Love & Lifes lead-off single, the Diddy-produced "Love @ 1st Sight", which featured Method Man, barely cracked the top ten on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, while altogether missing the top twenty on the Hot 100 (although peaking inside the UK top twenty). The following singles, "Ooh!", "Not Today" featuring Eve, "Whenever I Say Your Name"featuring Sting on the international re-release, and "It's a Wrap" fared worse. Although the album was certified platinum, it became Blige's lowest-selling to date. Critics and fans alike largely panned the disc, citing a lack of consistency and noticeable ploys to recapture the early Blige/Combs glory. Blige and Combs reportedly struggled and clashed during the making of this album, and again parted ways upon the completion of it.
The album became Blige's first album in six years to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 285,298 copies in first week. Love & Life received mixed reviews from music critics. AllMusic gave it 4 stars and said the album "beamed with joy" and Rolling Stone gave it three stars, saying "You may not always love Blige's music, but you will feel her". The album was eventually certified Platinum by the RIAA. To date the album has sold over 1,000,000 copies in the U.S. and over 2,000,000 copies worldwide. The album was nominated for the Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 46th Grammy Awards.
2005–06: The Breakthrough and Reflections – A Retrospective
Geffen Records released Blige's seventh studio album, The Breakthrough on December 20, 2005. For the album, Blige collaborated with J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Rodney Jerkins, will.i.am, Bryan-Michael Cox, 9th Wonder, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Raphael Saadiq, Cool and Dre, and Dre & Vidal. The cover art was photographed by Markus Klinko & Indrani. It debuted at number one on both the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. Selling 727,000 copies in its first week, it became the biggest first-week sales for an R&B solo female artist in SoundScan history, the fifth largest first-week sales for a female artist, and the fourth largest debut of 2005. Since its release, The Breakthrough has sold over three million copies in the U.S and over seven million copies worldwide, becoming one of the five best-selling albums of 2006.
The lead-off single, "Be Without You", peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, while peaking at number one on the R&B chart for a record-setting fifteen consecutive weeks; it remained on the chart for over sixteen months. "Be Without You" found success in the UK (peaking in the lower end of the top forty) it became Blige's longest charting single on the UK Singles Chart. It is her second longest charting single to date. The album produced three more singles including two more top five R&B hits—"Enough Cryin'", which features Blige's alter ego Brook-Lynn (as whom she appeared on the remix to Busta Rhymes's "Touch It" in 2006); and "Take Me as I Am" (which samples Lonnie Liston Smith's "A Garden of Peace"). Blige's duet with U2 on the cover of their 1992 hit, "One" gave Blige her biggest hit to date in the UK, peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart eventually being certified one of the forty highest-selling singles of 2006; it was her longest charting UK single.
The success of The Breakthrough won Blige nine Billboard Music Awards, two American Music Awards, two BET Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and a Soul Train Award. She received eight Grammy Award nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards, the most of any artist that year. "Be Without You" was nominated for both "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year". Blige won three: "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance", "Best R&B Song" (both for "Be Without You"), and "Best R&B Album" for The Breakthrough. Blige completed a season sweep of the "big three" major music awards, having won two American Music Awards in November 2006 and nine Billboard Music Awards in December 2006.
In December 2006, a compilation called Reflections (A Retrospective) was released. It contained many of Blige's greatest hits and four new songs, including the worldwide lead single "We Ride (I See the Future)". In the UK, however, "MJB da MVP" (which appeared in a different, shorter form on The Breakthrough) was released as the lead single from the collection. The album peaked at number nine in the U.S, selling over 170,000 copies in its first week, while reaching number forty in the UK. It has sold more than 1.6 million copies. In 2006, Blige recorded a duet with rapper Ludacris, "Runaway Love", which is the third single on his fifth album, Release Therapy. It reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 and the R&B chart. Blige was featured with Aretha Franklin and The Harlem Boys Choir on the soundtrack to the 2006 motion picture Bobby, on the lead track "Never Gonna Break My Faith" written by Bryan Adams. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.
2007–08: Growing Pains
Blige's eighth studio album, Growing Pains, was released on December 18, 2007, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 and at number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It sold 629,000 copies in its first week, marking the third time since Nielsen SoundScan began collecting data in 1991 that two albums sold more than 600,000 copies in a week in the United States. In its second week, the album climbed to number one, making it Blige's fourth number-one album. The lead single, "Just Fine", peaked at number twenty-two on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number three on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Just Fine" was nominated for the Grammy Award for "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance", and Blige won "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" for the Chaka Khan duet "Disrespectful" (featured on Khan's album Funk This) which Blige wrote.
Growing Pains was not released in the UK until February 2008, where it became Blige's fifth top ten and third-highest charting album.The Breakthrough and Reflections (A Retrospective) were released in the Christmas rush and therefore settled for lower peaks, although both selling more than her top five album Mary. "Just Fine" returned Blige to the UK singles chart top 20 after her previous two singles failed to chart highly. Subsequent singles from Growing Pains include "Work That", which accompanied Blige in an iTunes commercial, and "Stay Down".
Blige was featured on 50 Cent's 2007 album, Curtis, in the song "All of Me". In March 2008, she toured with Jay-Z in the Heart of the City Tour. They released a song called "You're Welcome". In the same period, cable network BET aired a special on Blige entitled The Evolution of Mary J. Blige, which showcased her career. Celebrities such as Method Man and Ashanti gave their opinions about Blige and her music. Blige is featured on singles by Big Boi, and Musiq Soulchild.
Growing Pains was nominated for and won the Grammy Award for "Best Contemporary R&B Album", at the 51st Grammy Awards held on February 8, 2009, earning Blige her 27th Grammy nomination, in a mere decade.
Blige went on the Growing Pains European Tour, her first tour there in two years. A tour of Australia and New Zealand was scheduled for June but was postponed due to "weariness from an overwhelming tour schedule" and then eventually canceled entirely.
On August 7, 2008, it was revealed Blige faced a US$2 million federal suit claiming Neff-U wrote the music for the song "Work That", but was owned by Dream Family Entertainment. The filing claimed that Dream Family never gave rights to use the song to Blige, Feemster or Geffen Records. Rights to the lyrics of the song used in an iPod commercial are not in question.
2009–10: Stronger with Each Tear
Blige returned to performing in January 2009 by performing the song "Lean on Me" at the Presidential Inauguration Committee's, "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial". Blige also performed her hit 2007 single, "Just Fine", with a new intro at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball after Barack Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009. Blige appeared as a marquee performer on the annual Christmas in Washington television special.
Blige's ninth studio album, Stronger with Each Tear, was released on December 21, 2009, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 and at number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, selling 332,000 units in its first week of release. It became her fifth album not to take the top spot in the United States. The lead single, "The One", which features Canadian rapper Drake, was released for airplay in June 2009, and was officially and digitally released in July 2009, peaking at number sixty-three on the Hot 100. Blige recorded "Stronger", as the lead single from the soundtrack to the basketball documentary "More than a Game" in August 2009. The second single from Stronger with Each Tear, "I Am", was released in December 2009 and reached number fifty-five on the Hot 100. The third international single from the album, "Each Tear", was remixed with different featured artists from different countries, then being released in February 2010. The single failed to chart anywhere except in the UK where it reached number one-hundred-eighty-three and in Italy where it reached number one. The album's third U.S. single, "We Got Hood Love" featuring Trey Songz, was released in March 2010 and reached number twenty-five on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart though it failed to reach the Hot 100. One of Blige's representatives reported to Us Weekly magazine that a tour in support of Stronger with Each Tear will begin in the fall of 2010. On March 2010, Blige released Stronger with Each Tear in the United Kingdom, as well as in the European markets. The album performed modestly in the United Kingdom, debuting at number thirty-three on the UK Albums Chart and at number four on the UK R&B Chart. It reached the top 100 in other countries.
Blige was honored at the 2009 BET Honors Ceremony and was paid tribute by Anita Baker and Monica. On November 4, 2009, Blige sang The Star-Spangled Banner at Yankee Stadium before the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies played the last game (game 6) of the World Series. Blige performed two songs from her ninth album as well as her previous hits, "No More Drama" and "Be Without You" along with the song "Color", which was featured on the Precious soundtrack. Blige appeared as a guest judge on the ninth season of American Idol on January 13, 2010.
On January 23, 2010, Blige released a track "Hard Times Come Again No More" with The Roots as well as performing it at the Hope for Haiti Now telethon. At the 2010 Grammy Awards, Blige and Andrea Bocelli performed" Bridge over Troubled Water". Blige also performed on BET's SOS Help For Haiti, singing "Gonna Make It" with Jazmine Sullivan and "One." Blige also took part in February 2010's We Are the World 25 for Haiti, singing the solo originally sung by Tina Turner in the original 1985 We Are the World version. At the 41st NAACP Image Awards Blige won Outstanding Female Artist and Outstanding Album for Stronger with Each Tear. On November 18, 2010, Billboard revealed Mary J. Blige as the most successful female R&B/Hip Hop Artist on the Top 50 R&B/Hip Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list. Mary came in at number 2 overall.
Blige named her fans "Mary Janes".
2011–13: My Life II... The Journey Continues (Act 1) & A Mary Christmas
In January 2011, Hot 97 premiered Blige's teaster track "Someone to Love Me (Naked)" featuring vocals by Lil Wayne. In July 2011, Blige released the song "The Living Proof" as the lead single to the soundtrack of the film The Help. On July 24, VH1 premiered their third Behind the Music that profiled her personal and career life. In August 2011, Blige released her first single off the album, "25/8". Blige's tenth studio album, My Life II... The Journey Continues (Act 1), was released in November 2011. The album, primarily recorded in Los Angeles and New York City, saw Blige looking toward the future while acknowledging the past. “From me to you, My Life II... Our journey together continues in this life,” the singer explained. “It’s a gift to be able to relate and identify with my fans at all times. This album is a reflection of the times and lives of people all around me.” The album feature production from Kanye West and The Underdogs, among others. The second single "Mr. Wrong" featuring Canadian rapper Drake was the most successful single from the album, peaking at #10 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The rest of songs released, including lead single "25/8" achieved only moderate success, peaking within the top 40 on R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The album itself debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, selling 156,000 copies first week; it was eventually certified Gold in 2012 and has sold 763,000 in the US.
On February 28, 2012, Blige performed "Star Spangled Banner" at the 2012 NBA All-Star Game. Blige appeared as guest mentor on American Idol on March 7, 2012, and performed "Why" on the results show the following night. On September 23, 2012, Blige was a performer at the iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Blige was featured on the song "Now or Never" from Kendrick Lamar's album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, released on October 22, 2012.
In early 2013, reports surfaced that Blige was recording a Christmas album. The album, titled, A Mary Christmas was released on October 15, 2013 through Matriarch and Verve Records, her first release with the latter. The album includes collaborations with Barbra Streisand, The Clark Sisters, Marc Anthony and Jessie J. In early December, A Mary Christmas became Blige's 12th top ten album after it rose to #10 in its eight week.
On October 23, 2013, Blige sang the national anthem before Game 1 of the 2013 World Series.
2014–present: The London Sessions
On February 5, 2014 a remix of Disclosure's "F for You" featuring guest vocals from Mary was released.
It was announced May 30, 2014 that Think Like a Man Too (Music from and Inspired by the Film), released June 17 on Epic Records, would introduce new songs by Mary J. Blige, including the single "Suitcase". Blige recorded a collection of music from and inspired by the film. In the United States, Think Like a Man Too debuted at number 30 on the Billboard 200, with 8,688 copies sold in its first week, becoming the lowest sales debut of any of her studio albums. On Billboards R&B/Hip-Hop chart, the soundtrack album charted at number six, marking Blige's 16th top ten entry on the chart, tying her with Mariah Carey for the second-most top tens by a female artist.
June 2, 2014 saw Blige pairing up with another English musician with the release of a re-worked version of Sam Smith's "Stay with Me". A live visual to the song was released on the same day.
Following her concert date at the Essence Festival, on July 9, 2014 it was announced Blige would move to London to experiment with a new sound for her new album. Blige spent a month in London recording her album in RAK Studios with a host of young British acts, including Disclosure, Naughty Boy, Emeli Sandé and Sam Smith. Ten new songs, co-written and recorded by the singer, was released on November 24, 2014 on an album entitled, The London Sessions. That same month, she announced that she left Geffen and Interscope and signed with Capitol Records.
Acting career
In 1998, Blige made her acting debut on the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show playing a character, the apparently southern Ola Mae; a preacher's daughter who wanted to sing more than gospel music. Her father was portrayed by Ronald Isley of The Isley Brothers. In 2001, Blige starred opposite rapper Q-Tip in the independent film Prison Song. That same year, Blige made a cameo on the Lifetime network series, Strong Medicine; playing the role of Simone Fellows. Blige's character was the lead singer of a band who was sick, but would not seek treatment. In 2000, Blige was featured in a superhero web cartoon in junction with Stan Lee. Blige used the cartoon as part of her performance while on her 2000 Mary Show Tour. In 2004, Blige starred in an Off-Broadway play, The Exonerated. The play chronicled the experiences of death row inmates. Blige portrayed Sunny Jacobs, a woman who spent 20 years in prison for a crime she did not commit. In late 2005, it was reported that Blige landed the starring role in the upcoming MTV Films biopic on American singer/pianist and civil rights activist, Nina Simone. According to IMDB.com the film will be released in 2012.
In February 2007, Blige guest-starred on Ghost Whisperer, in an episode called "Mean Ghost", as the character Jackie Boyd, the school's cheer leader coach grieving for the death of her brother and affected by the ghost of a dead cheerleader. The episode features many of Blige's songs. In August 2007, Blige was a guest star on Entourage, in the role of herself, as a client of Ari Gold's agency. In October 2007, Blige was also a guest star on America's Next Top Model, as a creative director for a photo shoot by Matthew Rolston. In May 2009, Mary made a guest appearance on 30 Rock, as an artist recording a benefit song for a kidney. Blige also had a supporting role in Tyler Perry's movie I Can Do Bad All by Myself, which was released in September 2009.
Blige starred alongside Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, and Alec Baldwin in the film adaptation of the 1980s jukebox hit musical Rock of Ages. Blige played Justice Charlier, the owner of a Sunset Strip gentlemen's club. Production began in May 2011 and the film was released in June 2012.
Blige starred in the Lifetime movie Betty and Coretta alongside Angela Bassett, Malik Yoba and Lindsay Owen Pierre. She played Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X. The film premiered in February 2013. In December 2015, she portrayed Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West in NBC's The Wiz Live!.
Other ventures
In 2004, Blige launched her own record label, Matriarch Records, distributed through Interscope, and in mid-2012, discovered girl group Just'Us, making the group the first ladies of the label. Blige says “These are my little Mary’s; they each remind me of myself at different points in my life.” Blige has been reported to be working with Just'Us on their debut album.
In July 2010, Blige launched her first perfume, My Life (through Carol's Daughter), exclusively on HSN. The fragrance's success broke sales records in hours and has been awarded two prestigious FIFI awards from the Fragrance Foundation. The newest fragrance, My Life Blossom launched in August 2011 exclusively to HSN.
In October 2010 Blige released a line of sunglasses called "Melodies by MJB". The first Melodies collection featured four styles with a total of 20 color options. Each style represented a specific facet of Blige’s life. Essence magazine reported that in the spring of 2011, "Melodies by MJB" extended their collection to offer more styles.
Blige's production company, along with William Morris Endeavor is also working on several TV and film projects.
Blige has had endorsement contracts with Reebok, Air Jordan, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Gap, Target, American Express, AT&T Inc., M·A·C, Apple Inc., Burger King and Chevrolet. She has also been a spokesperson with Carol's Daughter beauty products and Citibank's with Nickelback program.
Legacy
Called the "Queen of hip-hop soul", Blige is credited with influencing the musical marriage of hip hop and R&B. Ethan Brown of The New Yorker says that albums "What's the 411?" and "My Life", in hindsight, invented "the sample-heavy sound that reinvigorated urban radio and became a blueprint for nineties hip-hop and R&B.". Brown further concludes that Mary's "duets with the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man and Ghostface Killah set the trend for collaborations between rappers and R&B songbirds like Mariah Carey.". Tom Horan of The Daily Telegraph comments that Blige, being a hugely influential figure in popular music, "invented what is now called R&B by successfully combining female vocals with muscular hip hop rhythm tracks. All over the world, that recipe dominates today's charts.". Called one of the "most explosive, coming-out displays of pure singing prowess" and "one of the most important albums of the nineties", What's the 411? saw Blige pioneer "the movement that would later become neo soul, generating gripping songs that were also massive radio hits.".
Blige has received notable awards and achievements. In 2010, she was ranked 80th on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Artist of All Time. Blige was listed as one of the 50 most influential R&B singers by Essence. Rolling Stone magazine ranked My Life at number 279 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was also included on Time's list of the 100 Greatest albums of All Time. Alternately called the "Queen of R&B" for her success in the realm of R&B, Blige has amassed nine number one albums on the R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart — a record for a female artist. Blige is also the only artist to have won Grammys in the R&B, hip hop, pop, and gospel fields.
DiscographyStudio Albums1992: What's the 411?
1994: My Life
1997: Share My World
1999: Mary
2001: No More Drama
2003: Love & Life
2005: The Breakthrough
2007: Growing Pains
2009: Stronger with Each Tear
2011: My Life II... The Journey Continues (Act 1)
2013: A Mary Christmas
2014: The London SessionsSoundtrack albums'''
2014: Think Like A Man Too''
Tours
Share My World Tour (1997–98)
The Mary Show Tour (2000)
No More Drama Tour (2002)
Love & Life Tour (2004)
The Breakthrough Experience Tour (2006)
Heart of the City Tour (2008)
Growing Pains European Tour (2008)
Love Soul Tour (2008)
Music Saved My Life Tour (2010–11)
The Liberation Tour (2012–13)
The London Sessions Tour (2015)
Filmography
See also
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
Honorific nicknames in popular music
References
External links
Official website
Category:1971 births
Category:21st-century American singers
Category:20th-century American singers
Category:Actresses from New York City
Category:African-American female singer-songwriters
Category:American film actresses
Category:African-American record producers
Category:American hip hop musicians
Category:American mezzo-sopranos
Category:American philanthropists
Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
Category:American soul singers
Category:Geffen Records artists
Category:Grammy Award winners
Category:American hip hop singers
Category:Living people
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2016-01 | Madhuri_Dixit-697618028 | Madhuri_Dixit | Madhuri Dixit
Madhuri Dixit (born 15 May 1967) is an Indian actress who is known for her work in Hindi cinema. A leading actress of Bollywood in the 1980s, 1990s and early-2000s, Dixit has been praised by critics for her acting and dancing skills, and achieved mass popularity due to her physical beauty. She has received six Filmfare Awards, four for Best Actress, one for Best Supporting Actress and one special award. She has been nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress a record fourteen times. She was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, by the Government of India in 2008.
Dixit made her film debut in Abodh (1984) and received wider public recognition with Tezaab (1988). She went on to establish herself as a leading actress of Hindi cinema with the films Ram Lakhan (1989), Parinda (1989), Dil (1990), Saajan (1991), Beta (1992), Khalnayak (1993), Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), Raja (1995), and Dil To Pagal Hai (1997). She also garnered critical acclaim for her work in the dramas Anjaam (1994), Mrityudand (1997), Pukar (2000), Lajja (2001) and Devdas (2002). In 2002, she took a sabbatical from films to raise her children and made a comeback with the musical Aaja Nachle in 2007, later starring in the 2014 dramas Dedh Ishqiya and Gulaab Gang.
In addition to acting in films, Dixit has featured as a talent judge for four seasons of the dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. She has participated in several stage shows and has engaged in philanthropic activities. In 2014 she was appointed the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in India. She is married to the doctor Shriram Madhav Nene, with whom she has two children.
Early life
Madhuri Dixit is a native of Mumbai, India. She was born on 15 May 1967 in a Maharashtrian family to Shankar and Snehlata Dixit. Dixit attended Divine Child High School and Mumbai University and studied to be a microbiologist. She always desired dance since the age of 3 and went on to practice the art of kathak and later on to become a trained professional Kathak dancer.
Film career
1984–87: Early roles and film debut
Dixit made her acting debut in Rajshri Productions' movie Abodh in 1984 opposite the Bengali actor, Tapas Paul. The film failed but Dixit earned positive reviews from critics. Aakash Barvalia on Gomolo praised her as he wrote "Madhuri excels in her role as a young naive bride who acquits herself well as the naive village girl and does not realize what marriage actually entails." Her only release of 1985 was Awara Baap that turned out to be another failure for Dixit.
In 1986, Dixit starred in two movies, Swati and Manav Hatya but both films flopped at the box office. Dixit had three releases in 1987 with Mohre, Hifazat and Uttar Dakshin but her films continued to flop at the box office.
Dixit finally attained stardom after a series of consecutive flops when she landed the lead female role of Mohini in N. Chandra's blockbuster Tezaab opposite Anil Kapoor. The film went on to become that year's highest grossing movie. It was Dixit's first hit at the box office. Akshay Shah of Planet Bollywood praised Dixit for her dancing skills and her acting was also noticed. He wrote "Mahduri Dixit gives a fine tuned performance. Though she is more remembered for her crowd pleasing dance act Ek Do Teen, her acting needs to be noted, specially in the scenes where she is pitted against Anupam Kher. She looks and dances like a dream." Dixit received her first nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her work in Tezaab.
In 1989, her first release was Subhash Ghai's movie Ram Lakhan, in which she was paired once again with Anil Kapoor. The film became a super-hit and went on to become the second highest grossing film of the year. Dixit's next release Prem Pratigyaa, in which she starred opposite Mithun Chakraborty, earned her second nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award. Thereafter Dixit got success in Rajiv Rai's multi-starrer Tridev, in which she starred opposite Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, Sunny Deol, Sangeeta Bijlani, Sonam and Amrish Puri. Dixit was paired with Deol. The movie became the year's third highest grossing film but Dixit did not get much acting. Dixit continued her success with her fourth pairing with Anil Kapoor in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda. Although Dixit's work was limited, she earned critical acclaim. Aniket Joshi has praised her as he wrote "Madhuri Dixit, the only female character in the film, has a small role as Paro (Karan´s love interest and Prakash´s sister) yet still does well in the few scenes she has."
1987–2002: Superstardom
In 1990, Dixit starred in the super-hit Dil opposite Aamir Khan. She played the role of a rich and arrogant girl who falls in love with a poorer boy and later leaves home to marry him. The film became the biggest box-office hit of the year in India and Dixit's performance earned her the first Filmfare Best Actress Award of her career. Madhuri was also seen in Kishen Kanhaiya opposite Anil Kapoor, the movie went on to become the third biggest hit of the year. Her strong performance as a wife helping her husband through tough times was applauded, and her acting was now being recognised. After the success of Dil, Dixit became one of the top actresses of Bollywood. The following year, she starred in the super-hit movie Saajan opposite Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. The movie became the year's highest-grossing movie. Dixit's performance earned her the fourth nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award.
In 1992, Dixit featured in the blockbuster Beta opposite Anil Kapoor. Dixit's performance of Saraswati, a woman married to an illiterate, well-meaning man who exposes her scheming mother-in-law earned her critical acclaim. Upperstall.com praised Dixit's work "She made Beta her own film totally stealing a march over the film's hero, Anil Kapoor. While the highlight of the film was undoubtedly Dhak Dhak Karne Laga – probably the sexiest and most popular dance of Madhuri's career, her blazing performance – that of a woman married to an illiterate, well-meaning man and who exposes her scheming mother-in-law whom her husband dotes on – had film reviewers gushing with several people jokingly saying the film should have been called Beti instead!" Dixit's performance in Beta won her a second Filmfare Best Actress Award. Following the film's success, Dixit became famously known as the "Dhak Dhak Girl" for her performance in the famous song "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga".
In 1993, Dixit starred in the controversial super-hit Khalnayak opposite Sanjay Dutt and Jackie Shroff. Her portrayal of the police officer Ganga earned her critical acclaim. Shahid Khan of Planet Bollywood praised Dixit's dancing and acting skills in the movie "In any other film, the heroine would not have much to do with a plot like this. So immense is the star-power of Madhuri Dixit that Subhash Ghai actually carved out a solid role for her in this macho tale of a bad boy and his shenanigans. She gives real competition to Sanjay Dutt. The audiences ran in their droves to witness the Madhuri Dixit magic. In every scene, she holds you captive with her stunning beauty, demanding screen presence, expressive acting and excellent dancing skills. Saroj Khan’s dance choreography is entertaining to watch, particularly in "Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai". Madhuri’s entrance is a riot with a prison inmate asking her, "Kaisi aurat hai tu? (What kind of a woman are you?)” and she responds by slapping her and saying, "Aisi aurat hoon main! (This is the kind of woman I am!)”." Dixit's performance in Khalnayak earned her a sixth nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award and became the year's second highest grossing film. In 1994, Dixit starred in Anjaam, being paired with Shahrukh Khan for the first time. Dixit's performance of a revenge-seeking wife and mother earned her a seventh nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award. Dixit was praised for her performance, though the film was a below average performer at the box office. Her next starring role was in the all-time blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! opposite Salman Khan. The film became one of the biggest hits in the history of Hindi cinema and made 1.35 billion worldwide, breaking the record of the film Sholay (1975). It became the highest grossing Bollywood film in Hindi cinema history after its theatrical run and held the record for 7 years till the release of Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001). Dixit's role of a modern yet family-oriented young girl fetched her the third Filmfare Best Actress Award of her career. Critics believed the film to be "too sweet" but appreciated Dixit's performance as she mesmerised on the screen. In the Millennium Edition of the "Guinness Book of World Records", Hum Aapke Hain Kaun became the Bollywood's highest grossing film. Upperstall.com wrote "Madhuri Dixit, reunited with the banner that launched her, stands out and is undoubtedly the life of the film as Nisha. Be it the mischievous but strong-minded, independent girl who gives it to Prem as good as she gets or the woman willing to sacrifice her love believing she is doing the right thing, Madhuri is absolutely spot on creating one of the more memorable female characters of Hindi Cinema."
1995 saw Dixit star in the hit Raja opposite Sanjay Kapoor. The film became the fourth highest grosser of the year and its success was attributed to her immense popularity. Her next release was David Dhawan's Yaraana opposite Rishi Kapoor, in which she played a dancer on the run from her abusive lover. This film was a below average performer at the box office. Both films earned her nominations for the Filmfare Best Actress Award.
Dixit's career went into a slump during 1996 as films like Prem Granth and Rajkumar flopped at the box office. In 1997, Dixit bounced back with Prakash Jha's Mrityudand, in which she performed opposite Shabana Azmi and Shilpa Shirodkar. Dixit played the role of Ketki, one of the three troubled women and earned immense critical acclaim for her performance. Upperstall.com wrote "Madhuri gives a wonderful, insightful performance as the self-respecting educated woman married into a family of male chauvinistic upper class landlords and who is humiliated by her husband when she objects to his misdeeds, never hitting a false note. She more than matches up to seasoned artists like Shabana and Om Puri in their scenes together. In a word, she is mesmerizing."
Dixit starred in Yash Chopra's musical romance Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), opposite Shahrukh Khan and Karisma Kapoor. Her role of a woman faced with a moral dilemma in a love triangle, fetched her fourth Filmfare Best Actress Award. The film also proved to be a success at the box-office. However, her career then went to a decline with films like Yaraana (1995), Rajkumar (1996), Prem Granth (1996), Mohabbat (1997), Wajood (1998) and Aarzoo (1999) sinking at the box-office.
In 2000, Dixit starred in Rajkumar Santoshi's Pukar opposite Anil Kapoor. A love story based on the backdrop of Indian Army, the film was shot over the course of 350 days. Dixit's portrayal of a negative role in it earned her twelfth nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award. She then played the title character in Gaja Gamini, the first feature film directed by painter M. F. Husain. Hussain was fixated with Dixit, and watched her Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! several times, and was certain that he would make a film only with her. He directed it at the age of 85. The film followed the story of Gaja Gamini, who appears in her various incarnations as Mona Lisa, Shakuntala and others. The former film was an average grosser, while the latter bombed at the box-office.
In 2001, Dixit starred in Deepak Shivdasani's love triangle Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke opposite Ajay Devgan and Preity Zinta. Dixit followed up by reuniting with Rajkumar Santoshi in the multi-starrer Lajja (2001). Dealing with the issue of gender inequality, Dixit played the role of a stage dancer in it. Anita Bora of Rediff.com wrote "Madhuri slips into her role as Janaki [..] with consummate ease." and "..dazzles us with a class act." The film was a box-office failure in India but was an overseas success. Dixit was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for Lajja. In 2002, Dixit starred in a lead role in the love triangle Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam opposite Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan. A remake of its director K. S. Adhiyaman own Tamil film Thotta Chinungi (1995), the film took six years in making, with huge sabbaticals in between shoots due to several production problems. Few critics noted that the delay made the film look outdated.
Dixit's next release was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's period romance Devdas, co-starring Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai. It was based on the Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name. She portrayed Chandramukhi, a courtesan who is in love with the title character. Sita Menon of Rediff.com wrote: "The most understated role and perhaps the one that is most lingering, in terms of virtuosity, is that played by Madhuri Dixit. As Chandramukhi, she is simply stunning, lending passion, fire and gentleness with such consummate ease that watching her perform is sheer delight." The film was screened at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was featured by Time in their listing of the "10 best films of the millennium". The film emerged as a major international success with revenues of over . Devdas was chosen as India's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. Dixit won the Filmfare Best supporting actress award for the film. It turned out to be her last film for a while as she shifted to Denver with her family.
The following year a film named after her, Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon, was released in which a woman (played by Antara Mali) aspires to become the new Madhuri Dixit by trying her luck in Bollywood. Dixit, also made her first appearance on television as a host for the India's first reality show Kahin Na Kahin Koi Hai on Sony TV.
2007–Present: return to films
In 2006, Dixit returned to India with her family, and acted in cinematographer Anil Mehta's dance film Aaja Nachle (2007). It was her first released in five years, where she played the role of a choreographer. The film was a box-office failure, but Dixit's role was appreciated by critics. Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN criticised the plot, while wrote about Dixit's performance: "It’s hard to take your eyes off the screen when she’s up there, dazzling you with her spontaneity, her easy charm and her 100-watt smile." Her performance earned her nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress Award. However, after the film Dixit flew back to Denver.
In 2011, Dixit was felicitated with the Filmfare Special Award for completing 25 years in the film industry.
Dixit returned to India in 2012, and made her acting comeback after seven years with the black comedy Dedh Ishqiya (2014). It was a sequel to Ishqiya (2010), where she was cast as con-woman "Begum Para" opposite Naseeruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi and Huma Qureshi. Dixit expressed that she agreed to do the film because of the “unapologetic way” its director Abhishek Chaubey presented Vidya Balan’s character" in Ishqiya. The film opened to positive response from critics who called it "one of the year's most important releases". Anupama Chopra called Dixit as "compelling", while Deepanjana Pal of Firstpost wrote: "She's still capable of keeping an audience glued to their seats when the credits start rolling, all because she's dancing on screen.". The film earned her fourteenth nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actress.
Her next release of the year was the dedutant director Soumik Sen's Gulaab Gang, alongside Juhi Chawla. Dixit portrayed Rajjo, the leader of a women activist group, the film and her role were inspired from the real vigilante activist Sampat Pal Devi and her group Gulabi Gang. Pal filed a case against the film claiming the makers did not take permission to make a film on her life, the court later lifted the stay from the film. To prepare for her role, Dixit practised Shaolin Kung fu, stick training, and close combat. Gulaab Gang failed at the box office, earning mixed reviews. Subhash K. Jha labelled Dixit's performance and demeanour "inconsistent". Although Sampat Pal claimed that in Dixit's character she finds a "reflection of her own life so stark" that it makes her feel "it was she on screen".
Artistry
Dance
Dixit is not only known for her acting skills, but for her dancing skills as well. Often referred to as the "Dhak Dhak Girl", she is famous for her dance in the song "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga" from the film Beta. She is also known for her dance sequences accompanying Bollywood songs such as "Ek Do Teen" (from Tezaab), "Humko Aaj Kal Hai" (from Sailaab), "Bada Dukh Deenha" (from Ram Lakhan), "Chane Ke Khet Mein" (from Anjaam), "Didi Tera Devar Deewana" (from Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!), "Choli Ke Peechhe" (from Khalnayak), "Akhiyan Milaun" (from Raja), "Mera Piya Ghar Aaya" (from Yaraana), "Kay Sera Sera" (from Pukar), "Badi Mushkil" (from Lajja), "Maar Daala" (from Devdas), "Aaja Nachle" (from Aaja Nachle), and "Ghagra" (from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani).
Pandit Birju Maharaj, a Kathak dancer, who choreographed Dixit in the film Devdas for the song "Kaahe Chhed" calls her as "the best Bollywood dancer due to her versatility." Film critic Raja Sen describes Dixit as "the industry's numero uno in every sense." Further he elaborates, "She is an exemplary dancer. From Kathak to Dhak Dhak, she's done it all and wowed us every step of the way." Saroj Khan, who choreographer most of Dixit's early hits, after working with her again in Gulaab Gang called her, "choreographer's delight".
As an actress, Dixit has often been compared to Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Nargis, who were among the most popular actresses of the black-and-white era of Bollywood. She was often referred to as the Madhubala of the 1990s.
Dance Academy
In 2013, Madhuri launched her own dance academy through an online website which is called "Dance with Madhuri. The academy is accessible to 200 countries and has more than 200,000 frequent users. As well as Madhuri, other very well known dancing gurus have been teaching on "Dance with Madhuri" such as the National award winning choreographer Saroj Khan, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Remo D'souza and many more.
The dance academy teaches all types of dance forms such as Bollywood, Waltz, Samba, Dandia, etc. Madhuri also teaches one on one special classes, teaching her students some of her most memorable dance numbers such as Ek Do Teen, Mayi Ne Mayi, Aaja Nachle, Ghagra and Badi Mushkil.
Non-acting work
Stage performances
Dixit is a frequent performer and has participated in several world tours and concerts. With a huge fan base, Madhuri is one of the most requested stars to perform nationally and internationally. She has taken part in some of the biggest Bollywood tours in the world, with some of the biggest stars, such as Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
In the mid-2008, Madhuri, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Ritesh Deshmukh, starred in the "Unforgettable World Tour" stage production. The tour covered the USA, Canada, Trinidad, and London, England.
In 2013, Dixit joined the fourth instalment of Shah Rukh Khans Temptation tour "Temptation Reloaded" where they visited and performed series of concerts in Auckland, Perth, Sydney and Dubai; it also featured Rani Mukerji, Deepika Padukone, Jacqueline Fernandez, Honey Singh and Meiyang Chаng. Madhuri also performed at the 14th IIFA Awards 2013, where she made her first ever appearance which was held in Macau.
In March 2014, Madhuri was again invited to perform at the 15th IFFA Awards 2014, where she danced on a medley of her most popular dance numbers. On 5 October 2014 Madhuri was seen performing in London at the O2 arena. She performed as a part of joining her good friend Shah Rukh Khan for his promotional tour 'The Slam Tour' to promote his upcoming movie Happy New Year. Again on 25 October, Madhuri Dixit performed in Mauritius in the Anjalay Stadium on the occasion of Diwali which also featured Farhan Akhtar.
Legal notice for alleged false representation in endorsements
In May- June 2015 the Tamil Nadu Consumer's Forum sent her notices for "false representation" in advertisements of Maggi, a noodle brand in which toxic levels of lead were found. She continued endorsing about the safety of the product in Twitter, even when food regulators had already found more than 17 times the permissible limits of lead and its product banned.
On June 5, 2015, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) orders banned all nine approved variants of Maggi instant noodles from India, terming them "unsafe and hazardous" for human consumption. It was also found that the "health oats noodles", a product which had not even completed the mandatory "process of risk assessment" was promoted by the actress.
Social work
In 2001 Dixit won on Kaun Banega Crorepati, a game show then in its first season on the air. She directed that her winnings be donated for the welfare of victims of an earthquake in Gujarat and to an orphanage in Pune.
In 2009 Dixit performed for NDTV Toyota Greenathon—India's first-ever nationwide campaign for save the environment and creating awareness about environmental issues. NDTV organised India's first 24-hour live telethon, a fund-raising event that brings in people to donate money to support TERI's initiative—Lighting a Billion Lives which aims at providing solar power to villages without electricity. Dixit became a part of this great social cause, and she performed her hit numbers on the live show.
On 3 February 2011 Dixit spent an evening with 75 orphanage kids of farmers at an ashram in Trimbakeshwar and participated in the birthday of two children: Hrishikesh and Rani. "We artists are ready to help such children. People from the higher society should come forward and stand firmly behind them," she said on the occasion. Dixit is a Goodwill Ambassador and a patron for "Emeralds for Elephants" — a charity project for the conservation of Asian Elephants and other endangered species. This project has been designed to create awareness and raise vital funds for the protection of the critically endangered Asian Elephant. A collaborative project between the World Land Trust (a UK based nonprofit environmental organisation) and the Wildlife Trust of India that is creating protected wildlife corridors connecting National Parks and protected areas to others. Speaking about the issue she said: "Elephants are one of my favourite animals and I love them. So what we need to do today is to see how we can preserve our animals. I feel very strongly about this."
On 4 February 2012 Madhuri Dixit interacted with Cancer affected children on World Cancer Day organised by Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd at Juhu, Mumbai.On World Cancer Day Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited offered a Free Joy Ride to Cancer affected children with the support of Cancer Patients Aid Association. In June 2014, Dixit was appointed as the "Goodwill Ambassador Advocate" for child and equal woman's rights. When appointed as the chief advocate for Child rights.
Television appearances
In the year 1985, she appeared in the Rajshri Production's TV show Paying Guest. She came in the first episode of the show as Neena.
In 2001 on the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepatis first season, hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, she won that she donated for people affected in natural calamities. She also made an appearance in Season 4's Grand Finale that aired in 2010. In 2002, Dixit hosted a TV show Kahina Kahi Koi Hai which was a match-making show that aired on Sony Entertainment.
She also made appearances on Koffee with Karan in Seasons two and three that aired in 2007 and 2011, respectively. Her Season 2 appearance was a solo appearance and in Season 3 she shared the chat show with Sonakshi Sinha. In 2014, Madhuri made her third appearance on Koffee with Karan, on its fourth season alongside Juhi Chawla.
Dixit has been guest on Nach Baliye Season 1 and 3, a celebrity-couple dancing competition in 2005 (aired on Star One) & 2007 (aired on Star Plus).
In 2011, she appeared as a judge on the dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 4 along with other co-judges Remo D'souza and Malaika Arora Khan.
In 2012 and 2013, Dixit rejoined for Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 5 and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 6 along with her co-judges Remo D'souza and Karan Johar.
Madhuri also appeared on Indias Got Talent as a guest judge on two separate occasions for the promotion of her upcoming movies Dedh Ishqiya and Gulaab Gang that released in early 2014.
Later on in 2014, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa was renewed for a new season, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 7 where yet again we saw the diva herself Madhuri Dixit return to the judging panel for her fourth time with her co-judges Remo D'souza and Karan Johar.
Personal life
During the making of Saajan, Madhuri was proposed by Sanjay Dutt who was married at the time to Richa Sharma. However, with Dutt's arrest under TADA in 1993, Madhuri ended the relationship.
On 17 October 1999, Dixit married Dr. Shriram Madhav Nene, a cardiovascular surgeon from Los Angeles, California. They have two sons, Arin (b. March 2003) and Rayaan (b. March 2005). After her marriage, Dixit relocated to Denver, Colorado, for almost a decade. She moved back to Mumbai with her family in October 2011.
Dixit has been the muse for the Indian painter M.F. Husain. He was so fascinated by Dixit in Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! that he watched the film 67 times, and in 2007 he booked an entire theatre to see her comeback movie Aaja Nachle. He made a series of paintings of her, and in 2000 made a film named Gaja Gamini starring her, which was intended as a tribute to Dixit herself.
Dixit has always been a passionate dancer, and therefore turned her passion into reality by opening her own online dance academy "Dance With Madhuri", where her fans have a one to one lesson to learn some of her most famous and well known dance numbers.
Awards and nominations
Filmography
References
External links
Category:1967 births
Category:Indian film actresses
Category:Marathi people
Category:Living people
Category:Actresses from Mumbai
Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri
Category:20th-century Indian actresses
Category:Indian emigrants to the United States
Category:Actresses in Hindi cinema
Category:21st-century Indian actresses |
2016-01 | Fallout_3-697628829 | Fallout_3 | Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing open world video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios, and is the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe, and Australia in October 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 116 years after the setting of Fallout, 36 years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse that devastated the game's world, in a future where international conflicts between the United States and China culminated in a Sino-American war in 2077, due to the scarcity of petroleum reserves that ran the economies of both countries. The player character is an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect up to 1,000 humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player character's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, the leader of the Vault initiates martial law and sends security forces after the player, who is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington, D.C. to track their father down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of human survivors and must battle a myriad of enemies that inhabit the area, now known as the "Capital Wasteland".
Fallout 3 was critically acclaimed and received a number of Game of the Year awards, praising the game's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. The game is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. The NPD Group estimated that Fallout 3 sold over 610,000 units during its initial month of release in October 2008, performing better than Bethesda's previous game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which sold nearly 500,000 units in its first month. The game received post-launch support with Bethesda releasing five downloadable add-ons. The game also received controversy upon release, in Australia for including the use of and the ability to be addicted to alcohol, morphine and other drugs, in India for religious and cultural sentiments over the cattle in the game being called Brahmin, and in Japan due to a weapon called the "Fat Man", which launches mini nuclear bombs.
Gameplay
Attributes
The game starts with the main character as a newborn, whereupon the player determines the race, gender, and the general appearance of their character. As a one-year-old baby, the infant reads a child's book titled You're SPECIAL, where the player can set the character's starting S.P.E.C.I.A.L. primary attributes: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. The character gains a set of Skills with base levels determined by these attributes. At age 10, the character obtains a Pip-Boy, a computerized wristwatch which allows the player to access a menu with statistics, maps, data, radio, and other items. The character also obtains their first weapon, a BB gun, which you then use to kill a radroach. At age 16, the character takes the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (G.O.A.T.) to determine the three Skills they wish the character to focus on.
As the character progresses through the game, experience points are earned that are used to achieve levels of accomplishment. Upon achieving a new level, the player receives a set of skill points that can be assigned to improve any of the Skill percentages. For instance, increasing the lock pick skill grants the player the ability to pick harder locks to unlock doors and supply crates. A Perk is granted at each level, which offers advantages of varying quality and form. Many Perks have a set of prerequisites that must be satisfied, and new Perks are unlocked every two levels.
An important statistic tracked in the game is karma. Each character has an aggregate amount of karma that can be affected by the decisions and actions made in the game. Positive karmic actions include freeing captives and helping others. Negative karmic actions include killing good characters and stealing. Beyond acting as flavor for the game's events, karma can have tangible effects to the player, primarily affecting the game's ending. Other effects include altered dialogue with non-player characters (NPCs), or unique reactions from other characters. Actions vary in the level of karma change they cause; thus, pickpocketing produces less negative karma than the killing of a good character. However, the player's relationships with the game's factions are distinct, so any two groups or settlements may view the player in contrasting ways, depending on the player's conduct. Some Perks require specific karma levels.
Health and weapons
Health is separated into two types: general and limb. General health is the primary damage bar, and the player will die if it is depleted. Limb health is specific to each portion of the body, namely the arms, legs, head, and torso. Non-human enemies will sometimes have additional appendages. When a limb's health bar is depleted, that limb is rendered "crippled" and induces a negative status effect, such as blurred vision from a crippled head or reduced movement speed from a crippled leg. Health is diminished when damage is taken from being attacked, falling from great distances, or accidental self injury. General health can be replenished by sleeping, using medical equipment (stimpaks), eating food, or drinking water. Limbs can be healed directly by injecting them with stimpaks, by sleeping, or by being healed by a doctor. Along with the health, there are 20 bobbleheads that can be found throughout the game that will give the player bonuses to attributes and skills. Each bobblehead is an iconic Vault Boy figurine in a different pose. Three of them have to be found in different time periods in the gameplay; otherwise they will be lost.
There are secondary health factors that can affect performance. Chief among these is radiation poisoning: most food is irradiated to a small degree, and parts of the world have varying levels of background radiation. As the player is exposed to radiation, it builds up, causing negative effects and eventually death if left untreated. Radiation sickness must be healed by special medicine named Rad Away or by visiting one of the Wasteland's doctors. Radiation can be prevented by the use of Rad-X which increases radiation resistance. The player can become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and then go through withdrawal symptoms if denied those substances. Both afflictions can blur the player's vision for a few seconds and have a negative effect on SPECIAL attributes until the problem is corrected.
Items can become degraded and become less effective. Firearms do less damage and may jam during reloading, and apparel becomes gradually less protective. This will eventually result in the item breaking altogether. Items can be repaired for a price from special vendors, or, when the player has two of the same item (or a comparable item), one can be repaired using salvage parts from the other.
Players have the option to create their own weaponry using various scavenged items found in the wasteland. These items can only be created at workbenches, and only if the player possesses the necessary schematics or Perk. These weapons usually possess significant advantages over other weapons of their type. Each schematic has three copies that can be found. Each copy improves the condition (or number) of items produced at the workbench. A higher repair skill will result in a better starting condition for the related weapon. Weapon schematics can be found lying in certain locations, bought from vendors, or received as quest rewards.
V.A.T.S.
The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S., plays an important part in combat. While using V.A.T.S., real-time combat is paused, and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of "bullet time", creating a combat system that the Bethesda developers have described as a hybrid between timeturn-based and real-time combat. Various actions cost action points, limiting the actions of each combatant during a turn, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries; head shots can be used for quick kills or blinding, legs can be targeted to slow enemies' movements, opponents can be disarmed by shooting at their weapons, and players can drive certain enemies into a berserker rage by shooting out things like antennae on various overgrown insects and combat inhibitors on armored robots. However, the use of V.A.T.S. also eliminates most of the first-person shooter elements of the game; aiming is taken over by the computer, and the player is unable to move as a means of avoiding attacks. Each body part has a percentage of hit chance, and generally the closer the player character is to an enemy the higher that percentage. The higher level the character using V.A.T.S is, the more likely that character will hit their enemy.
Companions
The player can have a maximum party of three consisting of the player's character, a dog named Dogmeat, and a single non-player character (NPC). Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation; it is possible to not encounter Dogmeat at all depending on how the game is played. One other NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be dismissed (either voluntarily by the player or as a consequence of other events) or die in combat.
In the "Broken Steel" DLC, the level 22 perk "Puppies!" allows the player to gain a puppy if Dogmeat dies.
Plot
Setting
Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a war over resources that ended in nuclear holocaust in 2077. The setting is a post-apocalyptic retro-future, covering a region that includes Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland. The game's landscape includes war-ravaged variants of numerous real-life landmarks such as the White House, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery and the Washington Monument. The area that the game is set in, known in-game as the Capital Wasteland, holds a number of small settlements of the descendants of survivors from the Great War. Many inhabitants were killed during the nuclear holocaust and the Wasteland is now little more than a barren land nearly devoid of healthy water, food, plant and animal life due to the extreme radiation levels. However, there is a small settlement in the north part of the Capital Wasteland where plant life is abundant.
The player begins the game inside Vault 101, where they were raised, before escaping out into the Capital Wasteland and facing its many dangers. The Capital Wasteland is home to a number of mutated species of creatures such as two-headed cattle called Brahmin, radscorpions, molerats, and mirelurks. Many of these creatures are generally hostile to the player and will attack on sight. The Wasteland and the city proper is home to several hostile groups, including super mutants, feral ghouls, raiders, slavers, mercenaries, and robots. Of note are the various Vaults—underground structures designed as shelters to protect inhabitants from the dangers of nuclear war (and also for more sinister purposes). In the Washington, D.C. area, many of the roads are blocked off with giant piles of rubble. The player can navigate around the city using a system of underground metro tunnels that connect with other locations (loosely based on the real-life Washington Metro).
The game takes place in an alternate version of history that sees the 1940s and 1950s aesthetics, design and technology advance in the directions imagined at the time. The resulting universe is thus a retro-futuristic one, where the technology has evolved enough to produce laser weapons, manipulate genes and create nearly-autonomous artificial intelligence, but all within the confines of 1950s solutions like the widespread use of atomic power and vacuum tubes, as well as having the integrated circuitry of the digital age. The architecture, advertisements and general living styles are also depicted to be largely unchanged since the 1950s, while including contemporary products, such as a robotic rocking horse for children in one advertisement, or posters for the underground vaults that play a central role in the storyline of the game.
Story
The introductory sequence introduces the player to their character's father, James, a doctor and scientist in Vault 101. James frequently makes comments about the player character's deceased mother Catherine, and her favorite Bible passage, Revelation 21:6, which speaks of "the waters of life".
The main quest begins 19 years later, after the player is forced to flee Vault 101 when James leaves the vault, throwing it into anarchy and causing the paranoid Overseer, the leader of the Vault, to send his security force after the player. The search for James takes the character on a journey through the Wasteland, first to the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at the center of town, then the Galaxy News Radio station, whose enthusiastic DJ Three Dog gives the player the moniker of "The Lone Wanderer". The player travels to Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a fortified human settlement. Here the player meets Doctor Li, a scientist who worked alongside the player's father. Doctor Li informs the player of Project Purity, a plan conceived by Catherine and James to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial. However, continued delays and Catherine's death during childbirth put an end to the project, and James took the player's character as a newborn to raise them in the safety of Vault 101.
After investigating the Jefferson Memorial, the Lone Wanderer tracks James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's sadistic Overseer, Dr. Braun. James and the player return to Rivet City, and James reveals he sought out Braun for information on the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), a device that contains the components needed to finally activate Project Purity. James and Doctor Li lead a team of Rivet City scientists to the memorial with intent to restart the project, but the memorial is invaded by the Enclave, a powerful military organization formed from the remnants of the pre-War United States government. James floods the project's control room with radiation to stop the Enclave military leader, Colonel Augustus Autumn, from taking control of it, killing himself (but Autumn survives), his last words urging his child to run. The Lone Wanderer and Dr. Li flee to the ruins of the Pentagon, now a base for the Brotherhood of Steel and now known as the Citadel. With Project Purity still inoperational even with the Enclave occupying the site, the player travels to Vault 87 to find a G.E.C.K. and finish James's work. The player finds the Vault to be a testing site for the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus), and the source of the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland. After the player acquires the G.E.C.K., the Wanderer is ambushed by the Enclave and captured.
At the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the player is freed from their cell by the Enclave leader, President John Henry Eden, who requests a private audience with them. En route to his office however, Colonel Autumn defies Eden's orders and takes command of the Enclave military, ordering them to kill the player. Fighting their way to Eden's office, the player discovers Eden is actually a sentient ZAX series supercomputer who took control of the Enclave after their defeat in Fallout 2 on the West Coast thirty years ago. Eden wishes to repeat the plan of then-President Dick Richardson using Project Purity, infecting the water with a modified strain of FEV that will make it toxic to any mutated life. This plan will kill most life in the wasteland including humans, but the Enclave, due to their genetic "purity" as a result of their isolation, will be immune and free to take control of the area. The Wanderer, provided with a sample of the new F.E.V., is given a choice to either leave peacefully or convince Eden to self-destruct the entire base. The Lone Wanderer escapes Raven Rock and returns to the Citadel.
With the knowledge they possess, the G.E.C.K. and the means to activate Project Purity, the Brotherhood assault the Jefferson Memorial, spearheaded by a giant robot named Liberty Prime. In the control room of Project Purity the player confronts Colonel Autumn, and has the choice to persuade him to give up or kill him. Dr. Li informs the player that the purifier is ready to be activated, but the activation code must be input manually, and also that the control room is flooded with lethal amounts of radiation. The Lone Wanderer is forced to choose between sending Sarah Lyons of the Brotherhood inside the extremely irradiated purifier or entering themselves. Whoever enters into the chamber inputs the code hinted at throughout the game, that being 21:6, and dies from a radiation spike.
If the "Broken Steel" DLC is installed, the player survives if they activate it themselves, but they also have the option of sending one of their radiation-immune companions to enter the code and start the purifier with no casualties. The player also has the possibility to enter the F.E.V. sample into the water prior to activation, having adverse post-ending effects on the game's side quests.
Development
Interplay Entertainment
Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Black Isle Studios was the developer of the original Fallout and Fallout 2. When Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda's Fallout 3, however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code, nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the canceled project was released to the public.
Leonard Boyarsky, art director of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks, said: "To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we've always felt that Fallout was ours and it was just a technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder, and we had to just sit by and watch. Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are, I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not."
Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks started working on Fallout 3 in July 2004, but principal development did not begin until after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its related extras and plug ins were completed. Bethesda Softworks decided to make Fallout 3 similar to the previous two games, focusing on non-linear gameplay, story, and black comedy. Bethesda also chose to pursue an ESRB rating of M (for mature) by including the adult themes, violence, and depravity characteristic of the Fallout series. They also decided to shy away from the self-referential gags of the game's predecessors that broke the illusion that the world of Fallout is real. Fallout 3 uses a version of the same Gamebryo engine as Oblivion, and was developed by the team responsible for that game. Liam Neeson was cast as the voice of the player's father.
In February 2007, Bethesda stated that the game was "a fairly good ways away" from release, but that detailed information and previews would be available later in the year. Following a statement made by Pete Hines that the team wanted to make the game a "multiple platform title", the game was announced by Game Informer to be in development for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
During a March 21, 2008 Official Xbox Magazine podcast interview, Todd Howard revealed that the game had expanded to nearly the same scope as Oblivion. There were originally at least 12 versions of the final cutscene, but with further development this expanded to over 200 possible permutations in the final release, all of which are determined by the actions taken by the player. Bethesda Softworks attended E3 2008 to showcase Fallout 3. The first live demo of the Xbox 360 version of the game was shown and demonstrated by Todd Howard, taking place in downtown Washington, D.C. The demo showcased various weapons such as the Fat Man nuclear catapult, the V.A.T.S. system, the functions of the Pip-Boy 3000, as well as combat with several enemies. The demo concluded as the player neared the Brotherhood of Steel-controlled Pentagon and was attacked by an Enclave patrol.
Audio
Several actors of film and video games lent their voices to Fallout 3, including Liam Neeson as James, Ron Perlman as the game's narrator, Malcolm McDowell as President John Henry Eden, Craig Sechler as Butch DeLoria, Erik Todd Dellums as Three Dog and Odette Yustman as Amata Almodovar. Veteran voice actors Dee Bradley Baker, Wes Johnson, Paul Eiding and Stephen Russell also provided voice overs for the game. The Fallout 3 soundtrack continued the series' convention of featuring sentimental 1940s big band American popular music, the main theme, and few other side songs recorded by The Ink Spots and The Andrews Sisters; in addition to a score written by composer Inon Zur. The soundtrack of the game included artists such as Roy Brown, Billie Holiday, Billy Munn, Cole Porter, and Bob Crosby.
Marketing and release
Trailers
A teaser site for the game appeared on May 2, 2007, and featured music from the game and concept art, along with a timer that counted down to June 5, 2007. The artists and developers involved later confirmed that the concept art, commissioned before Oblivion had been released, did not reveal anything from the actual game. When the countdown finished, the site hosted the first teaser trailer for the game, and unveiled a release date of "Fall 2008".
On June 5, 2007, Bethesda released the Fallout 3 teaser trailer. The press kit released with the trailer indicated that Ron Perlman would be on board with the project, and cited a release date of Fall 2008. The trailer featured The Ink Spots song "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", which the previous Fallout developer Black Isle Studios originally intended to license for use in the first Fallout game. The trailer, which was completely done with in-engine assets, closed with Ron Perlman saying his trademark line which he also spoke in the original Fallout: "War. War never changes". The trailer showed a devastated Washington, D.C., evidenced by the partially damaged Washington Monument in the background as well as the crumbling buildings that surrounded a rubble-choked city thoroughfare.
A second trailer was first shown during a GameTrailers TV E3 special on July 12, 2008. The trailer zoomed out from a ruined house in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and provided a wider view of the capital's skyline including the Capitol Building and Washington Monument in the distance. On July 14, 2008, an extended version of this trailer was made available, which besides the original content, included a Vault-Tec advertisement and actual gameplay. Both versions of the trailer featured the song "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" as recorded by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats.
Film festival
On July 11, 2008, as a part of promoting Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks partnered with American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly to sponsor "A Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival Presented by Fallout 3". The festival took place on August 22–23 at Santa Monica's Aero Theater. Six post-apocalyptic movies were shown which depict life and events that could occur after a world-changing disaster, including Wizards, Damnation Alley, A Boy and His Dog, The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and Twelve Monkeys.
Retail versions
Fallout 3 was released in five separate versions, only three of which were made available worldwide:
The Standard Edition includes the game disc and instruction manual with no extras.
The Collector's Edition includes the game disc, manual, a bonus "making of" disc, a concept artbook, and a 5" Vault Boy Bobblehead, all of which is contained in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. In Australia, the Collector's Edition is exclusive to Gametraders and EB Games.
The Limited Edition includes the game disc and manual, as well as a Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor figurine. This edition is available only in the UK through the retailer Game.
The Survival Edition includes everything from the Collector's Edition, as well as a model of the PIP-Boy 3000 from the game which functions as a digital clock. The Survival Edition is available exclusively from Amazon.com to U.S. customers only.
The Game of the Year Edition, which includes the original Fallout 3 game as well as all 5 of the downloadable content packs, was released on October 13, 2009 in North America and October 16, 2009 in Europe. It was released in Australia on October 22, 2009, and in Japan on December 3, 2009. It was made available on Steam on December 17, 2009.
An Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 and Oblivion double pack was announced for release in North America on April 3.
Downloadable content
Bethesda's Todd Howard first confirmed during E3 2008 that downloadable content (DLC) would be prepared for the Xbox 360 and Windows versions of Fallout 3. There are five DLCs: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta, released in that order. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line.
Originally, there was no downloadable content announced for the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Although Bethesda had not offered an official explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of a money deal with Bethesda by Sony's competitor, Microsoft. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, Todd Howard responded, "Not at this time, no." However, in May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the later two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were released for all platforms.
On October 1, 2009, a New Xbox Experience premium theme for the game was released for the Xbox 360. Consumers could pay 240 Microsoft Points, or by having downloaded all other downloadable content. The PlayStation 3 received a free theme, featuring a Brotherhood of Steel Knight in the background, and includes symbols from the game as icons on the PS3 home menu. In December 2008 the official editor, known as the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) was made available for the Windows version of the game as a free download from the Fallout 3 website.
Reception
Reviews
Fallout 3 received critical acclaim from many reviewers, with an average GameRankings score of 92.79% for the Xbox 360, 90.69% for the PC and 90.60% for the PlayStation 3. 1UP.com's Demian Linn praised its open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system. While the V.A.T.S. system was called "fun", enemy encounters were said to suffer from a lack of precision in real-time combat and little variety in enemy types. The review concluded, Fallout 3 is a "hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often". IGN editor Erik Brudvig praised the game's "minimalist" sound design, observing, "you might find yourself with nothing but the sound of wind rustling through decaying trees and blowing dust across the barren plains ... Fallout 3 proves that less can be more". The review noted that the "unusual amount of realism" combined with the "endless conversation permutations" produces "one of the most truly interactive experiences of the generation". In a review of the game for Kotaku, Mike Fahey commented that "While Inon Zur's score is filled with epic goodness, the real stars of Fallout 3'''s music are the vintage songs from the 1940s". Will Tuttle of GameSpy commended the game for its "engaging storyline, impeccable presentation, and hundreds of hours of addictive gameplay". Although Edge awarded the game 7 out of 10, in a later anniversary issue it placed the game 37th in a "100 best games to play today" list, saying "Fallout 3 empowers, engages and rewards to extents that few games have ever achieved".
Some criticisms were the bugs in regards to the physics and crashes—some of which broke quests and even prevented progression. The AI and stiff character animations are another common point of criticism, as is the ending. Edge stated that "the game is cumbersome in design and frequently incompetent in the details of execution", taking particular issue with the nakedness of the HUD, the clarity of the menu interface, and that the smaller problems are carried over from Oblivion. Edge liked the central story but said "the writing isn't quite as consistent as the ideas that underpin" and that the "voice-acting is even less reliable".
Sales
From its release in October through the end of 2008, Fallout 3 shipped over 4.7 million units. According to NPD Group the Xbox 360 version has sold 1.14 million units and the PlayStation 3 version has sold 552,000 units as of January 2009. The Xbox 360 version was the 14th best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, while the PlayStation 3 version was the eighth best-selling PlayStation 3 game in that region and month. Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, a market research firm, estimates that the game has sold 12.4 million copies worldwide.Fallout 3 was one of the most played titles in Xbox Live in 2009, and Games for Windows – Live in 2009, 2011 and 2012.
AwardsFallout 3 won several awards following its showcasing at E3 2007. IGN gave it the "Game of E3 2007" award, and GameSpot gave it the "Best Role-Playing Game of E3 2007" award. Following the game's demonstration at E3 2008, IGN also gave it "Best Overall RPG", "Best Overall Console Game", and "Overall Game of the Show" for E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game "Best Role-Playing Game" and "Best of Show" for E3 2008.
After its release, Fallout 3 won numerous awards from gaming journalists and websites. At the 2009 Game Developer's Choice Awards, it won overall "Game of the Year" along with "Best Writing." It was also awarded "Game of the Year" by IGN, GamesRadar, GameSpy, UGO Networks, Gamasutra and the Golden Joystick Awards. The game also won "Xbox 360 Game of the Year" from Official Xbox Magazine, GameSpy and IGN, while winning "PC Game of the Year" from GamePro, GameSpy, GameTrailers and GameSpot, with the latter two also awarding it "Best RPG."
At the end of 2009, Fallout 3 was featured in IGN's "Best Video and Computer Games of the Decade" (2000–2009), with the game being placed top game of 2008 and seventh overall game of the decade. In 2012, Fallout 3 was also exhibited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum . Fallout 3 was voted for and won the "Adventure" section for the platform "Modern Windows." That same year, G4tv ranked it as the 75th top video game of all time.
Technical issues
Shortly before the game's release, IGN posted a review of the game citing numerous bugs and crashes in the PlayStation 3 release. The game also contained a bug causing the game to freeze and the screen to blur when friends signed out of and into the PlayStation Network. The IGN review was edited shortly thereafter, removing all references to the PS3 version's bugs, causing controversy in the PlayStation communities. Reviewing PlayStation 3 Game of the Year edition, Digital Chumps and Spawn Kill confirmed that most bugs remained, citing occasional freezes, several animation and scripting issues, along with other bugs requiring a restart of the game. Even IGN retroactively cited bugs with the original release, as well as the Game of the Year edition, calling it "a fantastic game", but warning players to "be aware that you might have to deal with some crashes and bugs".
Controversy and fandom
Not all fans are happy with the direction the Fallout series has taken since its acquisition by Bethesda Softworks. Notorious for their vitriolic support of the series' first two games, Fallout and Fallout 2, members centered around one of the oldest Fallout fansites, No Mutants Allowed, have cried foul over departures from the original games' stories, gameplay mechanics and setting. Minor criticisms include the prevalence of unspoiled food after 200 years, the survival of wood-framed dwellings following a nuclear blast, and the ubiquitousness of Super Mutants at early levels in the game. More serious criticisms involve the quality of the game's writing, a perceived lack of verisimilitude, the switch to a first-person action game format, and the reactiveness of the surrounding game world to player actions. In response, Jim Sterling of Destructoid has called fan groups like No Mutants Allowed "selfish" and "arrogant"; stating that a new audience deserves a chance to play a Fallout game; and that if the series had stayed the way it was back in 1997, new titles would never have been made and brought to market. Luke Winkie of Kotaku tempers these sentiments, saying that it is a matter of ownership; and that in the case of Fallout 3, hardcore fans of the original series witnessed their favorite games become transformed into something else.
Regional variations
Drug references
On July 4, 2008, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the ACB in Australia, thus making it illegal to distribute or purchase the game in the country. In order for the game to be reclassified, the offending content in the Australian version of the game would have had to be removed by Bethesda Softworks and the game resubmitted to the ACB. According to the ACB board report, the game was refused classification due to the "realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method [bringing] the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs".
A revised version of the game was resubmitted to the ACB and reclassified as MA 15+ on August 7, 2008, or not suitable for people under the age of 15 unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian; this new rating ensured that the game could retail legally in Australia. According to the ACB board report, the drug content was not removed entirely from the revised version of the game, but the animation showing the actual usage of the drugs was removed; the minority view on the decision stated that the drug content was still enough to warrant a refused classification rating.
In a later interview with UK gaming magazine Edge, Bethesda Softworks revealed that there would be only one version of Fallout 3 released worldwide, and that this version would have all real-world drug references removed. It was later clarified that the only change made would be that morphine, a real-world drug that would have appeared in the game, would instead be renamed to the more generic "Med-X".
Release in India
On October 22, 2008, Microsoft announced that the game would not be released in India on the Xbox 360 platform. Religious and cultural sentiments were cited as the reason. Microsoft stated, "Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country." Although the specific reason was not revealed in public, it is possible that it is because the game contains two-headed mutated cows called Brahmin, or that Brahmin is also the name of an ancient, powerful hereditary caste of Hindu priests and religious scholars in India, or its similarity to the spelling of brahman, a type of cow that originated in India. Brahman, a breed of Zebu, are revered by Hindus.
Sensitivity in Japan
Bethesda Softworks changed the side quest "The Power of the Atom" in the Japanese version of Fallout 3 to relieve concerns about depictions of atomic detonation in inhabited areas, as the memory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain strong in the country. In non-Japanese versions, players are given the option of either defusing, ignoring, or detonating the dormant atomic bomb in the town of Megaton; in the Japanese version, the character of Mr. Burke is absent, making it impossible to choose the detonation option. Also in the Japanese release, the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult weapon was renamed "Nuka Launcher", as the original name was a reference to the bomb used on Nagasaki. According to Tetsu Takahashi, responsible for localizing Fallout 3'' to Japan under his company Zenimax Asia, the available actions prior to localizing "The Power of the Atom" and the ability to kill civilians almost got the game banned by CERO before it got an Adult Only Rating.
References
External links
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2016-01 | Elephant-694620365 | Elephant | Elephant
Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Two species are traditionally recognised, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), although some evidence suggests that African bush elephants and African forest elephants are separate species (L. africana and L. cyclotis respectively). Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of the order Proboscidea; other, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, gomphotheres, mammoths, and mastodons. Male African elephants are the largest extant terrestrial animals and can reach a height of and weigh . All elephants have several distinctive features the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. Elephants' large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs.
Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests, deserts and marshes. They prefer to stay near water. They are considered to be keystone species due to their impact on their environments. Other animals tend to keep their distance; predators such as lions, tigers, hyenas and wild dogs usually target only the young elephants (or "calves"). Females ("cows") tend to live in family groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups are led by an individual known as the matriarch, often the oldest cow. Elephants have a fission-fusion society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Males ("bulls") leave their family groups when they reach puberty, and may live alone or with other males. Adult bulls mostly interact with family groups when looking for a mate and enter a state of increased testosterone and aggression known as musth, which helps them gain dominance and reproductive success. Calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild. They communicate by touch, sight, smell and sound; elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans. They appear to have self-awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind.
African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered. One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia. In the past they were used in war; today, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have been featured in art, folklore, religion, literature and popular culture.
Etymology
The word "elephant" is based on the Latin elephas (genitive elephantis) ("elephant"), which is the Latinised form of the Greek ἐλέφας (elephas) (genitive ἐλέφαντος (elephantos)), probably from a non-Indo-European language, likely Phoenician. It is attested in Mycenaean Greek as e-re-pa and e-re-pa-to in Linear B syllabic script. As in Mycenaean Greek, Homer used the Greek word to mean ivory, but after the time of Herodotus, it also referred to the animal. The word "elephant" appears in Middle English as olyfaunt (c.1300) and was borrowed from Old French oliphant (12th century). The Tamil word is aliyan for elephant. In Swahili elephants are known as Ndovu or Tembo. In Sanskrit the elephant is called hastin, while in Hindi it is known as hāthī . Babylonians called the animal pīru, from which the Middle Persian word for "elephant" pil derives. It was Arabicized as al-fil, and was then borrowed from Arabic into Old Norse as fil (fíl in Icelandic). Loxodonta, the generic name for the African elephants, is Greek for "oblique-sided tooth".
Taxonomy
Classification, species and subspecies
Elephants belong to the family Elephantidae, the sole remaining family within the order Proboscidea. Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria. Elephants and sirenians are further grouped in the clade Tethytheria. Traditionally, two species of elephants are recognised; the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) of sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) of South and Southeast Asia. African elephants have larger ears, a concave back, more wrinkled skin, a sloping abdomen and two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk. Asian elephants have smaller ears, a convex or level back, smoother skin, a horizontal abdomen that occasionally sags in the middle and one extension at the tip of the trunk. The looped ridges on the molars are narrower in the Asian elephant while those of the African are more diamond-shaped. The Asian elephant also has dorsal bumps on its head and some patches of depigmentation on its skin. In general, African elephants are larger than their Asian cousins.
Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Elephas and an elephant from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) under the binomial Elephas maximus in 1758. In 1798, Georges Cuvier classified the Indian elephant under the binomial Elephas indicus. Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck described the Sumatran elephant in 1847 under the binomial Elephas sumatranus. English zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1940. Asian elephants vary geographically in their colour and amount of depigmentation. The Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus) inhabits Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant (E. m. indicus) is native to mainland Asia (on the Indian subcontinent and Indochina), and the Sumatran elephant (E. m. sumatranus) is found in Sumatra. One disputed subspecies, the Borneo elephant, lives in northern Borneo and is smaller than all the other subspecies. It has larger ears, a longer tail, and straighter tusks than the typical elephant. Sri Lankan zoologist Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described it in 1950 under the trinomial Elephas maximus borneensis, taking as his type an illustration in National Geographic. It was subsequently subsumed under either E. m. indicus or E. m. sumatranus. Results of a 2003 genetic analysis indicate its ancestors separated from the mainland population about 300,000 years ago. A 2008 study found that Borneo elephants are not indigenous to the island but were brought there before 1521 by the Sultan of Sulu from Java, where elephants are now extinct.
The African elephant was first named by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1797 as Elephas africana. The genus Loxodonta was commonly believed to have been named by Georges Cuvier in 1825. Cuvier spelled it Loxodonte and an anonymous author romanised the spelling to Loxodonta; the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recognises this as the proper authority. In 1942, 18 subspecies of African elephant were recognised by Henry Fairfield Osborn, but further morphological data has reduced the number of classified subspecies, and by the 1990s, only two were recognised, the savannah or bush elephant (L. a. africana) and the forest elephant (L. a. cyclotis); the latter has smaller and more rounded ears and thinner and straighter tusks, and is limited to the forested areas of western and Central Africa. A 2000 study argued for the elevation of the two forms into separate species (L. africana and L. cyclotis respectively) based on differences in skull morphology. DNA studies published in 2001 and 2007 also suggested they were distinct species, while studies in 2002 and 2005 concluded that they were the same species. Further studies (2010, 2011, 2015) have supported African savannah and forest elephants' status as separate species. The two species are believed to have diverged 6 million years ago. The third edition of Mammal Species of the World lists the two forms as full species and does not list any subspecies in its entry for Loxodonta africana. This approach is not taken by the United Nations Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre nor by the IUCN, both of which list L. cyclotis as a synonym of L. africana. Some evidence suggests that elephants of western Africa are a separate species, although this is disputed. The pygmy elephants of the Congo Basin, which have been suggested to be a separate species (Loxodonta pumilio) are probably forest elephants whose small size and/or early maturity are due to environmental conditions.
Evolution and extinct relatives
Over 161 extinct members and three major evolutionary radiations of the order Proboscidea have been recorded. The earliest proboscids, the African Eritherium and Phosphatherium of the late Paleocene, heralded the first radiation. The Eocene included Numidotherium, Moeritherium and Barytherium from Africa. These animals were relatively small and aquatic. Later on, genera such as Phiomia and Palaeomastodon arose; the latter likely inhabited forests and open woodlands. Proboscidean diversity declined during the Oligocene. One notable species of this epoch was Eritreum melakeghebrekristosi of the Horn of Africa, which may have been an ancestor to several later species. The beginning of the Miocene saw the second diversification, with the appearance of the deinotheres and the mammutids. The former were related to Barytherium, lived in Africa and Eurasia, while the latter may have descended from Eritreum and spread to North America.
The second radiation was represented by the emergence of the gomphotheres in the Miocene, which likely evolved from Eritreum and originated in Africa, spreading to every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Members of this group included Gomphotherium and Platybelodon. The third radiation started in the late Miocene and led to the arrival of the elephantids, which descended from, and slowly replaced, the gomphotheres. The African Primelephas gomphotheroides gave rise to Loxodonta, Mammuthus and Elephas. Loxodonta branched off earliest, around the Miocene and Pliocene boundary, while Mammuthus and Elephas diverged later during the early Pliocene. Loxodonta remained in Africa, while Mammuthus and Elephas spread to Eurasia, and the former reached North America. At the same time, the stegodontids, another proboscidean group descended from gomphotheres, spread throughout Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, China, southeast Asia and Japan. Mammutids continued to evolve into new species, such as the American mastodon.
At the beginning of the Pleistocene, elephantids experienced a high rate of speciation. Loxodonta atlantica became the most common species in northern and southern Africa but was replaced by Elephas iolensis later in the Pleistocene. Only when Elephas disappeared from Africa did Loxodonta become dominant once again, this time in the form of the modern species. Elephas diversified into new species in Asia, such as E. hysudricus and E. platycephus; the latter the likely ancestor of the modern Asian elephant. Mammuthus evolved into several species, including the well-known woolly mammoth. In the Late Pleistocene, most proboscidean species vanished during the Quaternary glaciation which killed off 50% of genera weighing over worldwide.
Proboscideans experienced several evolutionary trends, such as an increase in size, which led to many giant species that stood up to tall. As with other megaherbivores, including the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, the large size of elephants likely developed to allow them to survive on vegetation with low nutritional value. Their limbs grew longer and the feet shorter and broader. Early proboscideans developed longer mandibles and smaller craniums, while more advanced ones developed shorter mandibles, which shifted the head's centre of gravity. The skull grew larger, especially the cranium, while the neck shortened to provide better support for the skull. The increase in size led to the development and elongation of the mobile trunk to provide reach. The number of premolars, incisors and canines decreased. The cheek teeth (molars and premolars) became larger and more specialized, especially after elephants started to switch from C3-plants to C4-grasses, which caused their teeth to undergo a three-fold increase in teeth height as well as substantial multiplication of lamellae after about five million years ago. Only in the last million year or so did they return to a diet mainly consisting of C3 trees and shrubs. The upper second incisors grew into tusks, which varied in shape from straight, to curved (either upward or downward), to spiralled, depending on the species. Some proboscideans developed tusks from their lower incisors. Elephants retain certain features from their aquatic ancestry such as their middle ear anatomy and the internal testes of the males.
There has been some debate over the relationship of Mammuthus to Loxodonta or Elephas. Some DNA studies suggest Mammuthus is more closely related to the former, while others point to the latter. However, analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth (sequenced in 2005) supports Mammuthus being more closely related to Elephas. Morphological evidence supports Mammuthus and Elephas as sister taxa, while comparisons of protein albumin and collagen have concluded that all three genera are equally related to each other. Some scientists believe a cloned mammoth embryo could one day be implanted in an Asian elephant's womb.
Dwarf species
Several species of proboscideans lived on islands and experienced insular dwarfism. This occurred primarily during the Pleistocene, when some elephant populations became isolated by fluctuating sea levels, although dwarf elephants did exist earlier in the Pliocene. These elephants likely grew smaller on islands due to a lack of large or viable predator populations and limited resources. By contrast, small mammals such as rodents develop gigantism in these conditions. Dwarf proboscideans are known to have lived in Indonesia, the Channel Islands of California, and several islands of the Mediterranean.
Elephas celebensis of Sulawesi is believed to have descended from Elephas planifrons. Elephas falconeri of Malta and Sicily was only , and had probably evolved from the straight-tusked elephant. Other descendants of the straight-tusked elephant existed in Cyprus. Dwarf elephants of uncertain descent lived in Crete, Cyclades and Dodecanese, while dwarf mammoths are known to have lived in Sardinia. The Columbian mammoth colonised the Channel Islands and evolved into the pygmy mammoth. This species reached a height of and weighed . A population of small woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, now 87 miles north of the Siberian coast, as recently as 4,000 years ago. After their discovery in 1993, they were considered dwarf mammoths. This classification has been re-evaluated and since the Second International Mammoth Conference in 1999, these animals are no longer considered to be true "dwarf mammoths".
Anatomy and morphology
Elephants are the largest living terrestrial animals. African elephants stand and weigh while Asian elephants stand and weigh . In both cases, males are larger than females. Among African elephants, the forest form is smaller than the savannah form. The skeleton of the elephant is made up of 326–351 bones. The vertebrae are connected by tight joints, which limit the backbone's flexibility. African elephants have 21 pairs of ribs, while Asian elephants have 19 or 20 pairs.
An elephant's skull is resilient enough to withstand the forces generated by the leverage of the tusks and head-to-head collisions. The back of the skull is flattened and spread out, creating arches that protect the brain in every direction. The skull contains air cavities (sinuses) that reduce the weight of the skull while maintaining overall strength. These cavities give the inside of the skull a honeycomb-like appearance. The cranium is particularly large and provides enough room for the attachment of muscles to support the entire head. The lower jaw is solid and heavy. Because of the size of the head, the neck is relatively short to provide better support. Lacking a lacrimal apparatus, the eye relies on the harderian gland to keep it moist. A durable nictitating membrane protects the eye globe. The animal's field of vision is compromised by the location and limited mobility of the eyes. Elephants are considered dichromats and they can see well in dim light but not in bright light. The core body temperature averages 35.9 °C (97 °F), similar to a human. Like all mammals, an elephant can raise or lower its temperature a few degrees from the average in response to extreme environmental conditions.
Ears
Elephant ears have thick bases with thin tips. The ear flaps, or pinnae, contain numerous blood vessels called capillaries. Warm blood flows into the capillaries, helping to release excess body heat into the environment. This occurs when the pinnae are still, and the animal can enhance the effect by flapping them. Larger ear surfaces contain more capillaries, and more heat can be released. Of all the elephants, African bush elephants live in the hottest climates, and have the largest ear flaps. Elephants are capable of hearing at low frequencies and are most sensitive at 1 kHz.
Trunk
The trunk, or proboscis, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, although in early fetal life, the upper lip and trunk are separated. The trunk is elongated and specialised to become the elephant's most important and versatile appendage. It contains up to 150,000 separate muscle fascicles, with no bone and little fat. These paired muscles consist of two major types: superficial (surface) and internal. The former are divided into dorsals, ventrals and laterals, while the latter are divided into transverse and radiating muscles. The muscles of the trunk connect to a bony opening in the skull. The nasal septum is composed of tiny muscle units that stretch horizontally between the nostrils. Cartilage divides the nostrils at the base. As a muscular hydrostat, the trunk moves by precisely coordinated muscle contractions. The muscles work both with and against each other. A unique proboscis nerve – formed by the maxillary and facial nerves – runs along both sides of the trunk.
Elephant trunks have multiple functions, including breathing, olfaction, touching, grasping, and sound production. The animal's sense of smell may be four times as sensitive as that of a bloodhound. The trunk's ability to make powerful twisting and coiling movements allows it to collect food, wrestle with conspecifics, and lift up to . It can be used for delicate tasks, such as wiping an eye and checking an orifice, and is capable of cracking a peanut shell without breaking the seed. With its trunk, an elephant can reach items at heights of up to and dig for water under mud or sand. Individuals may show lateral preference when grasping with their trunks: some prefer to twist them to the left, others to the right. Elephants can suck up water both to drink and to spray on their bodies. An adult Asian elephant is capable of holding of water in its trunk. They will also spray dust or grass on themselves. When underwater, the elephant uses its trunk as a snorkel.
The African elephant has two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk that allow it to grasp and bring food to its mouth. The Asian elephant has only one, and relies more on wrapping around a food item and squeezing it into its mouth. Asian elephants have more muscle coordination and can perform more complex tasks. Losing the trunk would be detrimental to an elephant's survival, although in rare cases individuals have survived with shortened ones. One elephant has been observed to graze by kneeling on its front legs, raising on its hind legs and taking in grass with its lips. Floppy trunk syndrome is a condition of trunk paralysis in African bush elephants caused by the degradation of the peripheral nerves and muscles beginning at the tip.
Teeth
Elephants usually have 26 teeth: the incisors, known as the tusks, 12 deciduous premolars, and 12 molars. Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth, elephants are polyphyodonts that have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their lives. The chewing teeth are replaced six times in a typical elephant's lifetime. Teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging from the jaws vertically as in most mammals. Instead, new teeth grow in at the back of the mouth and move forward to push out the old ones. The first chewing tooth on each side of the jaw falls out when the elephant is two to three years old. The second set of chewing teeth falls out when the elephant is four to six years old. The third set is lost at 9–15 years of age, and set four lasts until 18–28 years of age. The fifth set of teeth lasts until the elephant is in its early 40s. The sixth (and usually final) set must last the elephant the rest of its life. Elephant teeth have loop-shaped dental ridges, which are thicker and more diamond-shaped in African elephants.
Tusks
The tusks of an elephant are modified incisors in the upper jaw. They replace deciduous milk teeth when the animal reaches 6–12 months of age and grow continuously at about a year. A newly developed tusk has a smooth enamel cap that eventually wears off. The dentine is known as ivory and its cross-section consists of crisscrossing line patterns, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped areas. As a piece of living tissue, a tusk is relatively soft; it is as hard as the mineral calcite. Much of the incisor can be seen externally, while the rest is fastened to a socket in the skull. At least one-third of the tusk contains the pulp and some have nerves stretching to the tip. Thus it would be difficult to remove it without harming the animal. When removed, ivory begins to dry up and crack if not kept cool and moist. Tusks serve multiple purposes. They are used for digging for water, salt, and roots; debarking or marking trees; and for moving trees and branches when clearing a path. When fighting, they are used to attack and defend, and to protect the trunk.
Like humans, who are typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually right- or left-tusked. The dominant tusk, called the master tusk, is generally more worn down, as it is shorter with a rounder tip. For the African elephants, tusks are present in both males and females, and are around the same length in both sexes, reaching up to , but those of males tend to be thicker. In earlier times elephant tusks weighing over 200 pounds (more than 90 kg) were not uncommon, though it is rare today to see any over 100 pounds.
In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks. Female Asians have very small ones, or none at all. Tuskless males exist and are particularly common among Sri Lankan elephants. Asian males can have tusks as long as Africans', but they are usually slimmer and lighter; the largest recorded was long and weighed . Hunting for elephant ivory in Africa and Asia has led to natural selection for shorter tusks and tusklessness.
Skin
An elephant's skin is generally very tough, at thick on the back and parts of the head. The skin around the mouth, anus and inside of the ear is considerably thinner. Elephants typically have grey skin, but African elephants look brown or reddish after wallowing in coloured mud. Asian elephants have some patches of depigmentation, particularly on the forehead and ears and the areas around them. Calves have brownish or reddish hair, especially on the head and back. As elephants mature, their hair darkens and becomes sparser, but dense concentrations of hair and bristles remain on the end of the tail as well as the chin, genitals and the areas around the eyes and ear openings. Normally the skin of an Asian elephant is covered with more hair than its African counterpart.
An elephant uses mud as a sunscreen, protecting its skin from ultraviolet light. Although tough, an elephant's skin is very sensitive. Without regular mud baths to protect it from burning, insect bites, and moisture loss, an elephant's skin suffers serious damage. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dust onto its body and this dries into a protective crust. Elephants have difficulty releasing heat through the skin because of their low surface-area-to-volume ratio, which is many times smaller than that of a human. They have even been observed lifting up their legs, presumably in an effort to expose their soles to the air.
Legs, locomotion and posture
To support the animal's weight, an elephant's limbs are positioned more vertically under the body than in most other mammals. The long bones of the limbs have cancellous bone in place of medullary cavities. This strengthens the bones while still allowing haematopoiesis. Both the front and hind limbs can support an elephant's weight, although 60% is borne by the front. Since the limb bones are placed on top of each other and under the body, an elephant can stand still for long periods of time without using much energy. Elephants are incapable of rotating their front legs, as the ulna and radius are fixed in pronation; the "palm" of the manus faces backward. The pronator quadratus and the pronator teres are either reduced or absent. The circular feet of an elephant have soft tissues or "cushion pads" beneath the manus or pes, which distribute the weight of the animal. They appear to have a sesamoid, an extra "toe" similar in placement to a giant panda's extra "thumb", that also helps in weight distribution. As many as five toenails can be found on both the front and hind feet.
Elephants can move both forwards and backwards, but cannot trot, jump, or gallop. They use only two gaits when moving on land, the walk and a faster gait similar to running. In walking, the legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders rising and falling while the foot is planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the fast gait does not meet all the criteria of running, although the elephant uses its legs much like other running animals, with the hips and shoulders falling and then rising while the feet are on the ground. Fast-moving elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their hind legs and can reach a top speed of . At this speed, most other quadrupeds are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg length. Spring-like kinetics could explain the difference between the motion of elephants and other animals. During locomotion, the cushion pads expand and contract, and reduce both the pain and noise that would come from a very heavy animal moving. Elephants are capable swimmers. They have been recorded swimming for up to six hours without touching the bottom, and have travelled as far as at a stretch and at speeds of up to .
Internal and sexual organs
The brain of an elephant weighs compared to for a human brain. While the elephant brain is larger overall, it is proportionally smaller. At birth, an elephant's brain already weighs 30–40% of its adult weight. The cerebrum and cerebellum are well developed, and the temporal lobes are so large that they bulge out laterally. The throat of an elephant appears to contain a pouch where it can store water for later use.
The heart of an elephant weighs . It has a double-pointed apex, an unusual trait among mammals. When standing, the elephant's heart beats approximately 30 times per minute. Unlike many other animals, the heart rate speeds up by 8 to 10 beats per minute when the elephant is lying down. The lungs are attached to the diaphragm, and breathing relies mainly on the diaphragm rather than the expansion of the ribcage. Connective tissue exists in place of the pleural cavity. This may allow the animal to deal with the pressure differences when its body is underwater and its trunk is breaking the surface for air, although this explanation has been questioned. Another possible function for this adaptation is that it helps the animal suck up water through the trunk. Elephants inhale mostly through the trunk, although some air goes through the mouth. They have a hindgut fermentation system, and their large and small intestines together reach in length. The majority of an elephant's food intake goes undigested despite the process lasting up to a day.
A male elephant's testes are located internally near the kidneys. The elephant's penis can reach a length of and a diameter of at the base. It is S-shaped when fully erect and has a Y-shaped orifice. The female has a well-developed clitoris at up to . The vulva is located between the hind legs instead of near the tail as in most mammals. Determining pregnancy status can be difficult due to the animal's large abdominal cavity. The female's mammary glands occupy the space between the front legs, which puts the suckling calf within reach of the female's trunk. Elephants have a unique organ, the temporal gland, located in both sides of the head. This organ is associated with sexual behaviour, and males secrete a fluid from it when in musth. Females have also been observed with secretions from the temporal glands.
Behaviour and life history
Ecology and activities
The African bush elephant can be found in habitats as diverse as dry savannahs, deserts, marshes, and lake shores, and in elevations from sea level to mountain areas above the snow line. Forest elephants mainly live in equatorial forests, but will enter gallery forests and ecotones between forests and savannahs. Asian elephants prefer areas with a mix of grasses, low woody plants and trees, primarily inhabiting dry thorn-scrub forests in southern India and Sri Lanka and evergreen forests in Malaya. Elephants are herbivorous and will eat leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, grass and roots. They are born with sterile intestines, and require bacteria obtained from their mothers feces to digest vegetation. African elephants are mostly browsers while Asian elephants are mainly grazers. They can consume as much as of food and of water in a day. Elephants tend to stay near water sources. Major feeding bouts take place in the morning, afternoon and night. At midday, elephants rest under trees and may doze off while standing. Sleeping occurs at night while the animal is lying down. Elephants average 3–4 hours of sleep per day. Both males and family groups typically move a day, but distances as far as have been recorded in the Etosha region of Namibia. Elephants go on seasonal migrations in search of food, water and mates. At Chobe National Park, Botswana, herds travel to visit the river when the local waterholes dry up.
Because of their large size, elephants have a huge impact on their environments and are considered keystone species. Their habit of uprooting trees and undergrowth can transform savannah into grasslands; when they dig for water during drought, they create waterholes that can be used by other animals. They can enlarge waterholes when they bathe and wallow in them. At Mount Elgon, elephants excavate caves that are used by ungulates, hyraxes, bats, birds and insects. Elephants are important seed dispersers; African forest elephants ingest and defecate seeds, with either no effect or a positive effect on germination. The seeds are typically dispersed in large amounts over great distances. In Asian forests, large seeds require giant herbivores like elephants and rhinoceros for transport and dispersal. This ecological niche cannot be filled by the next largest herbivore, the tapir. Because most of the food elephants eat goes undigested, their dung can provide food for other animals, such as dung beetles and monkeys. Elephants can have a negative impact on ecosystems. At Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, the overabundance of elephants has threatened several species of small birds that depend on woodlands. Their weight can compact the soil, which causes the rain to run off, leading to erosion.
Elephants typically coexist peacefully with other herbivores, which will usually stay out of their way. Some aggressive interactions between elephants and rhinoceros have been recorded. At Aberdare National Park, Kenya, a rhino attacked an elephant calf and was killed by the other elephants in the group. At Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, South Africa, introduced young orphan elephants went on a killing spree that claimed the lives of 36 rhinos during the 1990s, but ended with the introduction of older males. The size of adult elephants makes them nearly invulnerable to predators, though there are rare reports of adult elephants falling prey to tigers. Calves may be preyed on by lions, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs in Africa and tigers in Asia. The lions of Savuti, Botswana, have adapted to hunting juvenile elephants during the dry season, and a pride of 30 lions has been recorded killing juvenile individuals between the ages of four and eleven years. Elephants appear to distinguish between the growls of larger predators like tigers and smaller ones like leopards (which have not been recorded killing calves); the latter they react less fearfully and more aggressively to. Elephants tend to have high numbers of parasites, particularly nematodes, compared to other herbivores. This is due to lower predation pressures that would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads.
Social organisation
Female elephants spend their entire lives in tight-knit matrilineal family groups, some of which are made up of more than ten members, including three pairs of mothers with offspring, and are led by the matriarch which is often the eldest female. She remains leader of the group until death or if she no longer has the energy for the role; a study on zoo elephants showed that when the matriarch died, the levels of faecal corticosterone ('stress hormone') dramatically increased in the surviving elephants. When her tenure is over, the matriarch's eldest daughter takes her place; this occurs even if her sister is present. The older matriarchs tend to be more effective decision-makers.
The social circle of the female elephant does not necessarily end with the small family unit. In the case of elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, a female's life involves interaction with other families, clans, and subpopulations. Families may associate and bond with each other, forming what are known as bond groups. These are typically made of two family groups. During the dry season, elephant families may cluster together and form another level of social organisation known as the clan. Groups within these clans do not form strong bonds, but they defend their dry-season ranges against other clans. There are typically nine groups in a clan. The Amboseli elephant population is further divided into the "central" and "peripheral" subpopulations.
Some elephant populations in India and Sri Lanka have similar basic social organisations. There appear to be cohesive family units and loose aggregations. They have been observed to have "nursing units" and "juvenile-care units". In southern India, elephant populations may contain family groups, bond groups and possibly clans. Family groups tend to be small, consisting of one or two adult females and their offspring. A group containing more than two adult females plus offspring is known as a "joint family". Malay elephant populations have even smaller family units, and do not have any social organisation higher than a family or bond group. Groups of African forest elephants typically consist of one adult female with one to three offspring. These groups appear to interact with each other, especially at forest clearings.
The social life of the adult male is very different. As he matures, a male spends more time at the edge of his group and associates with outside males or even other families. At Amboseli, young males spend over 80% of their time away from their families when they are 14–15. The adult females of the group start to show aggression towards the male, which encourages him to permanently leave. When males do leave, they either live alone or with other males. The former is typical of bulls in dense forests. Asian males are usually solitary, but occasionally form groups of two or more individuals; the largest consisted of seven bulls. Larger bull groups consisting of over 10 members occur only among African bush elephants, the largest of which numbered up to 144 individuals. A dominance hierarchy exists among males, whether they range socially or solitarily. Dominance depends on the age, size and sexual condition. Old bulls appear to control the aggression of younger ones and prevent them from forming "gangs". Adult males and females come together for reproduction. Bulls appear to associate with family groups if an oestrous cow is present.
Sexual behaviour
Musth
Adult males enter a state of increased testosterone known as musth. In a population in southern India, males first enter musth at the age of 15, but it is not very intense until they are older than 25. At Amboseli, bulls under 24 do not go into musth, while half of those aged 25–35 and all those over 35 do. Young bulls appear to enter musth during the dry season (January–May), while older bulls go through it during the wet season (June–December). The main characteristic of a bull's musth is a fluid secreted from the temporal gland that runs down the side of his face. He may urinate with his penis still in his sheath, which causes the urine to spray on his hind legs. Behaviours associated with musth include walking with the head held high and swinging, picking at the ground with the tusks, marking, rumbling and waving only one ear at a time. This can last from a day to four months.
Males become extremely aggressive during musth. Among both musth and nonmusth bulls, size is the determining factor in agonistic encounters. In contests between individuals from the two groups, musth bulls win the majority of the time, even when the non-musth bull is larger. A male may stop showing signs of musth when he encounters a musth male of higher rank. Those of equal rank tend to avoid each other. Agonistic encounters typically consist of threat displays, chases and minor sparring with the tusks. Serious fights are rare.
Mating
Elephants are polygynous breeders, and copulations are most frequent during the peak of the wet season. A cow in oestrus releases chemical signals (pheromones) in her urine and vaginal secretions to signal her readiness to mate. A bull will follow a potential mate and assess her condition with the flehmen response, which requires the male to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and bring it to the vomeronasal organ. The oestrous cycle of a cow lasts 14–16 weeks with a 4–6-week follicular phase and an 8–10-week luteal phase. While most mammals have one surge of luteinizing hormone during the follicular phase, elephants have two. The first (or anovulatory) surge, could signal to males that the female is in oestrus by changing her scent, but ovulation does not occur until the second (or ovulatory) surge. Fertility rates in cows decline around 45–50 years of age.
Bulls engage in a behaviour known as mate-guarding, where they follow oestrous females and defend them from other males. Most mate-guarding is done by musth males, and females actively seek to be guarded by them, particularly older ones. Thus these bulls have more reproductive success. Musth appears to signal to females the condition of the male, as weak or injured males do not have normal musths. For young females, the approach of an older bull can be intimidating, so her relatives stay nearby to provide support and reassurance. During copulation, the male lays his trunk over the female's back. The penis is very mobile, being able to move independently of the pelvis. Prior to mounting, it curves forward and upward. Copulation lasts about 45 seconds and does not involve pelvic thrusting or ejaculatory pause.
Homosexual behaviour is frequent in both sexes. As in heterosexual interactions, this involves mounting. Male elephants sometimes stimulate each other by playfighting and "championships" may form between old bulls and younger males. Female same-sex behaviours have been documented only in captivity where they are known to masturbate one another with their trunks.
Birthing and calves
Gestation in elephants typically lasts around two years with interbirth intervals usually lasting four to five years. Births tend to take place during the wet season. Calves are born tall and weigh around . Typically, only a single young is born, but twins sometimes occur. The relatively long pregnancy is maintained by five corpus luteums (as opposed to one in most mammals) and gives the foetus more time to develop, particularly the brain and trunk. As such, newborn elephants are precocial and quickly stand and walk to follow their mother and family herd. A new calf is usually the centre of attention for herd members. Adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother is intolerant of other herd members near her young. Alloparenting – where a calf is cared for by someone other than its mother – takes place in some family groups. Allomothers are typically two to twelve years old. When a predator is near, the family group gathers together with the calves in the centre.
For the first few days, the newborn is unsteady on its feet, and needs the support of its mother. It relies on touch, smell and hearing, as its eyesight is poor. It has little precise control over its trunk, which wiggles around and may cause it to trip. By its second week of life, the calf can walk more firmly and has more control over its trunk. After its first month, a calf can pick up, hold and put objects in its mouth, but cannot suck water through the trunk and must drink directly through the mouth. It is still dependent on its mother and keeps close to her.
For its first three months, a calf relies entirely on milk from its mother for nutrition after which it begins to forage for vegetation and can use its trunk to collect water. At the same time, improvements in lip and leg coordination occur. Calves continue to suckle at the same rate as before until their sixth month, after which they become more independent when feeding. By nine months, mouth, trunk and foot coordination is perfected. After a year, a calf's abilities to groom, drink, and feed itself are fully developed. It still needs its mother for nutrition and protection from predators for at least another year. Suckling bouts tend to last 2–4 min/hr for a calf younger than a year and it continues to suckle until it reaches three years of age or older. Suckling after two years may serve to maintain growth rate, body condition and reproductive ability. Play behaviour in calves differs between the sexes; females run or chase each other, while males play-fight. The former are sexually mature by the age of nine years while the latter become mature around 14–15 years. Adulthood starts at about 18 years of age in both sexes. Elephants have long lifespans, reaching 60–70 years of age. Lin Wang, a captive male Asian elephant, lived for 86 years.
Communication
Touching is an important form of communication among elephants. Individuals greet each other by stroking or wrapping their trunks; the latter also occurs during mild competition. Older elephants use trunk-slaps, kicks and shoves to discipline younger ones. Individuals of any age and sex will touch each other's mouths, temporal glands and genitals, particularly during meetings or when excited. This allows individuals to pick up chemical cues. Touching is especially important for mother–calf communication. When moving, elephant mothers will touch their calves with their trunks or feet when side-by-side or with their tails if the calf is behind them. If a calf wants to rest, it will press against its mother's front legs and when it wants to suckle, it will touch her breast or leg.
Visual displays mostly occur in agonistic situations. Elephants will try to appear more threatening by raising their heads and spreading their ears. They may add to the display by shaking their heads and snapping their ears, as well as throwing dust and vegetation. They are usually bluffing when performing these actions. Excited elephants may raise their trunks. Submissive ones will lower their heads and trunks, as well as flatten their ears against their necks, while those that accept a challenge will position their ears in a V shape.
Elephants produce several sounds, usually through the larynx, though some may be modified by the trunk. Perhaps the most well known is the trumpet, which is made during excitement, distress or aggression. Fighting elephants may roar or squeal, and wounded ones may bellow. Rumbles are produced during mild arousal and some appear to be infrasonic. Infrasonic calls are important, particularly for long-distance communication, in both Asian and African elephants. For Asian elephants, these calls have a frequency of 14–24 Hz, with sound pressure levels of 85–90 dB and last 10–15 seconds. For African elephants, calls range from 15–35 Hz with sound pressure levels as high as 117 dB, allowing communication for many kilometres, with a possible maximum range of around .
At Amboseli, several different infrasonic calls have been identified. A greeting rumble is emitted by members of a family group after having been separated for several hours. Contact calls are soft, unmodulated sounds made by individuals that have been separated from their group and may be responded to with a "contact answer" call that starts out loud, but becomes softer. A "let's go" soft rumble is emitted by the matriarch to signal to the other herd members that it is time to move to another spot. Bulls in musth emit a distinctive, low-frequency pulsated rumble nicknamed the "motorcycle". Musth rumbles may be answered by the "female chorus", a low-frequency, modulated chorus produced by several cows. A loud postcopulatory call may be made by an oestrous cow after mating. When a cow has mated, her family may produce calls of excitement known as the "mating pandemonium".
Elephants are known to communicate with seismics, vibrations produced by impacts on the earth's surface or acoustical waves that travel through it. They appear to rely on their leg and shoulder bones to transmit the signals to the middle ear. When detecting seismic signals, the animals lean forward and put more weight on their larger front feet; this is known as the "freezing behaviour". Elephants possess several adaptations suited for seismic communication. The cushion pads of the feet contain cartilaginous nodes and have similarities to the acoustic fat found in marine mammals like toothed whales and sirenians. A unique sphincter-like muscle around the ear canal constricts the passageway, thereby dampening acoustic signals and allowing the animal to hear more seismic signals. Elephants appear to use seismics for a number of purposes. An individual running or mock charging can create seismic signals that can be heard at great distances. When detecting the seismics of an alarm call signalling danger from predators, elephants enter a defensive posture and family groups will pack together. Seismic waveforms produced by locomotion appear to travel distances of up to while those from vocalisations travel .
Intelligence and cognition
Elephants exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition that has also been demonstrated in some apes and dolphins. One study of a captive female Asian elephant suggested the animal was capable of learning and distinguishing between several visual and some acoustic discrimination pairs. This individual was even able to score a high accuracy rating when re-tested with the same visual pairs a year later. Elephants are among the species known to use tools. An Asian elephant has been observed modifying branches and using them as flyswatters. Tool modification by these animals is not as advanced as that of chimpanzees. Elephants are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory. This could have a factual basis; they possibly have cognitive maps to allow them to remember large-scale spaces over long periods of time. Individuals appear to be able to keep track of the current location of their family members.
Scientists debate the extent to which elephants feel emotion. They appear to show interest in the bones of their own kind, regardless of whether they are related. As with chimps and dolphins, a dying or dead elephant may elicit attention and aid from others, including those from other groups. This has been interpreted as expressing "concern", however, others would dispute such an interpretation as being anthropomorphic; the Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour (1987) advised that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion".
Conservation issues
Status
African elephants were listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2008, with no independent assessment of the conservation status of the two forms. In 1979, Africa had an estimated minimum population of 1.3 million elephants, with a possible upper limit of 3.0 million. By 1989, the population was estimated to be 609,000; with 277,000 in Central Africa, 110,000 in eastern Africa, 204,000 in southern Africa, and 19,000 in western Africa. About 214,000 elephants were estimated to live in the rainforests, fewer than had previously been thought. From 1977 to 1989, elephant populations declined by 74% in East Africa. After 1987, losses in elephant numbers accelerated, and savannah populations from Cameroon to Somalia experienced a decline of 80%. African forest elephants had a total loss of 43%. Population trends in southern Africa were mixed, with anecdotal reports of losses in Zambia, Mozambique and Angola, while populations grew in Botswana and Zimbabwe and were stable in South Africa. Conversely, studies in 2005 and 2007 found populations in eastern and southern Africa were increasing by an average annual rate of 4.0%. Due to the vast areas involved, assessing the total African elephant population remains difficult and involves an element of guesswork. The IUCN estimates a total of around 440,000 individuals for 2012.
African elephants receive at least some legal protection in every country where they are found, but 70% of their range exists outside protected areas. Successful conservation efforts in certain areas have led to high population densities. As of 2008, local numbers were controlled by contraception or translocation. Large-scale cullings ceased in 1988, when Zimbabwe abandoned the practice. In 1989, the African elephant was listed under Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), making trade illegal. Appendix II status (which allows restricted trade) was given to elephants in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe in 1997 and South Africa in 2000. In some countries, sport hunting of the animals is legal; Botswana, Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have CITES export quotas for elephant trophies.
In 2008, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60–75 years, while CITES lists the species under Appendix I. Asian elephants once ranged from Syria and Iraq (the subspecies Elephas maximus asurus), to China (up to the Yellow River) and Java. It is now extinct in these areas, and the current range of Asian elephants is highly fragmented. The total population of Asian elephants is estimated to be around 40,000–50,000, although this may be a loose estimate. It is likely that around half of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats appears to be increasing.
Threats
The poaching of elephants for their ivory, meat and hides has been one of the major threats to their existence. Historically, numerous cultures made ornaments and other works of art from elephant ivory, and its use rivalled that of gold. The ivory trade contributed to the African elephant population decline in the late 20th century. This prompted international bans on ivory imports, starting with the United States in June 1989, and followed by bans in other North American countries, western European countries, and Japan. Around the same time, Kenya destroyed all its ivory stocks. CITES approved an international ban on ivory that went into effect in January 1990. Following the bans, unemployment rose in India and China, where the ivory industry was important economically. By contrast, Japan and Hong Kong, which were also part of the industry, were able to adapt and were not badly affected. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi wanted to continue the ivory trade and were allowed to, since their local elephant populations were healthy, but only if their supplies were from elephants that had been culled or died of natural causes.
The ban allowed the elephant to recover in parts of Africa. In January 2012, 650 elephants in Bouba Njida National Park, Cameroon, were killed by Chadian raiders. This has been called "one of the worst concentrated killings" since the ivory ban. Asian elephants are potentially less vulnerable to the ivory trade, as females usually lack tusks. Still, members of the species have been killed for their ivory in some areas, such as Periyar National Park in India. China was the biggest market for poached ivory but announced they would phase out the legal domestic manufacture and sale of ivory products in May, 2015, and in September 2015 China and the U.S.A. "said they would enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory."
Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and fragmentation. The Asian elephant lives in areas with some of the highest human populations. Because they need larger amounts of land than other sympatric terrestrial mammals, they are the first to be affected by human encroachment. In extreme cases, elephants may be confined to small islands of forest among human-dominated landscapes. Elephants cannot coexist with humans in agricultural areas due to their size and food requirements. Elephants commonly trample and consume crops, which contributes to conflicts with humans, and both elephants and humans have died by the hundreds as a result. Mitigating these conflicts is important for conservation. One proposed solution is the provision of ‘urban corridors’ which allow the animals access to key areas.
Elephants and humans
Working animal
Elephants have been working animals since at least the Indus Valley Civilization and continue to be used in modern times. There were 13,000–16,500 working elephants employed in Asia as of 2000. These animals are typically captured from the wild when they are 10–20 years old, when they can be trained quickly and easily, and will have a longer working life. They were traditionally captured with traps and lassos, but since 1950, tranquillisers have been used. Individuals of the Asian species are more commonly trained to be working animals, although the practice has also been attempted in Africa. The taming of African elephants in the Belgian Congo began by decree of Leopold II of Belgium during the 19th century and continues to the present with the Api Elephant Domestication Centre.
Asian elephants perform tasks such as hauling loads into remote areas, moving logs into trucks, transporting tourists around national parks, pulling wagons and leading religious processions. In northern Thailand, the animals are used to digest coffee beans for Black Ivory coffee. They are valued over mechanised tools because they can work in relatively deep water, require relatively little maintenance, need only vegetation and water as fuel and can be trained to memorise specific tasks. Elephants can be trained to respond to over 30 commands. Musth bulls can be difficult and dangerous to work with and are chained until the condition passes. In India, many working elephants are alleged to have been subject to abuse. They and other captive elephants are thus protected under the The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960.
Warfare
Historically, elephants were considered formidable instruments of war. They were equipped with armour to protect their sides, and their tusks were given sharp points of iron or brass if they were large enough. War elephants were trained to grasp an enemy soldier and toss him to the person riding on them or to pin the soldier to the ground and impale him.
One of the earliest references to war elephants is in the Indian epic Mahabharata (written in the 4th century BCE, but said to describe events between the 11th and 8th centuries BCE). They were not used as much as horse-drawn chariots by either the Pandavas or Kauravas. During the Magadha Kingdom (which began in the 6th century BCE), elephants began to achieve greater cultural importance than horses, and later Indian kingdoms used war elephants extensively; 3,000 of them were used in the Nandas (5th and 4th centuries BCE) army, while 9,000 may have been used in the Mauryan army (between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE). The Arthashastra (written around 300 BCE) advised the Mauryan government to reserve some forests for wild elephants for use in the army, and to execute anyone who killed them. From South Asia, the use of elephants in warfare spread west to Persia and east to Southeast Asia. The Persians used them during the Achaemenid Empire (between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE), while Southeast Asian states first used war elephants possibly as early as the 5th century BCE and continued to the 20th century.
Alexander the Great trained his foot soldiers to injure the animals and cause them to panic during wars with both the Persians and Indians. Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander's generals, used corps of Asian elephants during his reign as the ruler of Egypt (which began in 323 BCE). His son and successor Ptolemy II (who began his rule in 285 BCE) obtained his supply of elephants further south in Nubia. From then on, war elephants were employed in the Mediterranean and North Africa throughout the classical period. The Greek king Pyrrhus used elephants in his attempted invasion of Rome in 280 BCE. While they frightened the Roman horses, they were not decisive and Pyrrhus ultimately lost the battle. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps during his war with the Romans and reached the Po Valley in 217 BCE with all of them alive, but they later succumbed to disease.
Zoos and circuses
Elephants were historically kept for display in the menageries of Ancient Egypt, China, Greece and Rome. The Romans in particular pitted them against humans and other animals in gladiator events. In the modern era, elephants have traditionally been a major part of zoos and circuses around the world. In circuses, they are trained to perform tricks. The most famous circus elephant was probably Jumbo (1861 – 15 September 1885), who was a major attraction in the Barnum & Bailey Circus. These animals do not reproduce well in captivity, due to the difficulty of handling musth bulls and limited understanding of female oestrous cycles. Asian elephants were always more common than their African counterparts in modern zoos and circuses. After CITES listed the Asian elephant under Appendix I in 1975, the number of African elephants in zoos increased in the 1980s, although the import of Asians continued. Subsequently, the US received many of its captive African elephants from Zimbabwe, which had an overabundance of the animals. As of 2000, around 1,200 Asian and 700 African elephants were kept in zoos and circuses. The largest captive population is in North America, which has an estimated 370 Asian and 350 African elephants. About 380 Asians and 190 Africans are known to exist in Europe, and Japan has around 70 Asians and 67 Africans.
Keeping elephants in zoos has met with some controversy. Proponents of zoos argue that they offer researchers easy access to the animals and provide money and expertise for preserving their natural habitats, as well as safekeeping for the species. Critics claim that the animals in zoos are under physical and mental stress. Elephants have been recorded displaying stereotypical behaviours in the form of swaying back and forth, trunk swaying or route tracing. This has been observed in 54% of individuals in UK zoos. Elephants in European zoos appear to have shorter lifespans than their wild counterparts at only 17 years, although other studies suggest that zoo elephants live as long those in the wild.
The use of elephants in circuses has also been controversial; the Humane Society of the United States has accused circuses of mistreating and distressing their animals. In testimony to a US federal court in 2009, Barnum & Bailey Circus CEO Kenneth Feld acknowledged that circus elephants are struck behind their ears, under their chins and on their legs with metal-tipped prods, called bull hooks or ankus. Feld stated that these practices are necessary to protect circus workers and acknowledged that an elephant trainer was reprimanded for using an electric shock device, known as a hot shot or electric prod, on an elephant. Despite this, he denied that any of these practices harm elephants. Some trainers have tried to train elephants without the use of physical punishment. Ralph Helfer is known to have relied on gentleness and reward when training his animals, including elephants and lions.
Disease transmission
Like many mammals, elephants can contract and transmit diseases to humans, one of which is tuberculosis. In 2012, two elephants in Tete d’Or zoo, Lyon were diagnosed with the disease. Due to the threat of transmitting tuberculosis to other animals or visitors to the zoo, their euthanasia was initially ordered by city authorities but a court later overturned this decision. At an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, a 54-year-old African elephant was considered to be the source of tuberculosis infections among eight workers.
Attacks
Elephants can exhibit bouts of aggressive behaviour and engage in destructive actions against humans. In Africa, groups of adolescent elephants damaged homes in villages after cullings in the 1970s and 1980s. Because of the timing, these attacks have been interpreted as vindictive. In India, male elephants regularly enter villages at night, destroying homes and killing people. Elephants killed around 300 people between 2000 and 2004 in Jharkhand, while in Assam 239 people were reportedly killed between 2001 and 2006.
Local people have reported their belief that some elephants were drunk during their attacks, although officials have disputed this explanation. Purportedly drunk elephants attacked an Indian village a second time in December 2002, killing six people, which led to the killing of about 200 elephants by locals.
Cultural depictions
Elephants have been represented in art since Paleolithic times. Africa in particular contains many rock paintings and engravings of the animals, especially in the Sahara and southern Africa. In the Far East, the animals are depicted as motifs in Hindu and Buddhist shrines and temples. Elephants were often difficult to portray by people with no first-hand experience with them. The ancient Romans, who kept the animals in captivity, depicted anatomically accurate elephants on mosaics in Tunisia and Sicily. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, when Europeans had little to no access to the animals, elephants were portrayed more like fantasy creatures. They were often depicted with horse- or bovine-like bodies with trumpet-like trunks and tusks like a boar; some were even given hooves. Elephants were commonly featured in motifs by the stonemasons of the Gothic churches. As more elephants began to be sent to European kings as gifts during the 15th century, depictions of them became more accurate, including one made by Leonardo da Vinci. Despite this, some Europeans continued to portray them in a more stylised fashion. Max Ernst's 1921 surrealist painting The Elephant Celebes depicts an elephant as a silo with a trunk-like hose protruding from it.
Elephants have been the subject of religious beliefs. The Mbuti people believe that the souls of their dead ancestors resided in elephants. Similar ideas existed among other African tribes, who believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. During the 10th century AD, the people of Igbo-Ukwu buried their leaders with elephant tusks. The animals' religious importance is only totemic in Africa but is much more significant in Asia. In Sumatra, elephants have been associated with lightning. Likewise in Hinduism, they are linked with thunderstorms as Airavata, the father of all elephants, represents both lightning and rainbows. One of the most important Hindu deities, the elephant-headed Ganesha, is ranked equal with the supreme gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Ganesha is associated with writers and merchants and it is believed that he can give people success as well as grant them their desires. In Buddhism, Buddha is said to have been a white elephant reincarnated as a human. In Islamic tradition, the year 570, when Muhammad was born, is known as the Year of the Elephant. Elephants were thought to be religious themselves by the Romans, who believed that they worshipped the sun and stars. The 'Land of a Million Elephants' was the name of the ancient kingdom of Lan Xang and later the Lan Chang Province and it is now a nickname for Laos.
Elephants are ubiquitous in Western popular culture as emblems of the exotic, especially since – as with the giraffe, hippopotamus and rhinoceros – there are no similar animals familiar to Western audiences. The use of the elephant as a symbol of the US Republican Party began with an 1874 cartoon by Thomas Nast. As characters, elephants are most common in children's stories, in which they are generally cast as models of exemplary behaviour. They are typically surrogates for humans with ideal human values. Many stories tell of isolated young elephants returning to a close-knit community, such as "The Elephant's Child" from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, Disney's Dumbo and Kathryn and Byron Jackson's The Saggy Baggy Elephant. Other elephant heroes given human qualities include Jean de Brunhoff's Babar, David McKee's Elmer and Dr. Seuss's Horton.
Several cultural references emphasise the elephant's size and exotic uniqueness. For instance, a "white elephant" is a byword for something expensive, useless and bizarre. The expression "elephant in the room" refers to an obvious truth that is ignored or otherwise unaddressed. The story of the blind men and an elephant teaches that reality may be viewed by different perspectives.
See also
Animal track
Beehive fences use elephants' fear of bees to minimise conflict with humans
Desert elephant
Elephants' graveyard
History of elephants in Europe
List of individual elephants
Motty, captive hybrid of an Asian and African elephant
Temple elephant
White elephant
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
Wikisource: "The Blindmen and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe
Nance, Susan (2013). Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
External links
Pure Nature: Are Elephants Headed Toward Extinction? YouTube video by AlliantContent
ElephantVoices—information about elephant communication
Category:Herbivorous animals
Category:Tool-using mammals
Category:Articles containing video clips
Category:Pliocene first appearances |
2016-01 | Tipu_Sultan-696984121 | Tipu_Sultan | Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan ( Urdu:ٹیپو سلطان, Kannada : ಟಿಪ್ಪು ಸುಲ್ತಾನ್ ) (20 November 1750 – 4 May 1799), (Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Shahab) also known as the Tiger of Mysore, and Tipu Sahib, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore. Tipu introduced a number of administrative innovations during his rule, including his coinage, a new Mauludi lunisolar calendar, and a new land revenue system which initiated the growth of Mysore silk industry. Tipu expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets and wrote the military manual Fathul Mujahidin, considered a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery. He deployed the rockets against advances of British forces and their allies in their 1792 and 1799 Siege of Srirangapatna.
Napoleon, the French commander-in-chief who later became emperor, sought an alliance with Tipu. In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British, and in Mysore's struggles with other surrounding powers, both Tipu and his father used their French trained army against the Marathas, Sira, and rulers of Malabar, Kodagu, Bednore, Carnatic, and Travancore. During Tipu's childhood, his father rose to take power in Mysore, and upon his father's death in 1782, Tipu succeeded to a large kingdom bordered by the Krishna River in the north, the Eastern Ghats in the east, and the Arabian Sea in the west. He won important victories against the British in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and negotiated the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore with them after his father Hyder Ali suddenly died from cancer in December 1782 during the Second Anglo-Mysore War.
Tipu engaged in expansionist attacks against his neighbours. He remained an implacable enemy of the British East India Company, bringing them into renewed conflict with his attack on British-allied Travancore in 1789. In the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu was forced into the humiliating Treaty of Seringapatam, losing a number of previously conquered territories, including Malabar and Mangalore. He sent emissaries to foreign states, including the Ottoman Turkey, Afghanistan, and France, in an attempt to rally opposition to the British. In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the forces of the British East India Company, supported by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad, defeated Tipu and he was killed on 4 May 1799 while defending his fort of Srirangapatna. Tipu Sultan's image in India is complicated where he is regarded both as a secular ruler who fought against British colonialism as well as an anti-Hindu tyrant.
Early years of Tipu Sultan
Childhood
Tipu Sultan was born on 20 November 1750 (Friday, 20th Dhu al-Hijjah, 1163 AH) at Devanahalli, in present-day Bengaluru Rural district, about north of Bengaluru city. He was named "Tipu Sultan" after the saint Tipu Mastan Aulia of Arcot. Tipu was also called "Fath Ali" after his grandfather Fatah Muhammad. Tipu was born at Devanhalli, the son of Haidar Ali. Himself illiterate, Haidar was very particular in giving his eldest son a prince's education and a very early exposure to military and political affairs. From the age of 17 Tipu was given independent charge of important diplomatic and military missions. He was his father's right arm in the wars from which Haidar emerged as the most powerful ruler of southern India.
Tipu's father, Hyder Ali, was a military officer in service to the Kingdom of Mysore; he rapidly rose in power, and became the de facto ruler of Mysore in 1761. Hyder himself claimed descent from the Quraysh tribe of Arabs, the tribe of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Hyder's father, Fatah Muhammad, was born in Kolar, and served as a commander of 50 men in the bamboo rocket artillery (mainly used for signalling) in the army of the Nawab of Carnatic. Fatah Muhammad eventually entered the service of the Wodeyar Rajas of the Kingdom of Mysore. Tipu's mother Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa was the daughter of Mir Muin-ud-Din, the governor of the fort of Kadapa. Hyder Ali appointed able teachers to give Tipu an early education in subjects like Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu), Persian, Arabic, Kannada, Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, riding, shooting and fencing. Tipu's wife was Sindh Sultan and grandson was Sahib sindh Sultan.
Early military service
Tipu Sultan was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employment of his father. At age 15, he accompanied his father against the British in the First Mysore War in 1766. He commanded a corps of cavalry in the invasion of Carnatic in 1767 at age 16. He also distinguished himself in the First Anglo-Maratha War of 1775–1779.
Alexander Beatson, who published a volume on the Fourth Mysore War entitled View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun, described Tipu Sultan as follows: "His stature was about five feet eight inches; he had a short neck, square shoulders, and was rather corpulent: his limbs were small, particularly his feet and hands; he had large full eyes, small arched eyebrows, and an aquiline nose; his complexion was fair, and the general expression of his countenance, not void of dignity".
Second Anglo-Mysore War
In 1779, the British captured the French-controlled port of Mahé, which Tipu had placed under his protection, providing some troops for its defence. In response, Hyder launched an invasion of the Carnatic, with the aim of driving the British out of Madras. During this campaign in September 1780, Tipu Sultan was dispatched by Hyder Ali with 10,000 men and 18 guns to intercept Colonel Baillie who was on his way to join Sir Hector Munro. In the Battle of Pollilur, Tipu decisively defeated Baillie. Out of 360 Europeans, about 200 were captured alive, and the sepoys, who were about 3800 men, suffered very high casualties. Munro was moving south with a separate force to join Baillie, but on hearing the news of the defeat he was forced to retreat to Madras, abandoning his artillery in a water tank at Kanchipuram.
Tipu Sultan defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 February 1782. Braithwaite's forces, consisting of 100 Europeans, 300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field pieces, was the standard size of the colonial armies. Tipu Sultan seized all the guns and took the entire detachment prisoner. In December 1781 Tipu Sultan successfully seized Chittur from the British. Tipu Sultan had thus gained sufficient military experience by the time Hyder Ali died on Friday, 6 December 1782 – some historians put it at 2 or 3 days later or before, (Hijri date being 1 Muharram, 1197 as per some records in Persian – there may be a difference of 1 to 3 days due to the Lunar Calendar). Tipu Sultan realised that the British were a new kind of threat in India. He became the ruler of Mysore on Sunday, 22 December 1782 (The inscriptions in some of Tipu's regalia showing it as 20 Muharram, 1197 Hijri – Sunday), in a simple coronation ceremony.
He then worked to check the advances of the British by making alliances with the Marathas and the Mughals.
The Second Mysore War came to an end with the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore. It was the last occasion when an Indian king dictated terms to the British, and the treaty is a prestigious document in the history of India.
Tanjore abductions
The war is also remembered for alleged excesses committed by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in Tanjore. During the period of occupation which lasted six months, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan are believed to have impoverished the country, destroying crops and cattle. As late as 1785, the Dutch missionary Christian Friedrich Schwarz describes Tipu's alleged abduction of 12,000 children from the region. The economic output of Tanjore is estimated to have fallen by 90% between 1780 and 1782. The ravages of Hyder and Tipu were followed by alleged expeditions of plunder launched by the Kallars. The economic devastation wrought by these attacks was so severe that Tanjore's economy did not recover until the start of the 19th century; the era is referred to in local folklore as the Hyderakalam.
Ruler of the Mysore State
Muhammad Falak Ali taught Tipu how to fight. While leading a predominantly Hindu country, Tipu remained strong in his Muslim faith, going daily to say his prayers and paying special attention to mosques in the area.
During his rule, he completed the project of Lal Bagh started by his father Hyder Ali, and built roads, public buildings, and ports in his kingdom. His dominion extended throughout North Bangalore including the Nandi Hills and Chickballapur. His trade extended to countries such as Sri Lanka, Oman, Durrani Afghanistan, France, Ottoman Turkey and Iran. Under his leadership, the Mysore army proved to be a school of military science to Indian princes. The serious blows that Tipu Sultan inflicted on the British in the First and Second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, in his Tipu Sultan Shaheed Memorial Lecture in Bangalore (30 November 1991), called Tipu Sultan the innovator of the world's first war rocket. Two of these rockets, captured by the British at Srirangapatna, are displayed in the Royal Artillery Museum in London. According to historian Dr Dulari Qureshi Tipu Sultan was a fierce warrior king and was so quick in his movement that it seemed to the enemy that he was fighting on many fronts at the same time. Tipu managed to subdue all the petty kingdoms in the south. He defeated the Nizams and was also one of the few Indian rulers to have defeated British armies. He is said to have started a new coinage, calendar, and a new system of weights and measures mainly based on the methods introduced by French technicians. He was well versed in Kannada, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, English and French. Tipu was supposed to become a Sufi, but his father Hyder Ali insisted he become a capable soldier and leader.
Foreign relations
Both Hyder Ali ismaael and Tipu Sultan were independent rulers of Mysore, but claimed some degree of loyalty to the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. Both of them are known to have maintained correspondence with the Mughal emperor. Unlike the Nawab of Carnatic, neither owed any allegiance to the Nizam of Hyderabad and often instead chose direct contact and relations with the Mughal emperor.
Immediately after his coronation, Tipu Sultan sought the investiture of the Mughal emperor. Nizam Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, clearly expressed his hostility by dissuading the Mughal emperor and laying false claims onto Mysore. Disheartened but not disappointed, Tipu Sultan began to establish contacts with other Muslim rulers of that period.
After the eunuch Ghulam Qadir had Shah Alam II blinded on 10 August 1788, Tipu Sultan is believed to have broken into tears. After facing substantial threats from the Marathas, Tipu Sultan began to correspond with Zaman Shah Durrani, the ruler of the Afghan Durrani Empire, so they could defeat the British and Marathas. Initially, Zaman Shah agreed to help Tipu, but the Persian attack on Afghanistan's Western border diverted its forces, and hence no help could be provided to Tipu.
In the year 1787, Tipu Sultan sent an embassy to the Ottoman capital Istanbul, to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I requesting urgent assistance against the British East India Company and had proposed an offensive and defensive consortium. Tipu Sultan requested the Ottoman Sultan to send him troops and military experts. Furthermore, Tipu Sultan also requested permission from the Ottomans to contribute to the maintenance of the Islamic shrines in Mecca, Medina, Najaf and Karbala. However, the Ottomans were themselves at crisis and still recuperating from the devastating Austro-Ottoman War and a new conflict with the Russian Empire had begun, for which Ottoman Turkey needed British alliance to keep off the Russians, hence it could not risk being hostile to the British in the Indian theatre. Due to the Ottoman-inability to organise a fleet in the Indian Ocean, Tipu Sultan's ambassadors returned home only with gifts from their Ottoman allies, this event caused his defeat and loss of much territory by the year 1792. Nevertheless, Tipu Sultan's correspondence with the Ottoman Turkish Empire and particularly it's new Sultan Selim III continued till his final battle in the year 1799.
Tipu sought support from the French, who had been his traditional allies, aimed at driving his main rivals, the British East India Company, out of the subcontinent. But back in France, the French revolution had broken out, the ruling Bourbon family was executed and the country was in chaos, hence the French did not support him. Napoleon, while still not the Emperor of France, sought an alliance with Tipu Sultan. Napoleon came as far as conquering Egypt in an attempt to link with Tipu Sultan against the British, their common enemy. In February 1798, Napoleon wrote a letter to Tipu Sultan appreciating his efforts of resisting the British annexation and plans, but this letter never reached Tipu and was seized by a British spy in Muscat. The idea of a possible Tipu-Napoleon alliance alarmed the British Governor General Sir Richard Wellesley (also known as Lord Wellesley) so much that he immediately started large scale preparations for a final battle against Tipu Sultan.
Both Tipu Sultan and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte were defeated by the same person. In the Final siege and fall of Srirangapatna in 1799, General Arthur Wellesley led the British army into the City after the fall of Tipu Sultan. Arthur was the younger brother of Richard Wellesley, and was one of the British Generals in the Fourth Mysore War.
Several years later in Europe, the same Arthur Wellesley, now the Duke of Wellington, led the armies of the Seventh Coalition and defeated the Imperial French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Like his father before him, Tipu Sultan maintained many embassies and made several contacts with Mohammad Ali Khan, ruler of the Zand Dynasty in Persia. Tipu Sultan also maintained correspondence with Hamad bin Said, the ruler of the Sultanate of Oman.
Regional interests and clever British diplomacy left Tipu with more enemies and betrayers, but no allies when he needed them the most – the final showdown with the British in the Fourth Mysore War.
War against the Maratha Confederacy
The Maratha Empire, under its new Peshwa Madhavrao I, regained most of Indian subcontinent, twice defeating Tipu's father, who was forced to accept Maratha Empire as the supreme power in 1764 and then in 1767. In 1767 Maratha Peshwa Madhavrao defeated both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan and entered Srirangapatna, the capital of Mysore. Hyder Ali accepted the authority of Madhavrao who gave him the title of Nawab of Mysore. However Tipu Sultan wanted to escape from the treaty of Marathas and therefore tried to take some Maratha forts in southern India. This brought Tipu in direct conflict with the Marathas, who sent an army towards Mysore under leadership of General Nana Phadnavis. The Marathas took many forts of Tipu Sultan in the Mysore region Badami, Kittur, and Gajendragad in June 1786. By the victory in this war, the border of the Maratha territory was extended to the Tungabhadra river. This forced Tipu to open negotiations with the Maratha leadership. He sent two of his agents to the Maratha capital of Pune. The deal that was finalised resulted in the Marathas recovering their territories which had been invaded by Mysore. Furthermore, the Nizam of Hyderabad received Adoni and Mysore was obligated to pay 4.8 million rupees as a war cost to the Marathas, and an annual tribute of 1.2 million rupees; in return the Marathas recognised the rule of Tipu in the Mysore region.
The Malabar Invasion of Sultanate of Mysore (1766–1790)
In 1766, when Tipu Sultan was just 15 years old, he got the chance to apply his military training in battle for the first time, when he accompanied his father on an invasion of Malabar. After the incident- Siege of Tellicherry in Thalassery in North Malabar, Hyder Ali started losing his territories in Malabar. Tipu came from Mysore to reinstate the authority over Malabar. After the Battle of the Nedumkotta (1789), due to the monsoon flood, the stiff resistance of the Travancore forces and news about the attack of British in Srirangapatnam he went back.
Third Anglo-Mysore War
In 1789, Tipu Sultan disputed the acquisition by Dharma Raja of Travancore of two Dutch-held fortresses in Cochin. In December 1789 he massed troops at Coimbatore, and on 28 December made an attack on the lines of Travancore, knowing that Travancore was (according to the Treaty of Mangalore) an ally of the British East India Company. On account of the staunch resistance by the Travancore army, Tipu was unable to break through the Tranvancore lines and the Maharajah of Travancore appealed to the East India Company for help. In response, Lord Cornwallis mobilised company and British military forces, and formed alliances with the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad to oppose Tipu. In 1790 the company forces advanced, taking control of much of the Coimbatore district. Tipu counterattacked, regaining much of the territory, although the British continued to hold Coimbatore itself. He then descended into the Carnatic, eventually reaching Pondicherry, where he attempted without success to draw the French into the conflict.
In 1791 his opponents advanced on all fronts, with the main British force under Cornwallis taking Bangalore and threatening Srirangapatna. Tipu harassed the British supply and communication and embarked on a "scorched earth" policy of denying local resources to the invaders. In this last effort he was successful, as the lack of provisions forced Cornwallis to withdraw to Bangalore rather than attempt a siege of Srirangapatna. Following the withdrawal, Tipu sent forces to Coimbatore, which they retook after a lengthy siege.
The 1792 campaign was a failure for Tipu. The allied army was well-supplied, and Tipu was unable to prevent the junction of forces from Bangalore and Bombay before Srirangapatna. After about two weeks of siege, Tipu opened negotiations for terms of surrender. In the ensuing treaty, he was forced to cede half his territories to the allies, and deliver two of his sons as hostages until he paid in full three crores and thirty lakhs rupees fixed as war indemnity to the British for the campaign against him. He paid the amount in two instalments and got back his sons from Madras.
Napoleon's attempt at a junction
In 1794, with the support of French Republican officers, Tipu helped found the Jacobin Club of Mysore for 'framing laws comfortable with the laws of the Republic' He planted a Liberty Tree and declared himself Citizen Tipoo.
One of the motivations of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt was to establish a junction with India against the British. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with Tippoo Sahib. Napoleon assured to the French Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions." According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand: "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English." Napoleon was unsuccessful in this strategy, losing the Siege of Acre in 1799, and at the Battle of Abukir in 1801.
Death
Fourth Anglo-Mysore War
After Horatio Nelson had defeated François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt in 1798, three armies, one from Bombay, and two British (one of which included Arthur Wellesley), marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatna in the Fourth Mysore War.
There were over 26,000 soldiers of the British East India Company comprising about 4000 Europeans and the rest Indians. A column was supplied by the Nizam of Hyderabad consisting of ten battalions and over 16,000 cavalry, and many soldiers were sent by the Marathas. Thus the soldiers in the British force numbered over 50,000 soldiers whereas Tipu Sultan had only about 30,000 soldiers.
The British broke through the city walls, French Military advisers advised Tipu Sultan to escape from secret passages and live to fight another day but to their astonishment Tipu replied "One day of life as a Tiger is far better than thousand years of living as a Sheep". Tipu Sultan died defending his capital on 4 May. When the fallen Tipu was identified, Wellesley felt his pulse and confirmed that he was dead. Next to him, underneath his palankeen, was one of his most confidential servants, Rajah Cawn.
Rajah was able to identify Tipu for the soldiers.
Tipu Sultan was killed at the Hoally (Diddy) Gateway, which was located from the N.E. Angle of the Srirangapatna Fort.
Tipu was buried the next afternoon, at the Gumaz, next to the grave of his father. In the midst of his burial, a great storm struck, with massive winds and rains. As Lieutenant Richard Bayly of the British 12th regiment wrote,
Immediately after the death of Tipu Sultan many members of the British East India Company believed that Umdat Ul-Umra, the Nawab of Carnatic, secretly provided assistance to Tipu Sultan during the war and immediately sought his deposition after the year 1799.
Leadership, policy, and innovations
Tipu introduced a new calendar, new coinage, and seven new government departments, during his reign, and made military innovations in the use of rocketry.
Mysorean rockets
Tipu Sultan's father had expanded on Mysore's use of rocketry, making critical innovations in the rockets themselves and the military logistics of their use. He deployed as many as 1,200 specialised troops in his army to operate rocket launchers. These men were skilled in operating the weapons and were trained to launch their rockets at an angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance to the target. The rockets had blades mounted on them, and could wreak significant damage when fired en masse against a large army. Tipu greatly expanded the use of rockets after Hyder's death, deploying as many as 5,000 rocketeers at a time. The rockets deployed by Tipu during the Battle of Pollilur were much more advanced than those the British East India Company had previously seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missiles (up to 2 km range).
British accounts describe the use of the rockets during the third and fourth wars. During the climactic battle at Srirangapatna in 1799, British shells struck a magazine containing rockets, causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke with cascades of exploding white light rising up from the battlements. After Tipu's defeat in the fourth war the British captured a number of the Mysorean rockets. These became influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, which was soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.
Mysorean Navy
In 1786 Tipu Sultan, again following the lead of his father, decided to build a navy consisting of 20 battleships of 72 cannons and 20 frigates of 62 cannons. In the year 1790 he appointed Kamaluddin as his Mir Bahar and established massive dockyards at Jamalabad and Majidabad. Tipu Sultan's board of admiralty consisted of 11 commanders in service of a Mir Yam. A Mir Yam led 30 admirals and each one of them had two ships. By the year 1789 most of Tipu Sultan's ships had copper-bottoms, an idea that increased the longevity of the ships and was introduced to Tipu by Admiral Suffren.
Religious policy
As a Muslim ruler in a largely Hindu domain, Tipu Sultan faced problems in establishing the legitimacy of his rule, and in reconciling his desire to be seen as a devout Islamic ruler with the need to be pragmatic to avoid antagonising the majority of his subjects. His religious legacy has become a source of considerable controversy in the subcontinent. Some groups proclaim him a great warrior for the faith or Ghazi, while others revile him as a bigot who massacred Hindus.
In 1780, he declared himself to be the Badshah or Emperor of Mysore, and struck coinage in his own name without reference to the reigning Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. H. D. Sharma writes that, in his correspondence with other Islamic rulers such as Zaman Shah of the Afghan Durrani Empire, Tipu Sultan used this title and declared that he intended to establish an Islamic empire in the entire country, along the lines of the Mughal Empire, which was at its decline during the period in question. He even invited Zaman Shah to invade India to help achieve this mission. His alliance with the French was supposedly aimed at achieving this goal by driving his main rivals, the British, out of the subcontinent. During the early period of Tipu Sultan's reign in particular, he appears to have been as strict as his father against any non-Muslim accused of collaboration with the British East India Company or the Maratha.
Attitude towards Hindus
Conversions of Hindus outside Mysore to Islam
Kodagu (Coorg)
The battles between Kodavas and Tippu Sultan is one of the most bitter rivalries in South India. There were repeated attempts to capture Kodagu by the sultan and his father Hyder Ali before him. The primary reason for sultan's interest in Kodagu because annexing Kodagu would provide access to Mangalore port. The Kodavas knew their lands and mountains very well which made them excellent at guerrilla warfare. Kodavas were outnumbered 3 to 1 in most of Tippu's attempts to annex Kodagu but they managed to beat back Tippu most of the times by drawing his army towards hilly regions of their land. On few occasions Tippu's army managed to reach Madikeri(Capital of Kodagu) but the Kodavas always ambushed the contingent left behind by Tippu. Kodavas refusal to bow to the sultan was primarily because throughout their history they enjoyed independence, though there were Rajahs ruling over them, governance of the land mainly rested with Kodavas. After capturing Kodagu on another occasion, Tippu proclaimed, "If you ever dare to ambush my men again, I will honor everyone of you with Islam", undeterred, the resilient Kodavas ambushed his men yet again and drove them back to Mysore. By now Tippu realized conventional warfare would never yield him Kodagu. He devised a plan to annex Kodagu by offering his friendship. His offer of friendship was welcomed by Kodavas as the battles with the Sultan over the years had cost them dearly. When Kodavas welcomed Sultan to their land in the name of friendship, the Sultan and his men attacked them and took thousands as prisoners.
Tipu got Runmust Khan, the Nawab of Kurnool, to launch a surprise attack upon the Kodava Hindus who were besieged by the invading Muslim army. 500 were killed and over 40,000 Kodavas fled to the woods and concealed themselves in the mountains. Thousands of Kodavas were seized along with the Raja and held captive at Seringapatam. Aguably, they were thought to be subjected to forcible conversions to Islam, death, and torture.
In Seringapatam, the young men were all forcibly circumcised and incorporated into the Ahmedy Corps, and were formed into eight Risalas or regiments. The actual number of Kodavas that were captured in the operation is unclear. The British administrator Mark Wilks gives it as 70,000, Historian Lewis Rice arrives at the figure of 85,000, while Mir Kirmani's score for the Coorg campaign is 80,000 men, women and child prisoners.
Mohibbul Hasan, Prof. Sheikh Ali, and other historians cast great doubt on the scale of the deportations and forced conversions in Coorg in particular. Hassan says that it is difficult to estimate the real number of Coorgs captured by Tipu.
In a letter to Runmust Khan, Tipu himself stated:
Kasaragod (near Mangalore)
Tipu sent a letter on 19 January 1790 to the Governor of Bekal (near Kasaragod), Budruz Zuman Khan. It says:
Malabar
North Malabar
In 1788, Tipu entered into Malabar to quell a rebellion. Nairs were surrounded with offers of death or circumcision. Chirakkal's Nair Raja who was received with distinctions for surrendering voluntarily was later hanged. Tipu then divided Malabar into districts, with three officers in each district given the task of numbering productive trees, collecting revenue and giving religious orders to Nairs.
Calicut (Kozhikode)
In 1788, Tipu ordered his governor in Calicut Sher Khan to begin the process of converting Hindus to Islam, and in July of that year, 200 Brahmins were forcibly converted.
Inscriptions
On the handle of the sword presented by Tipu to Marquess Wellesley was the following inscription:
During a search of his palace in 1795, some gold medals were found in the palace, on which the following was inscribed on one side in Persian: "Of God the bestower of blessings", and the other: "victory and conquest are from the Almighty". These were carved in commemoration of a victory after the war of 1780. The following is a translation of an inscription on the stone found at Seringapatam, which was situated in a conspicuous place in the fort:
Temples and officers in Mysore
Tipu Sultan's treasurer was Krishna Rao, Shamaiya Iyengar was his Minister of Post and Police, his brother Ranga Iyengar was also an officer, and Purnaiya held the very important post of "Mir Asaf". Moolchand and Sujan Rai were his chief agents at the Mughal court, and his chief "Peshkar", Suba Rao, was also a Hindu. Editor of Mysore Gazettes Srikantaiah has listed 156 temples to which Tipu regularly paid annual grants. There is such evidence as grant deeds, and correspondence between his court and temples, and his having donated jewellery and deeded land grants to several temples, which some claim he was compelled to do to make alliances with Hindu rulers. Between 1782 and 1799 Tipu Sultan issued 34 "Sanads" (deeds) of endowment to temples in his domain, while also presenting many of them with gifts of silver and gold plate. The Srikanteswara Temple in Nanjangud still possesses a jewelled cup presented by the Sultan. He also gave a greenish linga; to Ranganatha temple at Srirangapatna he donated seven silver cups and a silver camphor burner. This temple was hardly a stone's throw from his palace from where he would listen with equal respect to the ringing of temple bells and the muezzin's call from the mosque; to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale he gifted four cups, a plate and Spitoon in silver.
Sringeri incident
In 1791, Maratha army raided the temple and matha of Sringeri Shankaracharya, killing and wounding many, and plundering the monastery of all its valuable possessions. The incumbent Shankaracharya petitioned Tipu Sultan for help. A bunch of about 30 letters written in Kannada, which were exchanged between Tipu Sultan's court and the Sringeri Shankaracharya were discovered in 1916 by the Director of Archaeology in Mysore. Tipu Sultan expressed his indignation and grief at the news of the raid:
"People who have sinned against such a holy place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date in this Kali age in accordance with the verse: "Hasadbhih kriyate karma rudadbhir-anubhuyate" (People do [evil] deeds smilingly but suffer the consequences crying)."
He immediately ordered the Asaf of Bednur to supply the Swami with 200 rahatis (fanams) in cash and other gifts and articles. Tipu Sultan's interest in the Sringeri temple continued for many years, and he was still writing to the Swami in the 1790s CE.
Controversial figure
In light of this and other events, B.A. Saletare has described Tipu Sultan as a defender of the Hindu dharma, who also patronised other temples including one at Melkote, for which he issued a Kannada decree that the Shrivaishnava invocatory verses there should be recited in the traditional form. The temple at Melkote still has gold and silver vessels with inscriptions indicating that they were presented by the Sultan. Tipu Sultan also presented four silver cups to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale. Tipu Sultan does seem to have repossessed unauthorised grants of land made to Brahmins and temples, but those which had proper sanads were not. It was a normal practice for any ruler, Muslim or Hindu, on his accession or on the conquest of new territory. The portrayal of Tipu Sultan as a secular leader is disputed, and some sources, largely left-leaning scholars from the 20th century, suggest that he in fact often embraced religious pluralism.
Historian C. Hayavadana Rao wrote about Tipu in his encyclopaedic court history of Mysore. He asserted that Tipu's "religious fanaticism and the excesses committed in the name of religion, both in Mysore and in the provinces, stand condemned for all time. His bigotry, indeed, was so great that it precluded all ideas of toleration". He further asserts that the acts of Tipu that were constructive towards Hindus were largely political and ostentatious rather than an indication of genuine tolerance.
Attitude towards Christians
Tipu is regarded to be anti-Christian by some historians. The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam, which began on 24 February 1784 and ended on 4 May 1799, remains the most disconsolate memory in their history.
The Barcoor Manuscript reports him as having said: "All Musalmans should unite together, and considering the annihilation of infidels as a sacred duty, labour to the utmost of their power, to accomplish that subject." Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tipu gained control of Canara. He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates, and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the Jamalabad fort route. However, there were no priests among the captives. Together with Fr. Miranda, all the 21 arrested priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rupees 200,000, and threatened death by hanging if they ever returned.
Tipu ordered the destruction of 27 Catholic churches, all beautifully carved with statues depicting various saints. Among them included the Church of Nossa Senhora de Rosario Milagres at Mangalore, Fr Miranda's Seminary at Monte Mariano, Church of Jesu Marie Jose at Omzoor, Chapel at Bolar, Church of Merces at Ullal, Imaculata Conceicão at Mulki, San Jose at Perar, Nossa Senhora dos Remedios at Kirem, Sao Lawrence at Karkal, Rosario at Barkur, Immaculata Conceição at Baidnur. All were razed to the ground, with the exception of The Church of Holy Cross at Hospet, owing to the friendly offices of the Chauta Raja of Moodbidri.
According to Thomas Munro, a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 people, nearly 92 percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured; only 7,000 escaped. Francis Buchanan gives the numbers as 70,000 captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly through the jungles of the Western Ghat mountain ranges. It was from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000 of them died on the march to Seringapatam. According to James Scurry, a British officer, who was held captive along with Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000 of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there. The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears. According to Mr. Silva of Gangolim, a survivor of the captivity, if a person who had escaped from Seringapatam was found, the punishment under the orders of Tipu was the cutting off of the ears, nose, the feet and one hand. Gazetteer of South India describes Tipu Sultan forcibly circumcising 30,000 West Coast Christians and deporting them to Mysore
Tipu's persecution of Christians even extended to captured British soldiers. For instance, there were a significant number of forced conversions of British captives between 1780 and 1784. Following their disastrous defeat at the 1780 Battle of Pollilur, 7,000 British men along with an unknown number of women were held captive by Tipu in the fortress of Seringapatnam. Of these, over 300 were circumcised and given Muslim names and clothes and several British regimental drummer boys were made to wear ghagra cholis and entertain the court as nautch girls or dancing girls. After the 10-year-long captivity ended, James Scurry, one of those prisoners, recounted that he had forgotten how to sit in a chair and use a knife and fork. His English was broken and stilted, having lost all his vernacular idiom. His skin had darkened to the swarthy complexion of negroes, and moreover, he had developed an aversion to wearing European clothes.
During the surrender of the Mangalore fort which was delivered in an armistice by the British and their subsequent withdrawal, all the Mestizos and remaining non-British foreigners were killed, together with 5,600 Mangalorean Catholics. Those condemned by Tipu Sultan for treachery were hanged instantly, the gibbets being weighed down by the number of bodies they carried. The Netravati River was so putrid with the stench of dying bodies, that the local residents were forced to leave their riverside homes.
The Archbishop of Goa wrote in 1800, "It is notoriously known in all Asia and all other parts of the globe of the oppression and sufferings experienced by the Christians in the Dominion of the King of Kanara, during the usurpation of that country by Tipu Sultan from an implacable hatred he had against them who professed Christianity."
Tipu Sultan's invasion of the Malabar had an adverse impact on the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of the Malabar coast. Many churches in the Malabar and Cochin were damaged. The old Syrian Nasrani seminary at Angamaly which had been the center of Catholic religious education for several centuries was razed to the ground by Tipu's soldiers. A lot of centuries old religious manuscripts were lost forever. The church was later relocated to Kottayam where it still exists to this date. The Mor Sabor church at Akaparambu and the Martha Mariam Church attached to the seminary were destroyed as well. Tipu's army set fire to the church at Palayoor and attacked the Ollur Church in 1790. Furthernmore, the Arthat church and the Ambazhakkad seminary was also destroyed. Over the course of this invasion, many Syrian Malabar Nasrani were killed or forcibly converted to Islam. Most of the coconut, arecanut, pepper and cashew plantations held by the Syrian Malabar farmers were also indiscriminately destroyed by the invading army. As a result, when Tipu's army invaded Guruvayur and adjacent areas, the Syrian Christian community fled Calicut and small towns like Arthat to new centres like Kunnamkulam, Chalakudi, Ennakadu, Cheppadu, Kannankode, Mavelikkara, etc. where there were already Christians. They were given refuge by Sakthan Tamburan, the ruler of Cochin and Karthika Thirunal, the ruler of Travancore, who gave them lands, plantations and encouraged their businesses. Colonel Macqulay, the British resident of Travancore also helped them.
Treatment of prisoners
According to historian Professor Sheikh Ali, Tipu "took his stand on the bedrock of humanity, regarding all his subjects as equal citizen to live in peace, harmony and concord." However, during the storming of Srirangapatna by the British in 1799, thirteen murdered British prisoners were discovered, killed by either having their necks broken or nails driven into their skulls.
Tipu's palace in Seringapatam had a strictly guarded Zenana quarters for women. Many of the women in his Hareem were daughters of native princes and Brahmins, who had been abducted in infancy and brought up Muslim. In the same palace, the legitimate Wadiyar king Chamaraja Wodeyar IX was held captive. The prince having no children had adopted his relative, who was also imprisoned by the Sultan. The palaces and temples raised by the earlier Wadiyar kings were also pulled down by Tipu, on the pretext of strengthening the fortress.
Criticism of British accounts
Brittlebank, Hasan, Chetty, Habib and Saletare, amongst others, argue that controversial stories of Tipu Sultan's religious persecution of Hindus and Christians are largely derived from the work of early British authors (who were very much against Tipu Sultan's independence and harboured prejudice against the Sultan) such as Kirkpatrick and Wilks, whom they do not consider to be entirely reliable. A. S. Chetty argues that Wilks' account in particular cannot be trusted, Irfan Habib and Mohibbul Hasan argues that these early British authors had a strong vested interest in presenting Tipu Sultan as a tyrant from whom the British had liberated Mysore. This assessment is echoed by Brittlebank in her recent work where she writes that Wilks and Kirkpatrick must be used with particular care as both authors had taken part in the wars against Tipu Sultan and were closely connected to the administrations of Lord Cornwallis and Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley.
Promotion of the Urdu language
Tipu strengthened and instituted education in Urdu and Persian among Muslims in the Mysore region. However the Muslims of North Kanara speak Nawayathi, the Muslims of South Kanara speak Beary and the Muslims of Kodagu speak Kodava. He made Persian the official language throughout his kingdom.
Legacy
Tipu Sultan was one of the first Indian kings to be martyred on the battlefield while defending his Kingdom against the Colonial British.
In India, While many historians generally take a favourable view of his reign, others portray him as a Muslim fanatic. Tipu has been officially recognized by the Government of India as a freedom fighter. The 1990 Television Series The Sword of Tipu Sultan directed by Sanjay Khan was based on the Life and events of Tipu Sultan.
Tipu Sultan is held in high esteem in Pakistan which considers Tipu Sultan as a hero of the Indian independence movement. The country has honoured him by naming Pakistan Navy ship PNS Tippu Sultan after Tipu Sultan. Pakistan television aired a drama on Tipu Sultan directed by Qasim Jalali.
Family
Shahzada Hyder Ali Sultan (1771 – 30 July 1815)
Shahzada Abdul Khaliq Sultan (1782 – 12 September 1806)
Shahzada Muhi-ud-din Sultan (1782 – 30 September 1811)
Shahzada Mu'izz-ud-din Sultan (1783 – 30 March 1818)
Shahzada Mi'raj-ud-din Sultan (1784? – ?)
Shahzada Mu'in-ud-din Sultan (1784? – ?)
Shahzada Muhammad Yasin Sultan (1784 – 15 March 1849)
Shahzada Muhammad Subhan Sultan (1785 – 27 September 1845)
Shahzada Muhammad Shukrullah Sultan (1785 – 25 September 1830)
Shahzada Sarwar-ud-din Sultan (1790 – 20 October 1833)
Shahzada Muhammad Nizam-ud-din Sultan (1791 – 20 October 1791)
Shahzada Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Sultan (1795 – 13 November 1842)
Shahzada Munir-ud-din Sultan (1795 – 1 December 1837)
His Highness Shahzada Sir Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib, KCSI (March 1795 – 11 August 1872)
Shahzada Ghulam Ahmad Sultan (1796 – 11 April 1824)
Shahzada ............. Sultan.... (1797–1797)
Tipu had several wives. Tipu Sultan's family was sent to Calcutta by the British. A descendent of one of Tipu Sultan's uncles Noor Inayat Khan was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War, murdered in the German Dachau concentration camp in 1944.
Sword and tiger
Tipu Sultan had lost his sword in a war with the Nairs of Travancore during the Battle of the Nedumkotta (1789), in which he was forced to withdraw due to the severe joint attack from Travancore army and British army. The Nair army under the leadership of Raja Kesavadas again defeated the Mysore army near Aluva. The Maharaja, Dharma Raja, gave the famous sword to the Nawab of Arcot, from where the sword went to London. The sword was on display at the Wallace Collection, No. 1 Manchester Square, London.
Tipu was commonly known as the Tiger of Mysore and adopted this animal as the symbol (bubri/ babri) of his rule. It is said that Tipu Sultan was hunting in the forest with a French friend. He came face to face with a tiger. His gun did not work, and his dagger fell on the ground as the tiger jumped on him. He reached for the dagger, picked it up, and killed the tiger with it. That earned him the name "the Tiger of Mysore". He even had French engineers build a mechanical tiger for his palace. The device, known as Tipu's Tiger, is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not only did Tipu place relics of tigers around his palace and domain, but also had the emblem of a tiger on his banners and some arms and weapons. Sometimes this tiger was very ornate and had inscriptions within the drawing, alluding to Tipu's faith. Historian Alexander Beatson reported that "in his palace was found a great variety of curious swords, daggers, fusils, pistols, and blunderbusses; some were of exquisite workmanship, mounted with gold, or silver, and beautifully inlaid and ornamented with tigers' heads and stripes, or with Persian and Arabic verses".
The last sword used by Tipu in his last battle, at Sri Rangapatnam, and the ring worn by him were taken by the British forces as war trophies. Till April 2004, they were kept on display at the British Museum London as gifts to the museum from Maj-Gen Augustus W.H. Meyrick and Nancy Dowager.
At an auction in London in April 2004, Vijay Mallya purchased the sword of Tipu Sultan and some other historical artefacts, and brought them back to India.
In October 2013, another sword owned by Tipu Sultan and decorated with his babri (tiger stripe motif) surfaced and was auctioned by Sotheby's. It was purchased for 98,500 £ by a bidder on the phone.
In fiction
He has a role in G.A.Henty's 1896 book The Tiger of Mysore, and is also mentioned in Henty's 1902 At the Point of the Bayonet, which deals with much the same period.
In Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo is described as a nephew of Tipu Sultan.
Tipu Sultan's life and adventures were the central theme of a short-running South Indian television series "The Adventures of Tipu Sultan", and of a more popular national television series "The Sword of Tipu Sultan".
Naseem Hijazi's novels Muazam Ali and Aur Talvar Ṭūṭ Gaye (And The Sword Broke) describe Tipu Sultan's wars.
Wilkie Collins's novel The Moonstone contains an account of Tipu Sultan and the fall of Srirangapatna in the prologue.
In The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe, Munchausen vanquishes Tippoo near the end of the novel.
Sharpe's Tiger is a novel in which Napoleonic soldier Richard Sharpe fights at Seringapatam, later killing Tipu Sultan.
The Only King Who Died on the Battlefield: An Historical Novel Based on Truth (published in 2006), was written by a US-Pakistani resident and a young college student Mohammed Faisal Iftikhar. The novel claims that in recent history, Tipu Sultan is the only king who died on the battlefield.
Tipu Sultan appears as a "Great Person" in the video game, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution.
In his historical novels on the Seringapatam captivity of Konkani Catholics by the Konkani littérateur V.J.P. Saldanha, Belthangaddicho Balthazar (Balthazar of Belthangady), Devache Krupen (By the Grace of God), Sardarachi Sinol (The sign of the Knights) and Infernachi Daram (The gates of Hell), Tipu is portrayed as cunning, haughty, hard-hearted, revengeful, yet full of self-control.
See also
Mughal weapons
Muslim warriors
Mysore invasion of Kerala
PNS Tippu Sultan
Tipu Sultan Mosque
Tipu's Tiger
The Dreams of Tipu Sultan by Girish Karnad
Notes
References
Tipu Sultan, The Tyrant of Mysore by Sandeep Balakrishna, Rare Publications
Further reading
Agrawal, Lion M. G. Freedom fighters of India. V3. 2008. This book contains a printing of an earlier version of this Wikipedia article.
Agha, Shamsu. Tipu Sultan", "Mirza Ghalib in London";, "Flight Delayed", Paperback, ISBN 0-901974-42-0
Ali, B Sheik. Tipu Sultan, Nyasanal Buk Trast
Amjad, Sayyid. 'Ali Ashahri, Savanih Tipu Sultan, Himaliyah Buk Ha®us
Banglori, Mahmud Khan Mahmud. Sahifah-yi Tipu Sultan, Himālayah Pablishing Hā'ūs,
A fictionalised account of Tipu's life.
Buddle, Anne. Tigers Round the Throne, Zamana Gallery, ISBN 1-869933-02-8
Campbell, Richard Hamilton. Tippoo Sultan: The fall of Srirangapattana and the restoration of the Hindu raj, Govt. Press
Chinnian, P. Tipu Sultan the Great, Siva Publications
Habib, Irfan. State and Diplomacy Under Tipu Sultan: Documents and Essays, Manohar Publishers and Distributors, ISBN 81-85229-52-X
Hashimi, Sajjad. Tipu Sultan, Maktabah-yi Urdu Da®ijast
Home, Robert. Select Views in Mysore: The Country of Tipu Sultan from Drawings Taken on the Spot by Mr. Home, Asian Educational Services, India, ISBN 81-206-1512-3
Mohibbul Hasan. Tipu Sultan's Mission to Constantinople, Aakar Books, ISBN 81-87879-56-4
Moienuddin, Mohammad. Sunset at Srirangapatam: After the death of Tipu Sultan, Orient Longman, ISBN 81-250-1919-7
Pande, B. N. Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan: Evaluation of their religious policies (IOS series), Institute of Objective Studies
Sil, Narasingha P. "Tipu Sultan: A Re-Vision," Calcutta Historical Journal' (2008) 28#1 pp 1-23. historiography
Strandberg, Samuel. Tipu Sultan: The Tiger of Mysore: or, to fight against the odds, AB Samuel Travel, ISBN 91-630-7333-1
Taylor, George. Coins of Tipu Sultan, Asian Educational Services, India, ISBN 81-206-0503-9
Wigington, Robin. Firearms of Tipu Sultan, 1783–99, J. Taylor Book Ventures, ISBN 1-871224-13-6
Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization Under Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan (Anthem South Asian Studies)'', Anthem Press, ISBN 1-84331-024-4
Ashfaq Ahmed Mathur – " SALTANATH-E-KHUDADAT" and a book by Allama Iqbal ahmed (RH) "Daana e Raaz Diyaar e Dakan mein"
External links
Tipu Sultan remembered on his 212th martyrdom anniversary – TCN News
Tipu Sultan: Villain or Hero?
Tipu Sultan: An Essay on Hero
Biography at StoryofPakistan.com
The Tiger of Mysore – Dramatised account of the British campaign against Tipu Sultan by G. A. Henty, from Project Gutenberg
Biography by Dr. K. L. Kamat
Coins of Tipu Sultan
Illuminated Qurʾān from the library of Tippoo Ṣāḥib, Cambridge University Digital Library
5 Things You Did Not Know About The ‘Tyrant’ Tipu Sultan
Category:Indian Muslims
Category:Kings of Mysore
Category:People from Karnataka
Category:Indian generals
Category:1750 births
Category:1799 deaths
Category:Mysore invasion of Kerala
Category:Indian military writers
Category:Mughal Empire
Category:Kingdom of Mysore
Category:Seringapatam |
2016-01 | Whitney_Houston-697405573 | Whitney_Houston | Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know", influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps.
Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly "Top Pop Albums") on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a woman in history. Rolling Stone named it the best album of 1986, and ranked it at number 254 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a woman to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Houston's first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992). The film's original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Its lead single, "I Will Always Love You", became the best-selling single by a woman in music history. With the album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period under Nielsen SoundScan system. The album makes her the top female act in the top 10 list of the best-selling albums of all time, at number four. Houston continued to star in movies and contribute to their soundtracks, including the films Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996). The Preacher's Wife soundtrack became the best-selling gospel album in history.
On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at the Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills, California. The official coroner's report showed that she had accidentally drowned in the bathtub, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. News of her death coincided with the 2012 Grammy Awards and featured prominently in American and international media.
Life and career
1963–84: Early life and career beginnings
Whitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963 in what was then a middle-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston, Jr. (September 13, 1920 – February 2, 2003), and gospel singer Emily "Cissy" (Drinkard) Houston. Her elder brother Michael is a singer, and her elder half-brother is former basketball player Gary Garland. Her parents were both African American, and she was also said to have Native American and Dutch ancestry. Through her mother, Houston was a first cousin of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick. Her godmother was Darlene Love and her honorary aunt was Aretha Franklin, whom she met at age 8 or 9 when her mother took her to a recording studio. Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle-class area in East Orange, New Jersey, when she was four.
At the age of 11, Houston started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah". When Houston was a teenager, she attended Mount Saint Dominic Academy, a Catholic girls' high school in Caldwell, New Jersey, where she met her best friend Robyn Crawford, whom she described as the "sister she never had". While Houston was still in school, her mother continued to teach her how to sing. Houston was also exposed to the music of Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Roberta Flack, most of whom would have an influence on her as a singer and performer.
Houston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs where her mother Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her. In 1977, at age 14, she became a backup singer on the Michael Zager Band's single "Life's a Party". In 1978, at age 15, Houston sang background vocals on Chaka Khan's hit single "I'm Every Woman", a song she would later turn into a larger hit for herself on her monster-selling The Bodyguard soundtrack album. She also sang back-up on albums by Lou Rawls and Jermaine Jackson.
In the early 1980s, Houston started working as a fashion model after a photographer saw her at Carnegie Hall singing with her mother. She appeared in Seventeen and became one of the first women of color to grace the cover of the magazine. She was also featured in layouts in the pages of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Young Miss, and appeared in a Canada Dry soft drink TV commercial. Her looks and girl-next-door charm made her one of the most sought after teen models of that time. While modeling, she continued her burgeoning recording career by working with producers Michael Beinhorn, Bill Laswell and Martin Bisi on an album they were spearheading called One Down, which was credited to the group Material. For that project, Houston contributed the ballad "Memories", a cover of a song by Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called her contribution "one of the most gorgeous ballads you've ever heard". She also appeared as a lead vocalist on one track on a Paul Jabara album, entitled Paul Jabara and Friends, released by Columbia Records in 1983.
Houston had previously been offered several recording agencies (Michael Zager in 1980, and Elektra Records in 1981), but her mother declined the offers stating her daughter must first complete high school. In 1983, Gerry Griffith, an A&R representative from Arista Records, saw her performing with her mother in a New York City nightclub and was impressed. He convinced Arista's head Clive Davis to make time to see Houston perform. Davis too was impressed and offered a worldwide recording contract which Houston signed. Later that year, she made her national televised debut alongside Davis on The Merv Griffin Show.
Houston signed with Arista in 1983, but did not begin work on her album immediately. The label wanted to make sure no other label signed the singer away. Davis wanted to ensure he had the right material and producers for Houston's debut album. Some producers had to pass on the project because of prior commitments. Houston first recorded a duet with Teddy Pendergrass entitled "Hold Me" which appeared on his album, Love Language. The single was released in 1984 and gave Houston her first taste of success, becoming a Top 5 R&B hit. It would also appear on her debut album in 1985.
1985–86: Rise to international prominence
With production from Michael Masser, Kashif, Jermaine Jackson, and Narada Michael Walden, Houston's debut album Whitney Houston was released in February 1985. Rolling Stone magazine praised Houston, calling her "one of the most exciting new voices in years" while The New York Times called the album "an impressive, musically conservative showcase for an exceptional vocal talent". Arista Records promoted Houston's album with three different singles from the album in the US, UK and other European countries. In the UK, the dance-funk "Someone for Me", which failed to chart in the country, was the first single while "All at Once" was in such European countries as the Netherlands and Belgium, where the song reached the top 5 on the singles charts, respectively.
In the US, the soulful ballad "You Give Good Love" was chosen as the lead single from Houston's debut to establish her in the black marketplace first. Outside the US, the song failed to get enough attention to become a hit, but in the US, it gave the album its first major hit as it peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 1 on the Hot R&B chart. As a result, the album began to sell strongly, and Houston continued promotion by touring nightclubs in the US. She also began performing on late-night television talk shows, which were not usually accessible to unestablished black acts. The jazzy ballad "Saving All My Love for You" was released next and it would become Houston's first No. 1 single in both the US and the UK. She was then an opening act for singer Jeffrey Osborne on his nationwide tour. "Thinking About You" was released as the promo single only to R&B-oriented radio stations, which peaked at number ten on the US R&B Chart. At the time, MTV had received harsh criticism for not playing enough videos by black, Latino, and other racial minorities while favoring white acts. The third US single, "How Will I Know", peaked at No. 1 and introduced Houston to the MTV audience thanks to its video. Houston's subsequent singles from this, and future albums, would make her the first African-American woman to receive consistent heavy rotation on MTV.
By 1986, a year after its initial release, Whitney Houston topped the Billboard 200 albums chart and stayed there for 14 non-consecutive weeks. The final single, "Greatest Love of All", became Houston's biggest hit at the time after peaking No. 1 and remaining there for three weeks on the Hot 100 chart, which made her debut the first album by a woman to yield three No. 1 hits. Houston was No. 1 artist of the year and Whitney Houston was the No. 1 album of the year on the 1986 Billboard year-end charts, making her the first woman to earn that distinction. At the time, Houston released the best-selling debut album by a solo artist. Houston then embarked on her world tour, Greatest Love Tour. The album had become an international success, and was certified 13× platinum (diamond) in the United States alone, and has sold 25 million copies worldwide.
At the 1986 Grammy Awards, Houston was nominated for three awards including Album of the Year. She was not eligible for the Best New Artist category because of her previous hit R&B duet recording with Teddy Pendergrass in 1984. She won her first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "Saving All My Love for You". Houston's performance of the song during the Grammy telecast later earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
Houston won seven American Music Awards in total in 1986 and 1987, and an MTV Video Music Award. The album's popularity would also carry over to the 1987 Grammy Awards when "Greatest Love of All" would receive a Record of the Year nomination. Houston's debut album is listed as one of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and on The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Definitive 200 list. Houston's grand entrance into the music industry is considered one of the 25 musical milestones of the last 25 years, according to USA Today. Following Houston's breakthrough, doors were opened for other African-American women such as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker to find notable success in popular music and on MTV.
1987–91: Whitney, I'm Your Baby Tonight and "The Star Spangled Banner"
With many expectations, Houston's second album, Whitney, was released in June 1987. The album again featured production from Masser, Kashif and Walden as well as Jellybean Benitez. Many critics complained that the material was too similar to her previous album. Rolling Stone said, "the narrow channel through which this talent has been directed is frustrating". Still, the album enjoyed commercial success. Houston became the first woman in music history to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and the first artist to enter the albums chart at number one in both the US and UK, while also hitting number one or top ten in dozens of other countries around the world. The album's first single, "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", was also a massive hit worldwide, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and topping the singles chart in many countries such as Australia, Germany and the UK. The next three singles, "Didn't We Almost Have It All", "So Emotional", and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" all peaked at number one on the US Hot 100 chart, which gave her a total of seven consecutive number one hits, breaking the record of six previously shared by The Beatles and the Bee Gees. Houston became the first woman to generate four number-one singles from one album. Whitney has been certified 9× Platinum in the US for shipments of over 9 million copies, and has sold a total of 20 million copies worldwide.
At the 30th Grammy Awards in 1988, Houston was nominated for three awards, including Album of the Year, winning her second Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)". Houston also won two American Music Awards in 1988 and 1989, respectively, and a Soul Train Music Award. Following the release of the album, Houston embarked on the Moment of Truth World Tour, which was one of the ten highest grossing concert tours of 1987. The success of the tours during 1986–87 and her two studio albums ranked Houston No. 8 for the highest earning entertainers list according to Forbes magazine. She was the highest earning African-American woman overall and the third highest entertainer after Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy.
Houston was a supporter of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement. During her modeling days, the singer refused to work with any agencies who did business with the then-apartheid South Africa. On June 11, 1988, during the European leg of her tour, Houston joined other musicians to perform a set at Wembley Stadium in London to celebrate a then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday. Over 72,000 people attended Wembley Stadium, and over a billion people tuned in worldwide as the rock concert raised over $1 million for charities while bringing awareness to apartheid. Houston then flew back to the US for a concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in August. The show was a benefit concert that raised a quarter of a million dollars for the United Negro College Fund. In the same year, she recorded a song for NBC's coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics, "One Moment in Time", which became a Top 5 hit in the US, while reaching number one in the UK and Germany. With her world tour continuing overseas, Houston was still one of the top 20 highest earning entertainers for 1987–88 according to Forbes magazine.
In 1989, Houston formed The Whitney Houston Foundation For Children, a non-profit organization that has raised funds for the needs of children around the world. The organization cares for homelessness, children with cancer or AIDS, and other issues of self-empowerment. With the success of her first two albums, Houston was undoubtedly an international crossover superstar, the most prominent since Michael Jackson, appealing to all demographics. However, some black critics believed she was "selling out". They felt her singing on record lacked the soul that was present during her live concerts.
At the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards, when Houston's name was called out for a nomination, a few in the audience jeered. Houston defended herself against the criticism, stating, "If you're gonna have a long career, there's a certain way to do it, and I did it that way. I'm not ashamed of it." Houston took a more urban direction with her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, released in November 1990. She produced and chose producers for this album and as a result, it featured production and collaborations with L.A. Reid and Babyface, Luther Vandross, and Stevie Wonder. The album showed Houston's versatility on a new batch of tough rhythmic grooves, soulful ballads and up-tempo dance tracks. Reviews were mixed. Rolling Stone felt it was her "best and most integrated album". while Entertainment Weekly, at the time thought Houston's shift towards an urban direction was "superficial".
The album contained several hits: the first two singles, "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and "All the Man That I Need" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; "Miracle" peaked at number nine; "My Name Is Not Susan" peaked in the top twenty; "I Belong to You" reached the top ten of the US R&B chart and garnered Houston a Grammy nomination; and the sixth single, the Stevie Wonder duet "We Didn't Know", reached the R&B top twenty. The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and went on to be certified 4× platinum in the US while selling twelve million total worldwide.
In 1990, Houston was the spokesperson for a youth leadership conference hosted in Washington, D.C. She had a private audience with President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office to discuss the associated challenges.
During the Persian Gulf War, Houston performed "The Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium on January 27, 1991. This performance was later reported by those involved in the performance to have been lip synced or to have been sung into a dead microphone while a studio recording previously made by Houston was played. Dan Klores, a spokesman for Houston, explained: "This is not a Milli Vanilli thing. She sang live, but the microphone was turned off. It was a technical decision, partially based on the noise factor. This is standard procedure at these events." (See also Star Spangled Banner lip sync controversy.) A commercial single and video of her performance were released, and reached the Top 20 on the US Hot 100, making her the only act to turn the US national anthem into a pop hit of that magnitude (José Feliciano's version reached No. 50 in November 1968). Houston donated all her share of the proceeds to the American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund. As a result, the singer was named to the Red Cross Board of Governors.
Her rendition was critically acclaimed and is considered the benchmark for singers. Rolling Stone commented that "her singing stirs such strong patriotism. Unforgettable", and the performance ranked No. 1 on the 25 most memorable music moments in NFL history list. VH1 listed the performance as one of the greatest moments that rocked TV. Following the attacks on 9/11, it was released again by Arista Records, all profits going towards the firefighters and victims of the attacks. This time it peaked at No. 6 in the Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Later in 1991, Houston put together her Welcome Home Heroes concert with HBO for the soldiers fighting in the Persian Gulf War and their families. The free concert took place at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia in front of 3,500 servicemen and women. HBO descrambled the concert so that it was free for everyone to watch. Houston's concert gave HBO its highest ratings ever. She then embarked on the I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour.
1992–94: Marriage, motherhood, and The Bodyguard
Throughout the 1980s, Houston was romantically linked to American football star Randall Cunningham and actor Eddie Murphy, whom she dated. She then met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. After a three-year courtship, the two were married on July 18, 1992. On March 4, 1993, Houston gave birth to their daughter Bobbi Kristina, the couple's only child. Brown would go on to have several run-ins with the law, including some jail time.
With the commercial success of her albums, movie offers poured in, including offers to work with Robert De Niro, Quincy Jones, and Spike Lee; but Houston felt the time wasn't right. Houston's first film role was in The Bodyguard, released in 1992 and co-starring Kevin Costner. Houston played Rachel Marron, a star who is stalked by a crazed fan and hires a bodyguard to protect her. USA Today listed it as one of the 25 most memorable movie moments of the last 25 years in 2007. Houston's mainstream appeal allowed people to look at the movie color-blind.
Still, controversy arose as some felt the film's advertising intentionally hid Houston's face to hide the film's interracial relationship. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1993, the singer commented that "people know who Whitney Houston is – I'm black. You can't hide that fact." Houston received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress. The Washington Post said Houston is "doing nothing more than playing Houston, comes out largely unscathed if that is possible in so cockamamie an undertaking", and The New York Times commented that she lacked passion with her co-star. Despite the film's mixed reviews, it was hugely successful at the box office, grossing more than $121 million in the U.S. and $410 million worldwide, making it one of the top 100 grossing films in film history at its time of release, though it is no longer in the top 100 because of rising ticket prices since the time the film was released.
The film's soundtrack also enjoyed big success. Houston executive produced and contributed six songs for the motion picture's adjoining soundtrack album. Rolling Stone said it is "nothing more than pleasant, tasteful and urbane". The soundtrack's lead single was "I Will Always Love You", written and originally recorded by Dolly Parton in 1974. Houston's version of the song was acclaimed by many critics, regarding it as her "signature song" or "iconic performance". Rolling Stone and USA Today called her rendition "the tour-de-force". The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record-breaking 14 weeks, number one on the R&B chart for a then-record-breaking 11 weeks, and number one on the Adult Contemporary charts for five weeks.
The single was certified 4× platinum by the RIAA, making Houston the first woman with a single to reach that level in the RIAA history and becoming the best-selling single by a woman in the US.
The song also became a global success, hitting number-one in almost all countries, and the best-selling single of all time by a female solo artist with 20 million copies sold. The soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 chart and remained there for 20 non-consecutive weeks, the longest tenure by any album on the chart in the Nielsen SoundScan era, and became one of the fastest selling albums ever. During Christmas week of 1992, the soundtrack sold over a million copies within a week, becoming the first album to achieve that feat under Nielsen SoundScan system. With the follow-up singles "I'm Every Woman", a Chaka Khan cover, and "I Have Nothing" both reaching the top five, Houston became the first woman to ever have three singles in the Top 11 simultaneously. The album was certified 17× platinum in the US alone, with worldwide sales of 44 million, making The Bodyguard the biggest-selling album by a female act on the list of the world's Top 10 best-selling albums, topping Shania Twain's 40 million sold for Come On Over.
Houston won three Grammys for the album in 1994, including two of the Academy's highest honors, Album of the Year and Record of the Year. In addition, she won a record 8 American Music Awards at that year's ceremony including the Award of Merit, 11 Billboard Music Awards, 3 Soul Train Music Awards in 1993–94 including Sammy Davis, Jr. Award as Entertainer of the Year, 5 NAACP Image Awards including Entertainer of the Year, a record 5 World Music Awards, and a BRIT award. Following the success of the project, Houston embarked on another expansive global tour, The Bodyguard World Tour, in 1993–94. Her concerts, movie, and recording grosses made her the third highest earning female entertainer of 1993–94, just behind Oprah Winfrey and Barbra Streisand according to Forbes magazine. Houston placed in the top five of Entertainment Weeklys annual "Entertainer of the Year" ranking and was labeled by Premiere magazine as one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood.
In October 1994, Houston attended and performed at a state dinner in the White House honoring newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela. At the end of her world tour, Houston performed three concerts in South Africa to honor President Mandela, playing to over 200,000 people. This would make the singer the first major musician to visit the newly unified and apartheid free nation following Mandela's winning election. The concert was broadcast live on HBO with funds of the concerts being donated to various charities in South Africa. The event was considered the nation's "biggest media event since the inauguration of Nelson Mandela".
1995–97: Waiting to Exhale, The Preacher's Wife, and Cinderella
In 1995, Houston starred alongside Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon in her second film, Waiting to Exhale, a motion picture about four African-American women struggling with relationships. Houston played the lead character Savannah Jackson, a TV producer in love with a married man. She chose the role because she saw the film as "a breakthrough for the image of black women because it presents them both as professionals and as caring mothers". After opening at number one and grossing $67 million in the US at the box office and $81 million worldwide, it proved that a movie primarily targeting a black audience can cross over to success, while paving the way for other all-black movies such as How Stella Got Her Groove Back and the Tyler Perry movies that became popular in the 2000s. The film is also notable for its portrayal of black women as strong middle class citizens rather than as stereotypes. The reviews were mainly positive for the ensemble cast. The New York Times said: "Ms. Houston has shed the defensive hauteur that made her portrayal of a pop star in 'The Bodyguard' seem so distant." Houston was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for "Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture", but lost to her co-star Bassett.
The film's accompanying soundtrack, Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album, was produced by Houston and Babyface. Though Babyface originally wanted Houston to record the entire album, she declined. Instead, she "wanted it to be an album of women with vocal distinction", and thus gathered several African-American female artists for the soundtrack, to go along with the film's message about strong women. Consequently, the album featured a range of contemporary R&B female recording artists along with Houston, such as Mary J. Blige, Brandy, Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle. Houston's "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" peaked at No. 1, and then spent a record eleven weeks at the No. 2 spot and eight weeks on top of the R&B Charts. "Count On Me", a duet with CeCe Winans, hit the U.S. Top 10; and Houston's third contribution, "Why Does It Hurt So Bad", made the Top 30. The album debuted at No. 1, and was certified 7× Platinum in the United States, denoting shipments of seven million copies. The soundtrack received strong reviews; as Entertainment Weekly stated: "the album goes down easy, just as you'd expect from a package framed by Whitney Houston tracks... the soundtrack waits to exhale, hovering in sensuous suspense"<ref>Entertainment Weekly (December 1, 1995), page=73</ref> and has since ranked it as one of the 100 Best Movie Soundtracks. Later that year, Houston's children's charity organization was awarded a VH1 Honor for all the charitable work.
In 1996, Houston starred in the holiday comedy The Preacher's Wife, with Denzel Washington. She plays a gospel-singing wife of a pastor (Courtney B. Vance). It was largely an updated remake of the film The Bishop's Wife (1948), which starred Loretta Young, David Niven and Cary Grant. Houston earned $10 million for the role, making her one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood at the time and the highest earning African-American actress in Hollywood. The movie, with its all African-American cast, was a moderate success, earning approximately $50 million at the U.S. box offices. The movie gave Houston her strongest reviews so far. The San Francisco Chronicle said Houston "is rather angelic herself, displaying a divine talent for being virtuous and flirtatious at the same time", and she "exudes gentle yet spirited warmth, especially when praising the Lord in her gorgeous singing voice". Houston was again nominated for an NAACP Image Award and won for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture.
Houston recorded and co-produced, with Mervyn Warren, the film's accompanying gospel soundtrack. The Preacher's Wife: Original Soundtrack Album included six gospel songs with Georgia Mass Choir that were recorded at the Great Star Rising Baptist Church in Atlanta. Houston also duetted with gospel legend Shirley Caesar. The album sold six million copies worldwide and scored hit singles with "I Believe in You and Me" and "Step by Step", becoming the largest selling gospel album of all time. The album received mainly positive reviews. Some critics, such as that of USA Today, noted the presence of her emotional depth, while The Times said, "To hear Houston going at full throttle with the 35 piece Georgia Mass Choir struggling to keep up is to realise what her phenomenal voice was made for".
In 1997, Houston's production company changed its name to BrownHouse Productions and was joined by Debra Martin Chase. Their goal was "to show aspects of the lives of African-Americans that have not been brought to the screen before" while improving how African-Americans are portrayed in film and television. Their first project was a made-for-television remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. In addition to co-producing, Houston starred in the movie as the Fairy Godmother along with Brandy, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bernadette Peters. Houston was initially offered the role of Cinderella in 1993, but other projects intervened. The film is notable for its multi-racial cast and nonstereotypical message. An estimated 60 million viewers tuned into the special giving ABC its highest TV ratings in 16 years. The movie received seven Emmy nominations including Outstanding Variety, Musical or Comedy, while winning Outstanding Art Direction in a Variety, Musical or Comedy Special.
Houston and Chase then obtained the rights to the story of Dorothy Dandridge. Houston was to play Dandridge, the first African American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Houston wanted the story told with dignity and honor. However, Halle Berry also had rights to the project and got her version going first. Later that year, Houston paid tribute to her idols, such as Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Dionne Warwick, by performing their hits during the three-night HBO Concert Classic Whitney Live from Washington, D.C.. The special raised over $300,000 for the Children's Defense Fund. Houston received the Quincy Jones Award for outstanding career achievements in the field of entertainment at the 12th Soul Train Music Awards.
1998–2000: My Love Is Your Love and Whitney: The Greatest Hits
After spending much of the early and mid-1990s working on motion pictures and their soundtrack albums, Houston's first studio album in eight years, the critically acclaimed My Love Is Your Love, was released in November 1998. Though originally slated to be a greatest hits album with a handful of new songs, recording sessions were so fruitful that a new full-length studio album was released. Recorded and mixed in only six weeks, it featured production from Rodney Jerkins, Wyclef Jean and Missy Elliott. The album debuted at number thirteen, its peak position, on the Billboard 200 chart. It had a funkier and edgier sound than past releases and saw Houston handling urban dance, hip hop, mid-tempo R&B, reggae, torch songs, and ballads all with great dexterity.
From late 1998 to early 2000, the album spawned several hit singles: "When You Believe" (US No. 15, UK No. 4), a duet with Mariah Carey for 1998's The Prince of Egypt soundtrack, which also became an international hit as it peaked in the Top 10 in several countries and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song; "Heartbreak Hotel" (US No. 2, UK No. 25) featured Faith Evans and Kelly Price, received a 1999 MTV VMA nomination for Best R&B Video, and number one on the US R&B chart for seven weeks; "It's Not Right but It's Okay" (US No. 4, UK No. 3) won Houston her sixth Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; "My Love Is Your Love" (US No. 4, UK No. 2) with 3 million copies sold worldwide; and "I Learned from the Best" (US No. 27, UK No. 19). These singles became international hits as well, and all the singles, except "When You Believe", became number one hits on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play chart. The album sold four million copies in America, making it certified 4× platinum, and a total of eleven million copies worldwide.
The album gave Houston some of her strongest reviews ever. Rolling Stone said Houston was singing "with a bite in her voice" and The Village Voice called it "Whitney's sharpest and most satisfying so far". In 1999, Houston participated in VH-1's Divas Live '99, alongside Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Tina Turner, and Cher. The same year, Houston hit the road with her 70 date My Love Is Your Love World Tour. The European leg of the tour was Europe's highest grossing arena tour of the year. In November 1999, Houston was named Top-selling R&B Female Artist of the Century with certified US sales of 51 million copies at the time and The Bodyguard Soundtrack was named the Top-selling Soundtrack Album of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). She also won The Artist of the Decade, Female award for extraordinary artistic contributions during the 1990s at the 14th Soul Train Music Awards, and an MTV Europe Music Award for Best R&B.
In May 2000, Whitney: The Greatest Hits was released worldwide. The double disc set peaked at number five in the United States, reaching number one in the United Kingdom. In addition, the album reached the Top 10 in many other countries. While ballad songs were left unchanged, the album features house/club remixes of many of Houston's up-tempo hits. Included on the album were four new songs: "Could I Have This Kiss Forever" (a duet with Enrique Iglesias), "Same Script, Different Cast" (a duet with Deborah Cox), "If I Told You That" (a duet with George Michael), and "Fine", and three hits that had never appeared on a Houston album: "One Moment in Time", "The Star Spangled Banner", and "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful", a duet with Jermaine Jackson from his 1986 Precious Moments album. Along with the album, an accompanying VHS and DVD was released featuring the music videos to Houston's greatest hits, as well as several hard-to-find live performances including her 1983 debut on The Merv Griffin Show, and interviews. The greatest hits album was certified 3× platinum in the US, with worldwide sales of 10 million.
2000–05: Just Whitney and personal struggles
Though Houston was seen as a "good girl" with a perfect image in the 1980s and early 1990s, by the late 1990s, her behavior changed. She was often hours late for interviews, photo shoots and rehearsals, and canceling concerts and talk-show appearances.Larry McShane, "Whitney Houston Gets Bad Press", The Washington Post, April 6, 2000. With the missed performances and weight loss, rumors about Houston using drugs with her husband circulated. On January 11, 2000, airport security guards discovered marijuana in both Houston's and husband Bobby Brown's luggage at a Hawaii airport, but the two boarded the plane and departed before authorities could arrive. Charges were later dropped against them, but rumors of drug usage between the couple would continue to surface. Two months later, Clive Davis was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Houston had been scheduled to perform at the event, but failed to show up.
Shortly thereafter, Houston was scheduled to perform at the Academy Awards but was fired from the event by musical director and longtime friend Burt Bacharach. Her publicist cited throat problems as the reason for the cancellation. In his book The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards, author Steve Pond revealed that "Houston's voice was shaky, she seemed distracted and jittery, and her attitude was casual, almost defiant", and that while Houston was to sing "Over the Rainbow", she would start singing a different song. Houston later admitted to having been fired. Later that year, Houston's long-time executive assistant and friend, Robyn Crawford, resigned from Houston's management company.
In August 2001, Houston signed one of the biggest record deals in music history, with Arista/BMG. She renewed her contract for $100 million to deliver six new albums, on which she would also earn royalties. She later made an appearance on Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special. Her extremely thin frame further spurred rumors of drug use. Houston's publicist said, "Whitney has been under stress due to family matters, and when she is under stress she doesn't eat." The singer was scheduled for a second performance the following night but canceled. Within weeks, Houston's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" would be re-released after the September 11 attacks, with the proceeds donated to the New York Firefighters 9/11 Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Fraternal Order of Police. The song peaked at No. 6 this time on the US Hot 100, topping its previous position.
In 2002, Houston became involved in a legal dispute with John Houston Enterprise. Although the company was started by her father to manage her career, it was actually run by company president Kevin Skinner. Skinner filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit and sued for $100 million (but lost), stating that Houston owed the company previously unpaid compensation for helping to negotiate her $100 million contract with Arista Records and for sorting out legal matters. Houston stated that her 81-year-old father had nothing to do with the lawsuit. Although Skinner tried to claim otherwise, John Houston never appeared in court. Houston's father later died in February 2003. The lawsuit was dismissed on April 5, 2004, and Skinner was awarded nothing.
Also in 2002, Houston did an interview with Diane Sawyer to promote her then-upcoming album. During the prime-time special, Houston spoke on topics including rumored drug use and marriage. She was asked about the ongoing drug rumors and replied, "First of all, let's get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack." The line was from Keith Haring's mural which was painted in 1986 on the handball court at 128th Street and 2nd Avenue. Houston did, however, admit to using other substances at times, including cocaine.
In December 2002, Houston released her fifth studio album, Just Whitney.... The album included productions from then-husband Bobby Brown, as well as Missy Elliott and Babyface, and marked the first time that Houston did not produce with Clive Davis as Davis had been released by top management at BMG. Upon its release, Just Whitney... received mixed reviews. The album debuted at number 9 on the Billboard 200 chart and it had the highest first week sales of any album Houston had ever released. The four singles released from the album did not fare well on the Billboard Hot 100, but became dance chart hits. Just Whitney... was certified platinum in the United States, and sold approximately three million worldwide.
On a June 2003 trip to Israel, Houston said of her visit, "I've never felt like this in any other country. I feel at home, I feel wonderful."
In late 2003, Houston released her first Christmas album One Wish: The Holiday Album, with a collection of traditional holiday songs. Houston produced the album with Mervyn Warren and Gordon Chambers. A single titled "One Wish (for Christmas)" reached the Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and the album was certified gold in the US. Having always been a touring artist, Houston spent most of 2004 touring and performing in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Russia. In September 2004, she gave a surprise performance at the World Music Awards in a tribute to long-time friend Clive Davis. After the show, Davis and Houston announced plans to go into the studio to work on her new album.
In early 2004, husband Bobby Brown starred in his own reality TV program, Being Bobby Brown on the Bravo network, which provided a view into the domestic goings-on in the Brown household. Though it was Brown's vehicle, Houston was a prominent figure throughout the show, receiving as much screen time as Brown. The series aired in 2005 and featured Houston in, what some would say, not her most flattering moments. The Hollywood Reporter said it was "undoubtedly the most disgusting and execrable series ever to ooze its way onto television". Despite the perceived train-wreck nature of the show, the series gave Bravo its highest ratings in its time slot and continued Houston's successful forays into film and television. The show was not renewed for a second season after Houston stated that she would no longer appear in it, and Brown and Bravo could not come to an agreement for another season.
2006–12: Return to music, I Look to You, tour and film comeback
After years of controversy and turmoil, Houston separated from Bobby Brown in September 2006, filing for divorce the following month. On February 1, 2007, Houston asked the court to fast track their divorce. The divorce was finalized on April 24, 2007, with Houston granted custody of the couple's daughter. On May 4, Houston sold the suburban Atlanta home featured in Being Bobby Brown for $1.19 million. A few days later, Brown sued Houston in Orange County, California court in an attempt to change the terms of their custody agreement. Brown also sought child and spousal support from Houston. In the lawsuit, Brown claimed that financial and emotional problems prevented him from properly responding to Houston's divorce petition. Brown lost at his court hearing as the judge dismissed his appeal to overrule the custody terms, leaving Houston with full custody and Brown with no spousal support. In March 2007, Clive Davis of Arista Records announced that Houston would begin recording a new album. In October 2007, Arista released another compilation The Ultimate Collection outside the United States.
Houston gave her first interview in seven years in September 2009, appearing on Oprah Winfrey's season premiere. The interview was billed as "the most anticipated music interview of the decade". Whitney admitted on the show to using drugs with former husband Bobby Brown, who "laced marijuana with rock cocaine". She told Oprah that before The Bodyguard her drug use was light, but after the film's success and the birth of her daughter it got heavier, and by 1996 "[doing drugs] was an everyday thing... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself."
Houston released her new album, I Look to You, in August 2009. The album's first two singles were the title track "I Look to You" and "Million Dollar Bill". The album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1, with Houston's best opening week sales of 305,000 copies, marking Houston's first number one album since The Bodyguard, and Houston's first studio album to reach number one since 1987's Whitney. Houston also appeared on European television programs to promote the album. She performed the song "I Look to You" on the German television show Wetten, dass..?. Three days later, she performed the worldwide first single from I Look to You, "Million Dollar Bill", on the French television show Le Grand Journal. Houston appeared as guest mentor on The X Factor in the United Kingdom. She performed "Million Dollar Bill" on the following day's results show, completing the song even as a strap in the back of her dress popped open two seconds into the performance. She later commented that she "sang [herself] out of [her] clothes".
The performance was poorly received by the British media, and was variously described as "weird" and "ungracious", "shambolic" and a "flop". Despite this reception, "Million Dollar Bill" jumped to its peak from 14 to number 5 (her first UK top 5 for over a decade), and three weeks after release I Look to You went gold. Houston appeared on the Italian version of The X Factor, also performing "Million Dollar Bill", this time to excellent reviews. Houston was later awarded a Gold certificate for achieving over 50,000 CD sales of I Look to You in Italy. In November, Houston performed "I Didn't Know My Own Strength" at the 2009 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, California. Two days later, Houston performed "Million Dollar Bill" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" on the Dancing with the Stars season 9 finale. As of December 2009, I Look to You has been certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of more than one million copies in the United States. On January 26, 2010, her debut album was re-released in a special edition entitled Whitney Houston – The Deluxe Anniversary Edition.
Houston later embarked on a world tour, entitled the Nothing but Love World Tour. It was her first world tour in over ten years and was announced as a triumphant comeback. However, some poor reviews and rescheduled concerts brought some negative media attention. Houston canceled some concerts because of illness and received widespread negative reviews from fans who were disappointed in the quality of her voice and performance. Some fans reportedly walked out of her concerts.
In January 2010, Houston was nominated for two NAACP Image Awards, one for Best Female Artist and one for Best Music Video. She won the award for Best Music Video for her single "I Look to You". On January 16, she received The BET Honors Award for Entertainer citing her lifetime achievements spanning over 25 years in the industry. The 2010 BET Honors award was held at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. and aired on February 1, 2010. Jennifer Hudson and Kim Burrell performed in honor of her, garnering positive reviews. Houston also received a nomination from the Echo Awards, Germany's version of the Grammys, for Best International Artist. In April 2010, the UK newspaper The Mirror reported that Houston was thinking about recording her eighth studio album and wanted to collaborate with will.i.am (of The Black Eyed Peas), her first choice for a collaboration.
Houston also performed the song "I Look to You" on the 2011 BET Celebration of Gospel, with gospel–jazz singer Kim Burrell, held at the Staples Center, Los Angeles. The performance aired on January 30, 2011. Early in 2011, she gave an uneven performance in tribute to cousin Dionne Warwick at music mogul Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy gala. In May 2011, Houston enrolled in a rehabilitation center again, as an out-patient, citing drug and alcohol problems. A representative for Houston said that it was a part of Houston's "longstanding recovery process".
In September 2011, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Houston would produce and star alongside Jordin Sparks and Mike Epps in the remake of the 1976 film Sparkle. In the film, Houston portrays Sparks' "not-so encouraging" mother. Houston is also credited as an executive producer of the film. Debra Martin Chase, producer of Sparkle, stated that Houston deserved the title considering she had been there from the beginning in 2001, when Houston obtained Sparkle production rights. R&B singer Aaliyah – originally tapped to star as Sparkle – died in a 2001 plane crash. Her death derailed production, which would have begun in 2002. Houston's remake of Sparkle was filmed in the fall of 2011 over a two-month period, and was released by TriStar Pictures. On May 21, 2012, "Celebrate", the last song Houston recorded with Sparks, premiered at RyanSeacrest.com. It was made available for digital download on iTunes on June 5. The song was featured on the Sparkle: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack as the first official single. The movie was released on August 17, 2012 in the United States. The accompanying music video for "Celebrate" was filmed on May 30, 2012. The video was shot over 2 days, and a sneak peek of the video premiered on Entertainment Tonight on June 4, 2012.
Death
On February 9, 2012, Houston visited singers Brandy and Monica, together with Clive Davis, at their rehearsals for Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills. That same day, she made her last public performance, when she joined Kelly Price on stage in Hollywood, California, and sang "Jesus Loves Me".
Two days later, on February 11, Houston was found unconscious in Suite 434 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, submerged in the bathtub. (one-time newsstand collector's publication) Pg. 37: "434: The room number at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles in which she was found dead on Feb 11, 2012." Beverly Hills paramedics arrived at approximately 3:30 p.m. and found the singer unresponsive and performed CPR. Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. PST. The cause of death was not immediately known. Local police said there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent". On March 22, 2012, the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported the cause of Houston's death was drowning and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use". The office stated the amount of cocaine found in Houston's body indicated that she used the substance shortly before her death. Toxicology results revealed additional drugs in her system: diphenhydramine, alprazolam, cannabis and cyclobenzaprine. The manner of death was listed as an "accident".
Houston had an invitation-only memorial on Saturday, February 18, 2012, at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. The service was scheduled for two hours, but lasted four. Among those who performed at the funeral were Stevie Wonder (rewritten version of "Ribbon in the Sky", and "Love's in Need of Love Today"), CeCe Winans ("Don't Cry", and "Jesus Loves Me"), Alicia Keys ("Send Me an Angel"), Kim Burrell (rewritten version of "A Change Is Gonna Come"), and R. Kelly ("I Look to You"). The performances were interspersed with hymns by the church choir and remarks by Clive Davis, Houston's record producer; Kevin Costner; Rickey Minor, her music director; her cousin, Dionne Warwick; and Ray Watson, her security guard for the past 11 years. Aretha Franklin was listed on the program and was expected to sing, but was unable to attend the service. Bobby Brown, Houston's ex-husband, was also invited to the funeral but he left before the service began. Houston was buried on Sunday, February 19, 2012, in Fairview Cemetery, in Westfield, New Jersey, next to her father, John Russell Houston, who died in 2003. In June 2012, the McDonald's Gospelfest in Newark became a tribute to Houston.
Reaction
Pre-Grammy party
The Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party that Houston was expected to attend, which featured many of the biggest names in music and movies, went on as scheduled although it was quickly turned into a tribute to Houston. Davis spoke about Houston's death at the evening's start: "By now you have all learned of the unspeakably tragic news of our beloved Whitney's passing. I don't have to mask my emotion in front of a room full of so many dear friends. I am personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me for so many years. Whitney was so full of life. She was so looking forward to tonight even though she wasn't scheduled to perform. Whitney was a beautiful person and a talent beyond compare. She graced this stage with her regal presence and gave so many memorable performances here over the years. Simply put, Whitney would have wanted the music to go on and her family asked that we carry on."
Tony Bennett spoke of Houston's death before performing at Davis's party. He said, "First, it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now, the magnificent Whitney Houston." Bennett sang "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" and said of Houston, "When I first heard her, I called Clive Davis and said, 'You finally found the greatest singer I've ever heard in my life.'"
Some celebrities opposed Davis' decision to continue on the party while a police investigation was being conducted in Houston's hotel room and her body was still in the building. Chaka Khan, in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan on February 13, 2012, shared that she felt the party should have been canceled, saying: "I thought that was complete insanity. And knowing Whitney I don't believe that she would have said 'the show must go on.' She's the kind of woman that would've said 'Stop everything! Un-unh. I'm not going to be there.' [...] I don't know what could motivate a person to have a party in a building where the person whose life he had influenced so enormously and whose life had been affected by hers. They were like... I don't understand how that party went on." Sharon Osbourne condemned the Davis party, declaring: "I think it was disgraceful that the party went on. I don't want to be in a hotel room when there's someone you admire who's tragically lost their life four floors up. I'm not interested in being in that environment and I think when you grieve someone, you do it privately, you do it with people who understand you. I thought it was so wrong."
Further reaction and tributes
Many other celebrities released statements responding to Houston's death. Darlene Love, Houston's godmother, hearing the news of her death, said, "It felt like I had been struck by a lightning bolt in my gut." Dolly Parton, whose song "I Will Always Love You" was covered by Houston, said, "I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.'" Aretha Franklin said, "It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen." Others paying tribute included Mariah Carey, Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey.
Moments after news of her death emerged, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all broke from their regularly scheduled programming to dedicate time to non-stop coverage of Houston's death. All three featured live interviews with people who had known Houston including those that had worked with her, interviewed her along with some of her peers in the music industry. Saturday Night Live displayed a photo of a smiling Houston, alongside Molly Shannon, from her 1996 appearance. MTV and VH-1 interrupted their regularly scheduled programming on Sunday February 12 to air many of Houston's classic videos with MTV often airing news segments in between and featuring various reactions from fans and celebrities.
Houston's former husband, Bobby Brown, was reported to be "in and out of crying fits" since receiving the news. He did not cancel a scheduled performance and within hours of his ex-wife's sudden death, an audience in Mississippi observed as Brown blew kisses skyward, tearfully saying: "I love you, Whitney."
Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the 54th Grammy Awards, announced that Jennifer Hudson would perform a tribute to Houston at the February 12, 2012 ceremony. He said "event organizers believed Hudson – an Academy Award-winning actress and Grammy Award-winning artist – could perform a respectful musical tribute to Houston". Ehrlich went on to say: "It's too fresh in everyone's memory to do more at this time, but we would be remiss if we didn't recognize Whitney's remarkable contribution to music fans in general, and in particular her close ties with the Grammy telecast and her Grammy wins and nominations over the years". At the start of the awards ceremony, footage of Houston performing "I Will Always Love You" from the 1994 Grammys was shown following a prayer read by host LL Cool J. Later in the program, following a montage of photos of musicians who died in 2011 with Houston singing "Saving All My Love for You" at the 1986 Grammys, Hudson paid tribute to Houston and the other artists by performing "I Will Always Love You". The tribute was partially credited for the Grammys telecast getting its second highest ratings in history.
Houston was honored in the form of various tributes at the 43rd NAACP Image Awards, held on February 17. An image montage of Houston and important black figures who died in 2011 was followed by video footage from the 1994 ceremony, which depicted her accepting two Image Awards for outstanding female artist and entertainer of the year. Following the video tribute, Yolanda Adams delivered a rendition of "I Love the Lord" from The Preacher's Wife Soundtrack. In the finale of the ceremony, Kirk Franklin and the Family started their performance with "The Greatest Love of All". The 2012 BRIT Awards, which took place at London's O2 Arena on February 21, also paid tribute to Houston by playing a 30-second video montage of her music videos with a snippet of "One Moment in Time" as the background music in the ceremony's first segment. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said that all New Jersey state flags would be flown at half-staff on Tuesday, February 21 to honor Houston. Houston was also featured, alongside other recently deceased figures from the movie industry, in the In Memoriam montage at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012.
Artistry and legacy
Voice
Houston was a mezzo-soprano,Powers, Ann. "Album Review: Whitney Houston's 'I Look To You'". Los Angeles Times. August 25, 2009 and was commonly referred to as "The Voice" in reference to her exceptional vocal talent. She was third in MTV's list of 22 Greatest Voices, and sixth on Online Magazine COVEs list of the 100 Best Pop Vocalists with a score of 48.5/50. Jon Pareles of The New York Times stated she "always had a great big voice, a technical marvel from its velvety depths to its ballistic middle register to its ringing and airy heights". In 2008, Rolling Stone listed Houston as the thirty-fourth of the 100 greatest singers of all time, stating, "Her voice is a mammoth, coruscating cry: Few vocalists could get away with opening a song with 45 unaccompanied seconds of singing, but Houston's powerhouse version of Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' is a tour de force." Matthew Perpetua from Rolling Stone also eulogized Houston's vocal, enumerating ten performances, including "How Will I Know" from the 1986 MTV VMAs and "The Star Spangled Banner" at the 1991 Super Bowl. "Whitney Houston was blessed with an astonishing vocal range and extraordinary technical skill, but what truly made her a great singer was her ability to connect with a song and drive home its drama and emotion with incredible precision", he stated. "She was a brilliant performer, and her live shows often eclipsed her studio recordings."
Jon Caramanica of The New York Times commented, "Her voice was clean and strong, with barely any grit, well suited to the songs of love and aspiration. [...] Hers was a voice of triumph and achievement, and it made for any number of stunning, time-stopping vocal performances." Mariah Carey stated, "She [Whitney] has a really rich, strong mid-belt that very few people have. She sounds really good, really strong." While in her review of I Look to You, music critic Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times writes, "[Houston's voice] stands like monuments upon the landscape of 20th century pop, defining the architecture of their times, sheltering the dreams of millions and inspiring the climbing careers of countless imitators", adding "When she was at her best, nothing could match her huge, clean, cool mezzo-soprano."
Lauren Everitt from BBC News Magazine commented on melisma used in Houston's recording and its influence. "An early 'I' in Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' takes nearly six seconds to sing. In those seconds the former gospel singer-turned-pop star packs a series of different notes into the single syllable", stated Everitt. "The technique is repeated throughout the song, most pronouncedly on every 'I' and 'you'. The vocal technique is called melisma, and it has inspired a host of imitators. Other artists may have used it before Houston, but it was her rendition of Dolly Parton's love song that pushed the technique into the mainstream in the 90s. [...] But perhaps what Houston nailed best was moderation." Everitt said that "[i]n a climate of reality shows ripe with 'oversinging,' it's easy to appreciate Houston's ability to save melisma for just the right moment."
Houston's vocal stylings have had a significant impact on the music industry. According to Linda Lister in Divafication: The Deification of Modern Female Pop Stars, she has been called the "Queen of Pop" for her influence during the 1990s, commercially rivaling Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. Stephen Holden from The New York Times, in his review of Houston's Radio City Music Hall concert on July 20, 1993, praised her attitude as a singer, writing, "Whitney Houston is one of the few contemporary pop stars of whom it might be said: the voice suffices. While almost every performer whose albums sell in the millions calls upon an entertainer's bag of tricks, from telling jokes to dancing to circus pyrotechnics, Ms. Houston would rather just stand there and sing." With regard to her singing style, he added: "Her [Houston's] stylistic trademarks – shivery melismas that ripple up in the middle of a song, twirling embellishments at the ends of phrases that suggest an almost breathless exhilaration – infuse her interpretations with flashes of musical and emotional lightning."
Elysa Gardner of the Los Angeles Times in her review for The Preacher's Wife Soundtrack praised Houston's vocal ability highly, commenting, "She is first and foremost a pop diva – at that, the best one we have. No other female pop star – not Mariah Carey, not Celine Dion, not Barbra Streisand – quite rivals Houston in her exquisite vocal fluidity and purity of tone, and her ability to infuse a lyric with mesmerizing melodrama."
Influence
During the 1980s, MTV was coming into its own and received criticism for not playing enough videos by black artists. With Michael Jackson breaking down the color barrier for black men, Houston did the same for black women. She became the first black woman to receive heavy rotation on the network following the success of the "How Will I Know" video. Following Houston's breakthrough, other African-American women, such as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker, were successful in popular music. Baker commented that "Because of what Whitney and Sade did, there was an opening for me... For radio stations, black women singers aren't taboo anymore."
AllMusic noted her contribution to the success of black artists on the pop scene, commenting, "Houston was able to handle big adult contemporary ballads, effervescent, stylish dance-pop, and slick urban contemporary soul with equal dexterity" and that "the result was an across-the-board appeal that was matched by scant few artists of her era, and helped her become one of the first black artists to find success on MTV in Michael Jackson's wake". The New York Times stated that "Houston was a major catalyst for a movement within black music that recognized the continuity of soul, pop, jazz and gospel vocal traditions". Richard Corliss of Time magazine commented on her initial success breaking various barriers:Of her first album's ten cuts, six were ballads. This chanteuse [Houston] had to fight for air play with hard rockers. The young lady had to stand uncowed in the locker room of macho rock. The soul strutter had to seduce a music audience that anointed few black artists with superstardom. [...] She was a phenomenon waiting to happen, a canny tapping of the listener's yen for a return to the musical middle. And because every new star creates her own genre, her success has helped other blacks, other women, other smooth singers find an avid reception in the pop marketplace.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times said that Houston "revitalized the tradition of strong gospel-oriented pop-soul singing". Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times referred to the singer as a "national treasure". Jon Caramanica, other music critic of The New York Times, called Houston "R&B's great modernizer", adding "slowly but surely reconciling the ambition and praise of the church with the movements and needs of the body and the glow of the mainstream". He also drew comparisons between Houston's influence and other big names' on 1980s pop:She was, alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna, one of the crucial figures to hybridize pop in the 1980s, though her strategy was far less radical than that of her peers. Jackson and Madonna were by turns lascivious and brutish and, crucially, willing to let their production speak more loudly than their voices, an option Ms. Houston never went for. Also, she was less prolific than either of them, achieving most of her renown on the strength of her first three solo albums and one soundtrack, released from 1985 to 1992. If she was less influential than they were in the years since, it was only because her gift was so rare, so impossible to mimic. Jackson and Madonna built worldviews around their voices; Ms. Houston’s voice was the worldview. She was someone more to be admired, like a museum piece, than to be emulated.The Independents music critic Andy Gill also wrote about Houston's influence on modern R&B and singing competitions, comparing it to Michael Jackson's. "Because Whitney, more than any other single artist ― Michael Jackson included ― effectively mapped out the course of modern R&B, setting the bar for standards of soul vocalese, and creating the original template for what we now routinely refer to as the 'soul diva' ", stated Gill. "Jackson was a hugely talented icon, certainly, but he will be as well remembered (probably more so) for his presentational skills, his dazzling dance moves, as for his musical innovations. Whitney, on the other hand, just sang, and the ripples from her voice continue to dominate the pop landscape." Gill said that there "are few, if any, Jackson imitators on today's TV talent shows, but every other contestant is a Whitney wannabe, desperately attempting to emulate that wondrous combination of vocal effects – the flowing melisma, the soaring mezzo-soprano confidence, the tremulous fluttering that carried the ends of lines into realms of higher yearning".
Houston was considered by many to be a "singer's singer", who had an influence on countless other vocalists, both female and male. Similarly, Steve Huey from Allmusic wrote that the shadow of Houston's prodigious technique still looms large over nearly every pop diva and smooth urban soul singer – male or female – in her wake, and spawned a legion of imitators. Rolling Stone, on her biography, stated that Houston "redefined the image of a female soul icon and inspired singers ranging from Mariah Carey to Rihanna". Essence ranked Houston sixth on their list of 50 Most Influential R&B Stars of all time, calling her "the diva to end all divas".
A number of artists have acknowledged Houston as an influence, including Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Christina Aguilera, LeAnn Rimes, Jessica Simpson, Nelly Furtado, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Ciara, P!nk, Aneeka, Ashanti, Robin Thicke, Jennifer Hudson, Stacie Orrico, Amerie, Destiny's Child, and Ariana Grande. Mariah Carey, who was often compared to Houston, said, "She [Houston] has been a big influence on me." She later told USA Today that "none of us would sound the same if Aretha Franklin hadn't ever put out a record, or Whitney Houston hadn't." Celine Dion who was the third member of the troika that dominated female pop singing in the 1990s, did a telephone interview with Good Morning America on February 13, 2012, telling "Whitney's been an amazing inspiration for me. I've been singing with her my whole career, actually. I wanted to have a career like hers, sing like her, look beautiful like her." Beyoncé told the Globe and Mail that Houston "inspired [her] to get up there and do what [she] did". She also wrote on her website on the day after Houston's death, "I, like every singer, always wanted to be just like [Houston]. Her voice was perfect. Strong but soothing. Soulful and classic. Her vibrato, her cadence, her control. So many of my life's memories are attached to a Whitney Houston song. She is our queen and she opened doors and provided a blueprint for all of us."
Mary J. Blige said that Houston inviting her onstage during VH1's Divas Live show in 1999 "opened doors for [her] all over the world". Brandy stated, "The first Whitney Houston CD was genius. That CD introduced the world to her angelic yet powerful voice. Without Whitney, half of this generation of singers wouldn't be singing." Kelly Rowland, in an Ebony feature article celebrating black music in June 2006, recalled that "[I] wanted to be a singer after I saw Whitney Houston on TV singing 'Greatest Love of All'. I wanted to sing like Whitney Houston in that red dress." She added that "And I have never, ever forgotten that song [Greatest Love of All]. I learned it backward, forward, sideways. The video still brings chills to me. When you wish and pray for something as a kid, you never know what blessings God will give you."
Alicia Keys said "Whitney is an artist who inspired me from [the time I was] a little girl." Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson cites Houston as her biggest musical influence. She told Newsday that she learned from Houston the "difference between being able to sing and knowing how to sing". Leona Lewis, who has been called "the new Whitney Houston", also cites her as an influence. Lewis stated that she idolized her as a little girl.Newman, Melinda. "Jennifer Hudson to 'surprise duet' at Davis party". The Associated Press. February 6, 2008.
Awards and achievements
Houston was the most awarded female artist of all time, according to Guinness World Records, with two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. She held the all-time record for the most American Music Awards of any female solo artist and shared the record with Michael Jackson for the most AMAs ever won in a single year with eight wins in 1994. Houston won a record 11 Billboard Music Awards at its fourth ceremony in 1993. She also had the record for the most WMAs won in a single year, winning five awards at the 6th World Music Awards in 1994.
In May 2003, Houston placed at number three on VH1's list of "50 Greatest Women of the Video Era", behind Madonna and Janet Jackson. She was also ranked at number 116 on their list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time". In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary, ranking Houston at number nine. Similarly, she was ranked as one of the "Top 100 Greatest Artists of All Time" by VH1 in September 2010. In November 2010, Billboard released its "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" list and ranked Houston at number three who not only went on to earn eight number-one singles on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but also landed five number ones on R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
Houston's debut album is listed as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine and is on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Definitive 200 list. In 2004, Billboard picked the success of her first release on the charts as one of 110 Musical Milestones in its history. Houston's entrance into the music industry is considered one of the 25 musical milestones of the last 25 years, according to USA Today in 2007. It stated that she paved the way for Mariah Carey's chart-topping vocal gymnastics. In 1997, the Franklin School in East Orange, New Jersey was renamed to The Whitney E. Houston Academy School of Creative and Performing Arts. In 2001, Houston was the first artist to be given a BET Lifetime Achievement Award. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She was ranked as the fourth best-selling female artist in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 55 million certified albums sold in the US, and held an Honorary Doctorate in Humanities from Grambling State University, Louisiana. Houston was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2013. In August 2014, Houston was inducted to the official Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in its second class.
DiscographyWhitney Houston (1985)Whitney (1987)I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990)My Love Is Your Love (1998)Just Whitney... (2002)One Wish: The Holiday Album (2003)I Look to You (2009)
Filmography
Tours and concerts
World tours
The Greatest Love World Tour (1986)
Moment of Truth World Tour (1987–88)
I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour (1991)
The Bodyguard World Tour (1993–94)
My Love Is Your Love World Tour (1999)
Nothing but Love World Tour (2010)
Regional tours
Feels So Right Tour (1990)
Pacific Rim Tour (1997)
The European Tour (1998)
Soul Divas Tour (2004)
Televised concerts
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute (1988)
Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston (1991)
The Concert for a New South Africa (1994)
Classic Whitney Live from Washington, D.C.'' (1997)
See also
American Music Award nominations for Whitney Houston
Grammy Awards and nominations for Whitney Houston
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of best-selling music artists
References
Further reading
External links
Whitney Houston at the New Jersey Hall of Fame
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2016-01 | Disney_Channel_Southeast_Asian_TV_channel-697616695 | Disney_Channel_Southeast_Asian_TV_channel | Disney Channel (Southeast Asian TV channel)
Disney Channel Asia (formerly known as The Disney Channel from 1996 to 1997) is a basic cable and satellite television channel that broadcasts in Southeast Asia as the flagship property of owner Disney Channels Worldwide unit of the United States-based Disney–ABC Television Group and operated by The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia. Most of its original programming is aimed at pre-teens and adolescents ages 10–16 while its Disney Junior programs are targeted at younger children ages 3–9, although certain programs are aimed at audiences of all ages. The channel's programming consists of original first-run television series, theatrically-released and original made-for-cable movies and select other third-party programming. Some countries—with either a lack of capacity or due to government restrictions—do not carry the network.
Profile
Disney Channel Asia was launched in January 2000 with a multi-language feed with an English main feed and dubbing and subtitling Mandarin. The channel became available in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. On 1 June 2002, the channel was launched in the South Korea market with a Korea language feed. Over the first six months of 2005, Disney Channel Asia along with sister channel Playhouse Disney (now Disney Junior) launched in Vietnam, Palau and Thailand and finishing off with a launch of both in Cambodia, its 11th market, with Cambodia Entertainment Production Co. Ltd. as distributor.
Feeds
Asia: Main feed available in Indonesia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Palau and Cambodia.
Singapore: Same schedule with Asia feed plus new episodes of live-action shows and local advertisements.
Malaysia: Same schedule with Asia feed plus local advertisements. Also available in Brunei.
Philippines: Same schedule with Asia feed plus new episodes of live-action shows and local advertisements.
Hong Kong: Own schedule with local advertisements. Separated from Asia feed on 2 April 2004. Broadcast in English and Cantonese.
Taiwan: Own schedule with local advertisements. It is the first overseas feed of Disney Channel, began operations in March 1995. Broadcast in Taiwanese Mandarin.
Censorship
Some programming is edited due to local culture and mores to be acceptable to various audiences such as Muslim with removal of romantic plotlines, violence, profanity, and some suggestive dialogue. Some scenes with items that are inappropriate for children (such as wine) were pixelated.
Presentation
In September 1996, the Disney Channel in Asia's logo was a simplified Mickey Mouse head, with 'The Disney Channel' text on the bottom. Six idents for the 1995 logo were created by Lambie-Nairn. In February 1997, the channel dropped 'The' from its name, with a new splat logo, for the launch of Disney Channel France. In March 1997, Disney Channel France adopted the same logo and idents. In May 1999, Disney Channel refreshed its identity as it launched its new Circles logo, with symmetrical circles forming the iconic Mickey Mouse head shape. The new ident set was created in CGI animation, with various objects forming the Disney Channel logo. The new identity package was created by French graphic design company, GÉDÉON. According to GÉDÉON, the new logo is also described as an "experimental field for animation". More than 30 illustrators, animators, graphic designers, directors, and motion graphic studios, such as Gamma Studios, Estructura7, Velvet mediendesign, and Pedall, collaborated with the project.
When the new look was first launched, nine idents air on the same day. Some of the idents were also used in its sister channels, Playhouse Disney and Toon Disney.
On March 2000, Disney Channel in Asia, suggesting ideas on making logos for the channel.
On March 2003, Disney Channel adapted a new logo used by Disney Channel in US. The idents and bumpers were created by Razorfish and CA Square respectively.
On April 2011, Disney Channel adapted the new smartphone app logo from the US.
On July 2013, Disney Channel began airing advertisement breaks, meaning some shows would be around half an hour long or more, as opposed to previously 25 minutes.
On 1 August 2014, Disney Channel adapted the current DC Germany logo, similar to Disney Channel US and on-air graphics.
Logos
When launched in 1996, Disney Channel launch the same logo as in the United States and idents in the United Kingdom. In 1997, Disney Channel dropped the word "The" on the network's name with a new splat logo using the red and blue colors and shaped objects to form the logo. In 1999, Disney Channel launched a new logo with simple circles forming the Mickey Mouse head including two red splats and a blue splat, three raindrops, three pumpkins, two orange mini-discs and a blue disc, and two yellow circles and an orange one. The splat logo (from 1997) is still in use. New idents where created in CGI designed by GEDEON. Other design companies such as Gamma Studos Pedall and Estructura7 also shared a project. In 2003, Disney Channel launched the same logo as Disney Channel US that was used in 2002 created by CA Square. Disney Channel launched a smartphone app logo in early August 2011 but was used rarely until 8 locations of 2011. This logo was launched in the United States in August 2011.
On 1 August 2014, Disney Channel unveiled a new logo and on-air imaging design; first introduced in January 2014 by the then-new, free-to-air Disney Channel service in Germany and similar to the sister network, Disney Channel U.S., the new logo replaces the boxed design of the previous logo with a more compact wordmark, and incorporates the Mickey Mouse imagery as the dot of the "I" within the Disney script. Designed in collaboration with Disney Channel's U.S. and European operations and the design agencies Royale and BDA, the overall presentation package was designed so that the network could maintain its iconic "wand" idents (where stars of the network's programs either dotted the "I" with a wand or drew out the ears element), and allow such IDs made for the channel's previous on-air imaging to be adapted for use with the new logo – especially in markets where "new" episodes of older Disney Channel programs that had concluded their U.S. run were still premiering.
See also
Disney Junior (Asia) - Sister channel to Disney Channel in Asia.
Disney XD (Southeast Asia) - Sister channel to Disney Channel in Asia
References
External links
Asia
Category:Children's television networks
Category:English-language television stations
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1996
Category:Southeast Asian media |
2016-01 | Kuala_Lumpur_International_Airport-697696121 | Kuala_Lumpur_International_Airport | Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is Malaysia's main international airport and one of the major airports of South East Asia. Built at a cost of US$3.5 billion in Sepang district of Selangor, it is located approximately from Kuala Lumpur city centre and serves the Greater Klang Valley conurbation.
KLIA is the largest and busiest airport in Malaysia. In 2014, it handled 48,930,409 passengers and 753,899 tonnes of cargo. It is the world's 20th-busiest airport by total passenger traffic, 13th-busiest airport by international passenger traffic, and 28th-busiest airport by cargo traffic.
The airport is operated by Malaysia Airports (MAHB) Sepang Sdn Bhd and is the major hub of Malaysia Airlines, MASkargo, AirAsia, AirAsia X, Malindo Air and Rayani Air.
History
Background
The ground breaking ceremony for Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) took place on 1 June 1993 when the government decided that the existing Kuala Lumpur airport, then known as Subang International Airport (now Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport) could not handle future demand. It was created as part of the Multimedia Super Corridor, a grand development plan for Malaysia.
Upon KLIA's completion, Subang Airport's Terminal 1 building was demolished. Malaysia Airports agreed to redevelop the remaining Terminal 3 to create a specialist airport for turboprop and charter planes surrounded by a residential area and a business park. The IATA airport code KUL was transferred from Subang Airport, which currently handles only turboprop aircraft, general aviation and military aircraft. Subang Airport's IATA code was changed to SZB.
Current site
The airport's site spans 2, of former agricultural land and is one of the world's largest airport sites. An ambitious three-phase development plan anticipates KLIA to have five runways and two terminals each with two satellite terminals. Phase One involved the construction of the main terminal and one satellite terminal, giving a capacity of 25 million passengers, and two full service runways. The Phase One airport had sixty contact piers, twenty remote parking bays with eighty aircraft parking positions, four maintenance hangars and fire stations. Phase Two, designed to increase capacity to 35 million passengers per year is largely complete. Phase Three is anticipated to increase capacity to 100 million passengers per year.
Grand opening
Kuala Lumpur International Airport was officially inaugurated by the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Ja'afar of Negeri Sembilan, on 27 June 1998 at 20:30 MST, a week ahead of Hong Kong International Airport and in time for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. The first domestic arrival was Malaysia Airlines flight MH1263 from Kuantan (Kuantan Airport) at 07:10 MST. The first international arrival was Malaysia Airlines flight MH188 from Malé International Airport at 07:30 MST. The first domestic departure was Malaysia Airlines flight MH1432 to Langkawi (Langkawi International Airport) at 07:20 MST; the first international departure was Malaysia Airlines flight MH84 to Beijing (Beijing Capital International Airport) at 09:00 MST.
Inauguration
The inauguration of the airport was marked with problems. Aerobridge and bay allocation systems broke down, queues built up throughout the airport and baggage handling broke down. Bags were lost and there were waits of over five hours. Most of these issues were remedied eventually, though baggage handling system was plagued with problems until it was put up for a complete replacement tender in 2007.
The airport suffered greatly reduced traffic with the general reduction in economic activity brought about by the East Asian financial crisis, SARS, bird flu epidemic (Avian flu), the global financial crisis and the swine flu pandemic. 1998 saw a reduction of passenger numbers as some airlines, including All Nippon Airways (recommencing on 1 September 2015), British Airways (resumed on 28 May 2015), Lufthansa (later reinstated) and Northwest Airlines, terminated their loss making services to KLIA. KLIA's first full year of operations in 1999, in its Phase One manifestation (capacity of 25 million passengers per year), saw only 13.2 million passengers. Passenger numbers eventually increased to 21.1 million in 2004 and 23.2 million in 2005 — though short of the originally estimated 25 million passengers per year by 2003.
Runways
Kuala Lumpur International Airport has three parallel runways (one for Terminal 1, one for KLIA Terminal 2, and one runway that can be used for both terminals). Two KLIA operational runways are located 2 kilometres from each other, which are designed for simultaneous take-offs and landings. Terminal 1 runways are monitored by the main Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower, which was the tallest ATC tower in the world (currently 3rd, behind Bangkok Suvarnabhumi). Runway 3 for klia2 is monitored by a dedicated separate ATC Tower which, standing at 133.8m, is currently the tallest in the world.
Operations and infrastructure
KLIA features a number of modern design features that assist in the efficient operation of the airport. It is one of the first Asia Pacific airports to become 100% Bar Coded Boarding Pass capable. AirAsia, a Malaysian passenger airline; MASkargo, a cargo airline; and Malaysia Airports, the Malaysian Airports operator and manager; are headquartered on the property of KLIA. Malaysia Airlines operates its Flight Management Building at KLIA.
Terminals
The Passenger Terminal Complex (PTC) was built with an emphasis on allowing natural light into the building. Thus, there is a huge expanse of glass throughout the building, and the spectacular roof has cut-outs for natural light to filter in. The PTC comprises three buildings – the Main Terminal Building, the Satellite Building and the Contact Pier. Besides the 80-room hotel at the Satellite Building, there is a 422-room 5-star Sama-Sama Hotel KLIA, a five-minute (indoor) walk away. Shopping spots are available in an area encompassing 85,000 square metres. Currently, the retail space at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport stands at . The airport operator plans to increase the retail space to , an 62.2% increase in retail space.
As there are international flights operating out from the airport, therefore terminals of the airport are equipped with immigration processing facilities and security scanning for all passengers including domestic passengers. The Satellite terminal handles most of the international flights, while the main terminal building's contact pier handles domestic traffic, regional international flights and international flights routed to other hubs within Malaysia. Malaysia Airlines operate from both terminals, where main terminal building's contact pier is their preferred terminal for domestic flights. Conversely, low cost carriers such as Tigerair, Cebu Pacific and AirAsia group of airlines operate domestic and international flights out of klia2, the low-cost carrier terminal at KLIA.
The initial passenger growth was below average due to Asian Financial Crisis and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and the airport failed to reach its target capacity of 25 million passengers per annum (before the inclusion of low cost carrier terminal) by 2004. However, the recovery of Malaysia's economy boosted Kuala Lumpur International Airport's passenger movements, and the airport saw significant growth in traffic, hitting the 25 million passenger mark in 2007. In 2013, the airport saw a monumental increase in passenger traffic to 47 million passengers.
Main terminal building and contact pier
The KLIA Main Terminal Building (MTB) is located in between the two runways. The floor area of the terminal covers and the building consists of 39 square roof units, which enables future expansion of the building. There are a total of 216 check-in counters, located in 6 different islands, identified by the letters A – M (excluding I). Multi check-in services are available, designed for the use of all passengers arriving, departing or in transit. On 2 February 2007, Malaysia Airports introduces 12 integrated self check-in kiosks (CUSS) for passengers. The first airline to use that system is KLM. A further 24 kiosks will be added later by the airport operator
The contact pier is the rectangular-shaped terminal that is connected to the KLIA Main Terminal Building (MTB). It serves as the domestic terminal for Malaysia Airlines. Some international flights are handled there as well. Previously it used to cater to low-cost carriers' passengers. At the north side of the pier, it can only accommodate narrow-bodied aircraft. In contrast, the south side of the contact pier can accommodate Boeing 737 and Boeing 747 or similar sized aircraft.
The gates in Main Terminal Building's contact pier has alphabet prefix of A and B for domestic flights, which is accessible from domestic departures on Level 3 where passengers descend after security check, and G and H for international flights. Basically Gates G & H are sharing the same boarding lounge as Gates A & B, where after boarding and secondary security check (before boarding aircraft) passengers descend into the same boarding lounge with the doors for "A & B" on level 3 sealed off for international flights. For domestic flights, the stairs to access "G & H" are sealed off instead.
Satellite terminal A
The satellite building accommodates international flights departing and arriving at KLIA. Passengers have to travel to the satellite building via the Aerotrain. There is a wide array of duty-free shops and prestige brand boutiques in the satellite building. This includes international brands such as Burberry, Harrods, Montblanc, Salvatore Ferragamo and recently, Mango has opened its first boutique at an airport in the Asian region. Among all international labels available within the terminal, some boutiques such as Harrods are only available in the airport. A number of restaurants and international airlines' lounges are available as well as an Airside Transit Hotel.
Within the terminal, wireless internet (Wi-Fi) is provided free of charge. The terminal also has prayer rooms, showers and massage service. Various lounge areas are provided, some including children's play areas and movie lounge, broadcasting movie and sport channels. The terminal also features a natural rainforest in the middle of the terminal, exhibiting the Malaysian rainforests.
Under Malaysia Airports Berhad retail optimisation plan, the retail space in satellite terminal A will be further optimised to increase its revenue derived from commercial space rental and a percentage of sale receipts to 50% by year 2010 which currently stands at 35%. Some notable improvements that will be seen after the refurbishments will be the Jungle Boardwalk which will be the first of its kind in the world and larger mezzanine floor to accommodate F&B outlets and viewing galleries.
The gates in Satellite Terminal A have the prefix C.The Satellite A terminal has 27 boarding gates altogether.
klia2
klia2 is the low-cost carrier terminal at KLIA. The terminal is located 2 kilometres away from the Main Terminal Building (MTB). klia2 is built to cater for the explosive growth in low cost travel in the region and has replaced the former Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). klia2 started operations on 2 May 2014 and all flight operations at LCCT were moved to klia2 by 9 May 2014.
Built at a cost of approximately RM4 billion (US$1.3 billion), klia2 is the world's largest purpose-built terminal dedicated to low-cost carriers and it is designed to cater for 45 million passengers a year with future capacity expansion capability. The terminal is served by a dedicated 4 km runway (KLIA's Runway 3) and a 141.3m air-traffic control (ATC) tower, making it the world's tallest ATC tower.
The terminal has a built-up area of 257,845 sqm with 68 departure gates, 10 remote stands, 80 aerobridges, includes a retail space of 35,000 sqm to accommodate a total of 220 retail outlets. The main terminal building of klia2 is connected with its satellite piers with a skybridge, making it the first airport in Asia with such facility. klia2 is certified with Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED).
Check-in counters are divided into 8 rows located in 4 islands, each row identified by the letters S – Z. Boarding gates are located in 5 piers, indicated by the letters J and K for domestic flights, and L, P and Q for international flights. Piers J, K and L are connected directly to the main terminal building, while Piers P and Q are accessible via the skybridge. Piers K and L are physically the same pier and share the same gates, but with waiting lounges on different levels (Level 1A for K and Level 2 for L). For international flights, the access door from Pier K is sealed off, while for domestic flights, the access door from Pier L is sealed off instead.
At present, inter-terminal connection is provided on the landside at Gateway@klia2 complex and there are provisions for future airside inter-terminal connection.
Gateway@klia2
Gateway@klia2 is an integrated complex that is connected to the main klia2 terminal building. It has a 350,000 square feet of net lettable space spanning over 4 levels, offering a fresh airport-within-a-mall concept. The transport hub at Gateway@klia2 links klia2 to the Express Rail Link (ERL) (also known as KLIA Ekspres), with allotted pick-up and drop-off areas for coaches, taxis, rented vehicles and private transportation.
Gateway@klia2 hosts a 8-storey car park that directly adjoins klia2. There are 6,000 covered parking lots at Blocks A and B and another 5,500 lots at car park D. Shuttle buses are available to take the public from the car park D to the terminal. The car park is fully gated with 24-hour security personnel on duty. The parking rate for the covered parking facility at klia2 is RM4 per hour for the first 3 hours, and up to a maximum daily rate of RM46. The first capsule transit hotel in Asia named as the Capsule by Container Hotel is also located at Gateway@klia2. Gateway@klia2 is managed by WCT Holdings Berhad.
KL City Air Terminal
KL City Air Terminal, sometimes known as Kuala Lumpur City Air Terminal or KL CAT located at KL Sentral is a virtual extension of KL International Airport where city check-in services are provided. KL City Air Terminal is recognised by International Air Transport Association which carries IATA designation XKL. Currently there are only 5 airlines providing city check-in services, they are Cathay Pacific, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Malaysia Airlines and Royal Brunei Airlines. However, the situation is due to be changed as 10 SITA's AirportConnect CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) were installed on 10 check-in desks in KL CAT that enables all airlines to offer city check-in service for their passengers.
Low cost carrier terminal (LCCT)
The Low cost carrier terminal (LCCT) was opened at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 23 March 2006 to cater for the growing number of users of low cost airlines, especially the passengers of Malaysia's "no-frills" airline, AirAsia. The terminal was designed and built in accordance to the low cost carrier business model, with limited terminal amenities. As requested by the low cost airline, the terminal does not provide aerobridges, nor are there transfer facilities, rail connections, and other facilities provided in a full-fledged terminal.
The LCCT was located on the opposite side of the apron from the Main Terminal Building (MTB), with close proximity to the air cargo area. The terminal underwent expansion in 2008 to accommodate exponential growth of low cost travel. Following the opening of klia2, the new terminal built for low cost air-travel, the LCCT ceased operations on 9 May 2014 and all low-cost carrier flights are now operating out of klia2.
The AirAsia corporate head offce is in the LCCT. The airline plans to move its head office to a new facility constructed at klia2 scheduled to open in the end of 2015. AirAsia X has its head office in the same facility.
Airlines and destinations
Passenger
Air Mauritius flights continue to Singapore. However, Air Mauritius does not have fifth freedom traffic rights to transport passengers solely between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Malaysia Airlines regional/international flights using narrow body aircraft usually depart from Main Terminal Gates G/H, which are actually the upper floor of Gates A/B after immigration. However this changes from time to time, as equipment used can vary on different dates.
Royal Jordanian's flight from Amman to Kuala Lumpur continue on to Jakarta. However, Royal Jordanian does not have fifth freedom traffic rights to transport passengers solely from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta.
Cargo
Statistics
{|class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 87.5%" width= align=
|+ Busiest international routes (2014)
|- style="background:lightgrey;"
! |Rank|| |Airport|| |Passengers|| |% change2013 / 14
|-
|1|| Singapore, Singapore|| 3,379,751|| 1.7
|-
|2|| Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta, Indonesia|| 2,066,894|| 1.9
|-
|3|| Hong Kong, China|| 1,424,948|| 6.0
|-
|4|| Denpasar, Indonesia|| 1,128,373|| 17.7
|-
|5|| Bangkok-Don Mueang, Thailand|| 992,483|| 1.7
|-
|6|| Melbourne, Australia|| 916,815|| 15.5
|-
|7|| Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam|| 904,655|| 2.9
|-
|8|| Taipei-Taoyuan, Taiwan|| 898,285|| 7.2
|-
|9|| Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Thailand|| 869,211|| 15.7
|-
|10|| Sydney, Australia|| 816,560|| 23.4
|-
|11|| Dubai, United Arab Emirates|| 791,244|| 2.5
|-
|12|| Dhaka, Bangladesh|| 738,936|| 26.4
|-
|13|| Medan, Indonesia|| 709,066|| 123.5
|-
|14|| Manila, Philippines|| 697,528|| 16.5
|-
|15|| Phuket, Thailand|| 695,955|| 4.9
|-
|16|| Seoul-Incheon, South Korea|| 647,386|| 11.3
|-
|17|| Guangzhou, China|| 644,668|| 7.0
|-
|18|| London-Heathrow, United Kingdom|| 573,635|| 7.5
|-
|19|| Shanghai-Pudong, China|| 556,588|| 9.2
|-
|20|| Perth, Australia|| 554,305|| 11.2
|-
|21|| Surabaya, Indonesia|| 547,017|| 11.9
|-
|22|| Jeddah, Saudi Arabia|| 520,120|| 17.6
|-
|23|| Kathmandu, Nepal|| 516,109|| 58.8
|-
|24|| Doha, Qatar|| 437,781|| 10.7
|-
|25|| Colombo, Sri Lanka|| 437,149|| 15.9
|-
|26|| Chennai, India|| 432,628|| 12.1
|-
|27|| Beijing-Capital, China|| 415,235|| 23.8
|-
|28|| Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates|| 393,390|| 79.0
|-
|29|| Tokyo-Narita, Japan|| 374,884|| 0.3
|-
|30|| Delhi, India|| 367,371|| 35.7
|-
|31|| Paris-Charles de Gaulle, France|| 362,027|| 5.0
|-
|32|| Osaka-Kansai, Japan|| 359,200|| 22.0
|-
|33|| Amsterdam, Netherlands|| 359,002|| 9.4
|-
|34|| Yangon, Myanmar|| 356,358|| 12.9
|-
|35|| Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei|| 353,593|| 1.3
|-
|36|| Bandung, Indonesia|| 340,753|| 5.5
|-
|37|| Phnom Penh, Cambodia|| 338,650|| 6.9
|-
|38|| Hanoi, Vietnam|| 334,435|| 2.2
|-
|39|| Mumbai, India|| 320,180|| 7.5
|-
|40|| Tiruchirappalli, India|| 291,381|| 21.6
|-
|41|| Kochi, India|| 255,593 || 87.8
|-
|42|| Krabi, Thailand|| 253,305|| 29.2
|-
|43|| Adelaide, Australia|| 250,141|| 39.3
|-
|44|| Macau, China|| 234,241|| 18.8
|-
|45|| Tokyo-Haneda, Japan|| 231,144|| 0.5
|-
|46|| Istanbul-Atatürk, Turkey|| 224,675|| 60.3
|-
|47|| Gold Coast, Australia|| 213,681|| 26.4
|-
|48|| Chengdu, China|| 209,451|| 14.0
|-
|49|| Bangalore, India|| 199,359|| 5.6
|-
|50|| Shenzhen, China|| 199,336|| 2.2
|}
Ground transportation
Inter-terminal transportation
The Aerotrain is an automated people mover (APM) that connects the airside of KLIA Main Terminal Building (MTB) and the Satellite Building. Each 250-person capacity train can transport 3,000 passengers per hour in each direction at up to 56 km/h (35 mph). These three-car driverless trains run on elevated rail and under the taxiways. The journey takes under two minutes. The Aerotrain operates between three to five-minute intervals between terminal. Automatic train controls manage the operation of the entire Aerotrain system, controlling the speeds, headways, stops and door openings in stations, and integrating functions that enhance the reliability and performance of the system.
KLIA Transit and KLIA Ekspres provides landside connections between klia2 and KLIA Main Terminal Building (MTB), and vice versa. This inter-terminal journey takes 3-minutes to connect both terminals before proceeding onwards to KL Sentral.
External connections
Rail
Kuala Lumpur International Airport is linked to the KL Sentral transportation hub in the city centre by the 57 km long Express Rail Link (ERL). There are two ERL stations at the airport: KLIA station at the Main Terminal Building and klia2 station at Gateway@klia2. The airport is served by two rail services on the ERL:
KLIA Ekspres: The dedicated airport rail link which runs non-stop between KL Sentral and KLIA. The journey takes 28 minutes to/from KLIA, and 33 minutes to/from klia2 with a two-minute stop at KLIA. The KLIA Ekspres terminal at KL Sentral is known as the KL City Air Terminal (KL CAT), which has an IATA designation XKL'. KL CAT offers in-town flight check-in service up to two hours before flight departure time for passengers travelling on Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Malaysia Airlines and Royal Brunei Airlines.
KLIA Transit: A commuter rail service which stops at three additional stops (Bandar Tasik Selatan, Putrajaya/Cyberjaya and Salak Tinggi) between KL Sentral and KLIA. The journey takes 35 minutes to/from KLIA and 39 minutes to/from klia2. Check-in facilities are not available at KLIA Transit stations.
Taxis and limousine
Airport taxis or airport limousines are provided by Airport Limo. The taxis and limousines are readily available at the Taxi and Limousine counters. They run from airport itself to destinations in Klang Valley and Greater Klang Valley. The fares are to be paid at the counter and are charged according to the destinations' zone. A surcharge is applied for services between 12 am to 5 am
Bus
Both public and private buses connect KLIA and klia2 to several points in Kuala Lumpur and beyond.
Expansion and developments
Plans
With the slight modification of the masterplan, the future Terminal 2's satellite terminal will be combined into one satellite terminal. The expansion of Terminal 2's satellite terminal will be exactly the same as Terminal 1's satellite terminal, where initially the satellite terminal will have four arms, and another four arms when the terminal reached its capacity. There is sufficient land and capacity to develop facilities to handle up to 97.5 million passengers a year, four runways by the year 2020 and two mega-terminals, each linked with satellite terminals.
Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT)
It is expected that the current LCCT will be converted into a cargo hub after all low-cost carrier flights have operate out of klia2. The RM124 million LCCT expansion project tender was won by Fajarbaru Builder Group Bhd and construction work began in March 2008. The new international arrival hall was opened on 15 December 2008, and the rest of the wing were fully operational by March 2009. The LCCT international departure hall was opened on 18 March 2009 which expanded the handling capacity from 600 passengers at one time to 3200 passengers.
A380 upgrades
The operator of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad, had spent about RM135 million (approx US$39 million) to upgrade facilities at the KL International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang to accommodate the Airbus A380. Upgrading works started on 3 April 2006, and was completed by 28 May 2007. Works include the provision of shoulders on both sides of the two existing runways of 15 meters as well as the taxiways, building additional aerobridges at the three departure halls, namely C17, C27 and C37, and enhancing the mezzanine lounges for upper deck passengers of the aircraft at the departure halls. Emirates operates flights to Kuala Lumpur with the Airbus A380 commenced on 1 January 2012. Malaysia Airlines also started its A380 services from Kuala Lumpur to London on 1 July 2012.
Gallery
References
Further reading
"Official Opening KL International Airport." Department of Civil Aviation.
External links
klia2 official website
KLIA Info Website
Gateway@klia2 website
KLIA Main Terminal and klia2 real time flight schedule
Category:Buildings and structures in Selangor
Category:Airports established in 1998
Category:1998 establishments in Malaysia |
2016-01 | Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor-697649495 | Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor | Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities including ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence roles. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor and was responsible for the majority of the airframe, weapon systems, and final assembly of the F-22, while program partner Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.
The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 prior to formally entering service in December 2005 as the F-22A. After a protracted development and despite operational issues, the USAF considers the F-22 a critical component of its tactical air power, and states that the aircraft is unmatched by any known or projected fighter. The Raptor's combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness gives the aircraft unprecedented air combat capabilities.
The high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile and comparatively lower cost F-35 led to the end of F-22 production. A final procurement tally of 187 operational production aircraft was established in 2009 and the last F-22 was delivered to the USAF in 2012.
Development
Origins
In 1981 the U.S. Air Force developed a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) as a new air superiority fighter to replace the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Code named "Senior Sky", this program was influenced by the emerging worldwide threats, including development and proliferation of Soviet Su-27 "Flanker"- and MiG-29 "Fulcrum"-class fighter aircraft. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, more powerful propulsion systems, and stealth technology. The request for proposals (RFP) was issued in July 1986 and two contractor teams, Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics and Northrop/McDonnell Douglas, were selected on 31 October 1986 to undertake a 50-month demonstration phase, culminating in the flight test of two technology demonstrator prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23.
Each design team produced two prototype air vehicles, one for each of the two engine options. The Lockheed-led team employed thrust vectoring nozzles on YF-22 for enhanced maneuverability in dogfights. The ATF's increasing weight and cost drove out certain requirements during development. Side-looking radars were deleted, and the dedicated infra-red search and track (IRST) system was downgraded from multi-color to single color and then deleted as well. However, space and cooling provisions were retained to allow for future addition of these components. The ejection seat requirement was downgraded from a fresh design to the existing McDonnell Douglas ACES II.
After the flight test demonstration and validation of the prototypes, on 23 April 1991, Secretary of the USAF Donald Rice announced the YF-22 as the winner of the ATF competition. The YF-23 design was considered stealthier and faster while the YF-22 was more maneuverable. The aviation press speculated that the YF-22 was also more adaptable to the U.S. Navy's Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF), but by 1992, the Navy had abandoned NATF.
Production and procurement
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics manufactured the majority of the airframe and performed final assembly at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia; program partner Boeing Defense, Space & Security provided additional airframe components as well as avionics integration and training systems. F-22 production was split up over many subcontractors across 46 states to increase Congressional support, though this production split may have contributed to increased costs and delays. Many capabilities were deferred to post-service upgrades, reducing the initial cost but increasing total program cost. Production supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers and up to 95,000 jobs.
The F-22 had several design changes from the YF-22. The swept-back angle of the leading edge was decreased from 48° to 42°, while the vertical stabilizers were shifted rearward and decreased in area by 20%. To improve pilot visibility, the canopy was moved forward , and the engine intakes moved rearward . The shapes of the wing and stabilator trailing edges were refined to improve aerodynamics, strength, and stealth characteristics. Increasing weight during development caused slight reductions in range and aerodynamic performance.
The first F-22, an engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) aircraft named Raptor 4001, was unveiled at Marietta, Georgia, on 9 April 1997, and first flew on 7 September 1997. In 2006, the Raptor's development team, composed of over 1,000 contractors and the USAF, won the Collier Trophy, American aviation's most prestigious award. The F-22 was in production for 15 years, at a rate of roughly two per month during peak production.
The USAF originally envisioned ordering 750 ATFs at a cost of $26.2 billion, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review led by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced this to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. By 1997, funding instability had further cut the total to 339, which was again reduced to 277 F-22s by 2003. In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) further reduced this to 183 operational aircraft, despite the USAF's preference for 381. In 2006, a multi-year procurement plan was implemented to save $15 billion but raise each aircraft's cost. That year the program's total cost was projected to be $62 billion for 183 F-22s distributed to seven combat squadrons. In 2007, Lockheed Martin received a $7.3 billion contract to increase the order to 183 production F-22s and extend manufacturing through 2011.
In April 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessed the F-22's cost to be $361 million per aircraft, with $28 billion invested in development and testing; the Unit Procurement Cost was estimated at $178 million in 2006, based on a production run of 181 aircraft. It was estimated by the end of production, $34 billion will have been spent on procurement, resulting in a total program cost of $62 billion, around $339 million per aircraft. The incremental cost for an additional F-22 was estimated at about $138 million in 2009. The GAO stated the estimated cost was $412 million per aircraft in 2012.
Ban on exports
The F-22 cannot be exported under American federal law to protect the stealth technology and other high-tech features. Customers for U.S. fighters are acquiring earlier designs such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon or the newer F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which contains technology from the F-22 but was designed to be cheaper, more flexible, and available for export. In September 2006, Congress upheld the ban on foreign F-22 sales. Despite the ban, the 2010 defense authorization bill included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant, and another report on the effect of F-22 export sales on U.S. aerospace industry.
Some Australian politicians and defense commentators proposed that Australia should attempt to purchase F-22s instead of the planned F-35s, citing the F-22's known capabilities and F-35's delays and developmental uncertainties. However, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) determined that the F-22 was unable to perform the F-35's strike and close air support roles. The Japanese government also showed interest in the F-22 for its Replacement-Fighter program. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) would reportedly require fewer fighters for its mission if it obtained the F-22, thus reducing engineering and staffing costs. However, in 2009 it was reported that acquiring the F-22 would require increases to the defense budget beyond the historical 1 percent of GDP. With the end of F-22 production, Japan chose the F-35 in December 2011. Israel also expressed interest, but eventually chose the F-35 because of the F-22's price and unavailability.
Production termination
Throughout the 2000s, the need for F-22s was debated due to rising costs and the lack of relevant adversaries. In 2006, Comptroller General of the United States David Walker found that "the DoD has not demonstrated the need" for more investment in the F-22, and further opposition to the program was expressed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, Senator John McCain, and Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senator John Warner. The F-22 program lost influential supporters in 2008 after resignation of Secretary of the USAF Michael Wynne and General T. Michael Moseley. Nevertheless, in 2008, Congress passed a defense spending bill funding the F-22's continued production and the Pentagon released $50 million of the $140 million for four additional aircraft, raising the total orders for production aircraft to 187 and leaving the program in the hands of the next administration.
In November 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the Raptor was not relevant in post-Cold War conflicts such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in April 2009, under the new Obama Administration, he called for ending F-22 production in fiscal year (FY) 2011, leaving the USAF with 187 production aircraft. In July, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to the Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of F-22 production, including shifting resources to the multirole F-35 to allow proliferation of fifth-generation fighters for three service branches and preserving the F/A-18 production line to maintain the military's electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in the Boeing EA-18G Growler. Issues with the F-22's reliability and availability also raised concerns. After President Obama threatened to veto further production, the Senate voted in July 2009 in favor of ending production and the House subsequently agreed to abide by the 187 production aircraft cap. Gates stated that the decision was taken in light of the F-35's capabilities, and in 2010, he set the F-22 requirement to 187 aircraft by lowering the number of major regional conflict preparations from two to one.
In 2010, USAF initiated a study to determine the costs of retaining F-22 tooling for a future Service Life Extension Program (SLEP). A RAND Corporation paper from this study estimated that restarting production and building an additional 75 F-22s would cost $17 billion, resulting in $227 million per aircraft or 54 million higher than the flyaway cost. Lockheed Martin stated that restarting the production line itself would cost about $200 million. Production tooling will be documented in illustrated electronic manuals stored at the Sierra Army Depot. Retained tooling will produce additional components; due to the limited production run there are no reserve aircraft, leading to considerable care during maintenance. Later attempts to retrieve this tooling found that the containers were empty.
Russian and Chinese fighter developments have fueled concern, and in 2009, General John Corley, head of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s would be inadequate, but Secretary Gates dismissed this concern. In 2011, Gates explained that Chinese fifth-generation fighter developments had been accounted for when the number of F-22s was set, and that the U.S. would have a considerable advantage in stealth aircraft in 2025, even with F-35 delays. In December 2011, the 195th and final F-22 was completed out of 8 test and 187 operational aircraft produced, the aircraft was delivered to the USAF on 2 May 2012.
Upgrades
The first combat-capable Block 3.0 aircraft first flew in 2001. Increment 2, the first F-22 upgrade program, was implemented in 2005 and enables the aircraft to employ Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Increment 3.1 provides improved ground-attack capability through synthetic aperture radar mapping and radio emitter direction finding, electronic attack and the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB); testing began in 2009 and the first upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2012. Increment 3.2 is a two-part upgrade process; 3.2A focuses on electronic warfare, communications and identification, while 3.2B will allow the F-22 to fully exploit the AIM-9X and AIM-120D missiles. The subsequent Increment 3.3 may include the adoption of an open avionics platform and air traffic control updates. Upgrades due in 2015 will allow the F-22 to employ the AIM-9X and have full Link 16 reception and transmission capability, and an upgrade scheduled in 2018 will integrate the AIM-120D into the weapons suite. The F-22 fleet is planned to have 36 Block 20 training and 149 Block 30/35 combat aircraft by 2016.
To enable two-way communication with other platforms, the F-22 can use the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as a gateway. The originally planned MADL integration was cut due to the lack of system maturity. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are currently competing to connect the F-22 with other platforms while maintaining stealth. Other upgrades being developed include infra-red search and track functionality for the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and integration of a helmet-mounted cuing system (HMCS) to enable off-boresight missile launches by 2020. Until the F-22 gains a helmet mounted system it will use the AIM-9X's helmetless high off-boresight (HHOBS) capabilities. In March 2010, the USAF accelerated software portions of 3.2 to be completed in FY 2013.
In January 2011, the USAF opened the Raptor enhancement, development and integration (REDI) contract to bidders, with a $16 billion budget. In November 2011, Lockheed Martin's upgrade contract ceiling was raised to $7.4 billion. Nearly $2 billion was allocated for structural repairs and to achieve fleet availability rate of 70.6% by 2015. However, only 63% was achieved. Some F-35 technology, such as more durable stealth coatings, have been applied to the F-22. By 2012, the update schedule had slipped seven years due to instability in requirements and funding. In 2014 the USAF moved to cut upgrade funding.
The F-22 is currently being upgraded with a backup oxygen system, software upgrades and oxygen sensors to address the frequent oxygen deprivation issues and normalize operations. In 2013, the faulty flight vest valves were replaced and altitude restrictions lifted; distance restrictions will be lifted once a backup oxygen system is installed. In April 2014 the USAF stated in Congressional testimony that installation of automatic backup oxygen systems on the F-22 fleet would be completed within twelve months.
The F-22 was designed for a lifespan of 30 years and 8,000 flight hours, with a $100 million "structures retrofit program". Investigations are being made for upgrades to extend their useful lives further. In the long term, the F-22 is expected to be superseded by a sixth-generation jet fighter to be fielded in the 2030s.
Design
Overview
The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation fighter that is considered fourth generation in stealth aircraft technology by the USAF. It is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise, supermaneuverability, stealth, and sensor fusion in a single weapons platform. The Raptor has clipped delta wings with a reverse sweep on the rear, four empennage surfaces, and a retractable tricycle landing gear. Flight control surfaces include leading and trailing-edge flaps, ailerons, rudders on the canted vertical stabilizers, and all-moving horizontal tails; these surfaces also serve as speed brakes.
The aircraft's dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 afterburning turbofan engines are closely spaced and incorporate pitch-axis thrust vectoring nozzles with a range of ±20 degrees; each engine has maximum thrust in the 35,000 lbf (156 kN) class. The F-22's thrust to weight ratio in typical combat configuration is nearly at unity in maximum military power and 1.25 in full afterburner. Maximum speed without external stores is estimated to be Mach 1.82 during supercruise and greater than Mach 2 with afterburners.
The F-22 is among only a few aircraft that can supercruise, or sustain supersonic flight without using fuel-inefficient afterburners; targets can be intercepted which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach. The Raptor's high operating altitude is also a significant tactical advantage over prior fighters. The use of internal weapons bays permits the aircraft to maintain comparatively higher performance over most other combat-configured fighters due to a lack of aerodynamic drag from external stores. The F-22's structure contains extensive amounts of high-strength materials to withstand stress and heat of sustained supersonic flight. Respectively, titanium alloys and composites comprise 39% and 24% of the aircraft's structural weight.
The F-22 is highly maneuverable at both supersonic and subsonic speeds. Computerized flight control system and full authority digital engine control (FADEC) make the aircraft highly departure resistant and controllable at aggressive pilot inputs. The Raptor's relaxed stability and powerful thrust vectoring powerplants enable the aircraft to turn tightly and perform very high alpha (angle of attack) maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (J-turn) and Pugachev's Cobra. The aircraft is also capable of maintaining over 60° alpha while having some roll control.
The Raptor's aerodynamic performance, sensor fusion, and stealth work together for increased effectiveness. Altitude, speed, and advanced active and passive sensors allow the aircraft to spot targets at considerable ranges and increase weapons range; altitude and speed also complement stealth's ability to increase the aircraft's survivability against ground defenses such as surface-to-air missiles.
Avionics
Key avionics include BAE Systems EI&S AN/ALR-94 radar warning receiver (RWR), Lockheed Martin AN/AAR-56 infrared and ultraviolet Missile Launch Detector (MLD) and Northrop Grumman AN/APG-77 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The MLD features six sensors to provide full spherical infrared coverage. The RWR is a passive radar detector with more than 30 antennas are blended into the wings and fuselage for all-round coverage. Tom Burbage, former F-22 program head at Lockheed Martin, described it as "the most technically complex piece of equipment on the aircraft." The range of the RWR (250+ nmi) exceeds the radar's, and can cue radar emissions to be confined to a narrow beam (down to 2° by 2° in azimuth and elevation) to increase stealth. Depending on the detected threat, the defensive systems can prompt the pilot to release countermeasures such as flares or chaff. According to Bill Sweetman, experts had said the ALR-94 can be used as a passive detection system capable of searching targets and providing enough information for a radar lock on.
The AN/APG-77 radar features a low-observable, active-aperture, electronically scanned array that can track multiple targets under any weather conditions. Radar emissions can also be focused to overload enemy sensors as an electronic-attack capability. The radar changes frequencies more than 1,000 times per second to lower interception probability and has an estimated range of 125–150 miles, though planned upgrades will allow a range of or more in narrow beams. Radar information is processed by two Raytheon Common Integrated Processor (CIP)s, each capable of processing up to 10.5 billion instructions per second. In a process known as sensor fusion, data from the radar, other sensors, and external systems is filtered and combined by the CIP into a common view, reducing pilot workload. However, upgrading the aircraft's avionics was reportedly very challenging due to their highly integrated nature.
The F-22's ability to operate close to the battlefield gives the aircraft threat detection and identification capability comparative with the RC-135 Rivet Joint, and the ability to function as a "mini-AWACS", though the radar is less powerful than those of dedicated platforms. The F-22 can designate targets for allies, and determine whether two friendly aircraft are targeting the same aircraft. This radar system can sometimes identify targets "many times quicker than the AWACS". The IEEE 1394B bus developed for the F-22 was derived from the commercial IEEE 1394 "FireWire" bus system. In 2007, the F-22's radar was tested as a wireless data transceiver, transmitting data at 548 megabits per second and receiving at gigabit speed, far faster than the Link 16 system.
The F-22's software has some 1.7 million lines of code, the majority involving processing radar data. Former Secretary of the USAF Michael Wynne blamed the use of the DoD's Ada for cost overruns and delays on many military projects, including the F-22. Cyberattacks on subcontractors have reportedly raised doubts about the security of the F-22's systems and combat-effectiveness. In 2009, former Navy Secretary John Lehman considered the F-22 to be safe from cyberattack, citing the age of its IBM software.
Cockpit
The F-22 has a glass cockpit with all-digital flight instruments. The monochrome head-up display offers a wide field of view and serves as a primary flight instrument; information is also displayed upon six color liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels. The primary flight controls are a force-sensitive side-stick controller and a pair of throttles. The USAF initially wanted to implement direct voice input (DVI) controls, but this was judged to be too technically risky and was abandoned. The canopy's dimensions are approximately 140 inches long, 45 inches wide, and 27 inches tall (355 cm x 115 cm x 69 cm) and weighs 360 pounds.
The F-22 has integrated radio functionality, the signal processing systems are virtualized rather than as a separate hardware module. There have been several reports on the F-22's inability to communicate with other aircraft, and funding cuts have affected the integration of the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL). Voice communication is possible, but not data transfer.
The integrated control panel (ICP) is a keypad system for entering communications, navigation, and autopilot data. Two up-front displays located around the ICP are used to display integrated caution advisory/warning data, communications, navigation and identification (CNI) data and also serve as the stand-by flight instrumentation group and fuel quantity indicator. The stand-by flight group displays an artificial horizon, for basic instrument meteorological conditions. The primary multi-function display (PMFD) is located under the ICP, and is used for navigation and situation assessment. Three secondary multi-function displays are located around the PMFD for tactical information and stores management.
The ejection seat is a version of the ACES II (Advanced Concept Ejection Seat) commonly used in USAF aircraft, with a center-mounted ejection control. The F-22 has a complex life support system, which includes the on-board oxygen generation system (OBOGS), protective pilot garments, and a breathing regulator/anti-g (BRAG) valve controlling flow and pressure to the pilot's mask and garments. The pilot garments were developed under the Advanced Technology Anti-G Suit (ATAGS) project and are to protect against chemical/biological hazards and cold-water immersion, counter g-forces and low pressure at high altitudes, and provide thermal relief. Suspicions regarding the performance of the OBOGS and life support equipment have been raised by several mishaps, including a fatal crash.
Armament
The Raptor has three internal weapons bays: a large bay on the bottom of the fuselage, and two smaller bays on the sides of the fuselage, aft of the engine intakes. The main bay can accommodate six LAU-142/A launchers for beyond-visual-range missiles and each side bay has an LAU-141/A launcher for short-range missiles. Four of the launchers in the main bay can be replaced with two bomb racks that can each carry one 1,000 lb (450 kg) or four 250 lb (110 kg) bombs. Carrying armaments internally maintains the aircraft's stealth and minimizes additional drag. Missile launches require the bay doors to be open for less than a second, during which hydraulic arms push missiles clear of the aircraft; this is to reduce vulnerability to detection and to deploy missiles during high speed flight.
The F-22 can also carry air-to-surface weapons such as bombs with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance and the Small-Diameter Bomb, but cannot self-designate for laser-guided weapons. Internal air-to-surface ordnance is limited to 2,000 lb. An internally mounted M61A2 Vulcan 20 mm cannon is embedded in the right wing root with the muzzle covered by a retractable door to maintain stealth. The radar projection of the cannon fire's path is displayed on the pilot's head-up display.
The F-22's high cruise speed and altitude increase the effective ranges of its munitions, it has 50% greater employment range for the AIM-120 AMRAAM than prior platforms, and range will be further extended with the introduction of the AIM-120D. While specifics are classified, it is expected that JDAMs employed by F-22s will have twice or more the effective range of legacy platforms. In testing, an F-22 dropped a GBU-32 JDAM from 50,000 feet (15,000 m) while cruising at Mach 1.5, striking a moving target away.
While the F-22 typically carries weapons internally, the wings include four hardpoints, each rated to handle . Each hardpoint can accommodate a pylon that can carry a detachable 600 gallon external fuel tank or a launcher holding two air-to-air missiles; the two inboard hardpoints are "plumbed" for external fuel tanks. The use of external stores degrades the aircraft's stealth and kinematic performance; after releasing stores the external attachments can be jettisoned to restore those characteristics. A stealthy ordnance pod and pylon was being developed to carry additional weapons in the mid-2000s.
Stealth
The F-22 was designed to be highly difficult to detect and track by radar. Measures to reduce radar cross-section include airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets that prevent line-of-sight of the engine faces from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return. The F-22 was also designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye. The aircraft's flat thrust vectoring nozzle reduces infrared emissions to mitigate the threat of infrared homing ("heat seeking") surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Additional measures to reduce the infrared signature include special paint and active cooling of leading edges to manage the heat buildup from supersonic flight.
Compared to previous stealth designs like the F-117, the F-22 is less reliant on RAM, which are maintenance-intensive and susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Unlike the B-2, which requires climate-controlled hangars, the F-22 can undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar. The F-22 features a Signature Assessment System which delivers warnings when the radar signature is degraded and necessitates repair. The F-22's exact radar cross-section (RCS) is classified; however, in 2009 Lockheed Martin released information indicating it has an RCS (from certain angles) of −40 dBsm – equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". Effectively maintaining the stealth features can decrease the F-22's mission capable rate to 62–70%.
The effectiveness of the stealth characteristics is difficult to gauge. The RCS value is a restrictive measurement of the aircraft's frontal or side area from the perspective of a static radar. When an aircraft maneuvers it exposes a completely different set of angles and surface area, potentially increasing radar observability. Furthermore, the F-22's stealth contouring and radar absorbent materials are chiefly effective against high-frequency radars, usually found on other aircraft. The effects of Rayleigh scattering and resonance mean that low-frequency radars such as weather radars and early-warning radars are more likely to detect the F-22 due to its physical size. However, such radars are also conspicuous, susceptible to clutter, and have low precision. Additionally, while faint or fleeting radar contacts make defenders aware that a stealth aircraft is present, reliably vectoring interception to attack the aircraft is much more challenging. According to the USAF an F-22 surprised an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that was attempting to intercept an American UAV, despite Iran's claim of having military VHF radar coverage over the Persian Gulf.
Operational history
Designation and testing
The YF-22 was originally given the unofficial name "Lightning II", after the World War II fighter P-38, by Lockheed, which persisted until the mid-1990s when the USAF officially named the aircraft "Raptor". The name "Lightning II" was later given to the F-35. The aircraft was also briefly dubbed "SuperStar" and "Rapier". In September 2002, USAF changed the Raptor's designation to F/A-22, mimicking the Navy's McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and intended to highlight a planned ground-attack capability amid debate over the aircraft's role and relevance. The F-22 designation was reinstated in December 2005, when the aircraft entered service.
Flight testing of the F-22 began in 1997 with Raptor 4001, the first EMD jet, and eight more F-22s would participate in the EMD and flight test program. Raptor 4001 was retired from flight testing in 2000 and subsequently sent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) for survivability testing, including live fire testing and battle damage repair training. EMD F-22s have been used for testing upgrades, and also as maintenance trainers. The first production F-22 was delivered to Nellis AFB, Nevada, in January 2003.
In May 2006, a released report documented a problem with the F-22's forward titanium boom, caused by defective heat-treating. This made the boom on roughly the first 80 F-22s less ductile than specified and potentially shortened the part's life. Modifications and inspections were implemented to the booms to restore life expectancy.
In August 2008, an unmodified F-22 of the 411th Flight Test Squadron performed in the first ever air-to-air refueling of an aircraft using synthetic jet fuel as part of a wider USAF effort to qualify aircraft to use the fuel, a 50/50 mix of JP-8 and a Fischer–Tropsch process-produced, natural gas-based fuel. In 2011, an F-22 flew supersonic on a 50% mixture of biofuel derived from camelina.
Introduction into service
In December 2005, the USAF announced that the F-22 had achieved Initial Operational Capability (IOC). During Exercise Northern Edge in Alaska in June 2006, in simulated combat exercises 12 F-22s of the 94th FS downed 108 adversaries with no losses. In the exercises, the Raptor-led Blue Force amassed 241 kills against two losses in air-to-air combat, with neither loss being an F-22. During Red Flag 07-1 in February 2007, 14 F-22s of the 94th FS supported Blue Force strikes and undertook close air support sorties. Against superior numbers of Red Force Aggressor F-15s and F-16s, 6–8 F-22s maintained air dominance throughout. No sorties were missed because of maintenance or other failures; a single F-22 was judged lost against the defeated opposing force. F-22s also provided airborne electronic surveillance.
The Raptor achieved Full Operational Capability (FOC) in December 2007, when General John Corley of Air Combat Command (ACC) officially declared the F-22s of the integrated active duty 1st Fighter Wing and Virginia Air National Guard 192d Fighter Wing fully operational. This was followed by an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) of the integrated wing in April 2008, in which it was rated "excellent" in all categories, with a simulated kill-ratio of 221–0.
Deployments
F-22 units are frequently deployed to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. In February 2007, on the aircraft's first overseas deployment to Kadena Air Base, six F-22s of 27th Fighter Squadron flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple software-related system failures while crossing the International Date Line (180th meridian of longitude). The aircraft returned to Hawaii by following tanker aircraft. Within 48 hours, the error was resolved and the journey resumed. In early 2013, F-22s were involved in U.S.-South Korean military drills.
In November 2007, F-22s of 90th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, performed their first NORAD interception of two Russian Tu-95MS "Bear-H" bombers. Since then, F-22s have also escorted probing Tu-160 "Blackjack" bombers. The first pair of F-22s assigned to the 49th Fighter Wing became operational at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, in June 2008. In 2014, Holloman F-22s and their support personnel were reassigned to the reactivated 95th Fighter Squadron at Tyndall AFB.
Secretary of Defense Gates initially refused to deploy F-22s to the Middle East in 2007. The type made its first deployment in the region at Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE in 2009. In April 2012, F-22s have been rotating into Al Dhafra Air Base, less than 200 miles from Iran; the Iranian defense minister referred to the deployment as a security threat. In March 2013 the USAF announced that an F-22 had intercepted an Iranian F-4 Phantom II that approached within 16 miles of an MQ-1 Predator flying off the Iranian coastline.
In June 2014, F-22s from the 199th Fighter Squadron of the Hawaii Air National Guard were deployed to Malaysia to participate in the Cope Taufan 2014 exercise conducted by the USAF Pacific Air Forces and Royal Malaysian Air Force.
On 22 September 2014, F-22s performed the type's first combat sorties during the American-led intervention in Syria; a number of aircraft dropped 1,000-pound GPS-guided bombs on Islamic State targets in the vicinity of Tishrin Dam. Combat operations by F-22s are planned to continue into the foreseeable future. While some missions involve striking targets, the F-22's main role is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) gathering. By January 2015, the F-22 accounted for three percent of Air Force sorties during Operation Inherent Resolve. General Mike Hostage of ACC said the USAF used tactics, techniques, and procedures to overcome the disparity between the F-22's communications abilities and other assets during the deployment, and that it performed "flawlessly", despite combat operations not being the most challenging. Between September 2014 and July 2015, F-22s flew 204 sorties over Syria, dropping 270 bombs at some 60 locations. On 23 June 2015, a pair of F-22s performed the aircraft's first close air support (CAS) mission after receiving a short-notice request for airstrikes in close proximity to friendly forces.
In late 2014, the USAF was testing a rapid deployment concept involving four F-22s and one C-17 for support, first proposed in 2008 by two F-22 pilots. The goal was for the type to be able to set up and engage in combat within 24 hours. Four F-22s were deployed to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany in August and Lask Air Base in Poland and Amari Air Base in Estonia in September 2015 to train with NATO allies.
Maintenance and training
F-22 had a mission capable rate of 62% in 2004, 70% in 2009, and was predicted to reach 85% as the fleet reached 100,000 flight hours. Early on, the F-22 required more than 30 hours of maintenance per flight hour and a total cost per flight hour of $44,000; by 2008 it was reduced to 18.1, and 10.5 by 2009; lower than the Pentagon's requirement of 12 maintenance hours per flight hour. When introduced, the F-22 had a Mean Time Between Maintenance (MTBM) of 1.7 hours, short of the required 3.0; in 2012 this rose to 3.2 hours. By 2013, the cost per flight hour was $68,362, over three times as much as the F-16. In 2014, availability was 63% and the F-22 fleet required 43 maintenance man-hours per flight hour.
Each aircraft requires a month-long packaged maintenance plan (PMP) every 300 flight hours. The stealth system, including its radar absorbing metallic skin, account for almost one third of maintenance. The canopy was redesigned after the original design lasted an average of 331 hours instead of the required 800 hours. F-22 depot maintenance is performed at Ogden Air Logistics Complex at Hill AFB, Utah.
In January 2007, the F-22 reportedly maintained 97% sortie rate, flying 102 out of 105 tasked sorties while amassing a 144-to-zero kill ratio during "Northern Edge" air-to-air exercises in Alaska. According to Lieutenant Colonel Wade Tolliver, squadron commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron, the stealth coatings of the F-22 are more robust than those used in earlier stealth aircraft, being less sensitive to weather and wear and tear. However, rain caused "shorts and failures in sophisticated electrical components" when F-22s were posted to Guam.
To reduce operating costs and lengthen the F-22's service life, some pilot training sorties are performed using high fidelity flight simulators, while the T-38 Talon is used for adversary training. DoD budget cuts led to F-22 demonstration flights being halted in 2013 before resuming in 2014. In 2012, it was reported that the F-22's maintenance demands have increased as the fleet aged, the stealth coatings being particularly demanding.
Operational problems
Operational problems have been experienced and some have caused fleet-wide groundings. Critically, pilots have experienced a decreased mental status, including losing consciousness. There were reports of instances of pilots found to have a decreased level of alertness or memory loss after landing. F-22 pilots have experienced lingering respiratory problems and a chronic cough; other symptoms include irritability, emotional lability and neurological changes. A number of possible causes were investigated, including possible exposure to noxious chemical agents from the respiratory tubing, pressure suit malfunction, side effects from oxygen delivery at greater-than-atmospheric concentrations, and oxygen supply disruptions. Other problems include minor mechanical problems and navigational software failures. The fleet was grounded for four months in 2011 before resuming flight, but reports of oxygen issues persisted.
In 2005, the Raptor Aeromedical Working Group, a USAF expert panel, recommended several changes to deal with the oxygen supply issues. In October 2011, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $24M contract to investigate the breathing difficulties. In July 2012, the Pentagon concluded that a pressure valve on flight vests worn during high-altitude flights and a carbon air filter were likely sources of at least some hypoxia-like symptoms. Long-distance flights were resumed, but were limited to lower altitudes until corrections had been made. The carbon filters were changed to a different model to reduce lung exposure to carbon particulates. The breathing regulator/anti-g (BRAG) valve, used to inflate the pilot's vest during high G maneuvers, was found to be defective, inflating the vest at unintended intervals and restricting the pilot's breathing. The on-board oxygen generating system (OBOGS) also unexpectedly reduced oxygen levels during high-G maneuvers. In late 2012, Lockheed Martin was awarded contracts to install a supplemental automatic oxygen backup system, in addition to the primary and manual backup. Changes recommended by the Raptor Aeromedical Working Group in 2005 received further consideration in 2012; the USAF reportedly considered installing EEG brain wave monitors on the pilot's helmets for inflight monitoring.<ref>Lessig, Hugh. "Taking a closer look at F-22 pilots." "HRmilitary.com, 3 December 2012. Retrieved: 3 December 2012.</ref>
New backup oxygen generators and filters have been installed on the aircraft. The coughing symptoms have been attributed to acceleration atelectasis, which may be exacerbated by the F-22's high performance; there is no present solution to the condition. The presence of toxins and particles in some ground crew was deemed to be unrelated. On 4 April 2013, the distance and altitude flight restrictions were lifted after the F-22 Combined Test Force and 412th Aerospace Medicine Squadron determined that breathing restrictions on the pilot were responsible as opposed to an issue with the oxygen provided.
Variants
YF-22A – pre-production technology demonstrator for ATF demonstration/validation phase; two were built.
F-22A – single-seat production version, was designated F/A-22A in early 2000s.
F-22B – planned two-seat variant, but was canceled in 1996 to save development costs.
Naval F-22 variant – a carrier-borne variant of the F-22 with variable-sweep wings for the U.S. Navy's Navy Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF) program to replace the F-14 Tomcat. Program was canceled in 1993. Former SoAF Donald Rice has called the possibility of the naval variant the deciding factor for his choice of the YF-22 over the YF-23.
Derivatives
The FB-22 was a proposed medium-range bomber for the USAF. The FB-22 was projected to carry up to 30 Small Diameter Bombs to about twice the range of the F-22A, while maintaining the F-22's stealth and supersonic speed. However, the FB-22 in its planned form appears to have been canceled with the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and subsequent developments, in lieu of a larger subsonic bomber with a much greater range.Hebert, Adam J. "The 2018 Bomber and Its Friends." Air Force magazine, October 2006. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
The X-44 MANTA, or multi-axis, no-tail aircraft, was a planned experimental aircraft based on the F-22 with enhanced thrust vectoring controls and no aerodynamic surface backup. The aircraft was to be solely controlled by thrust vectoring, without featuring any rudders, ailerons, or elevators. Funding for this program was halted in 2000.
Operators
United States Air Force
The US Air Force is the only operator of the F-22. It ordered 8 test and 187 operational production aircraft. In November 2012, it had 184 production aircraft in inventory.
Air Combat Command
1st Fighter Wing - Langley AFB, Virginia
27th Fighter Squadron – The first combat F-22 squadron. Began conversion in December 2005.
94th Fighter Squadron
53d Wing - Eglin AFB, Florida
422d Test and Evaluation Squadron(Nellis AFB, Nevada)
57th Wing - Nellis AFB, Nevada
433d Weapons Squadron
325th Fighter Wing - Tyndall AFB, Florida
43d Fighter Squadron – The first squadron to operate the F-22 and continues to serve as the Formal Training Unit. Known as the "Hornets", the 43d was re-activated at Tyndall in 2002.
95th Fighter Squadron
Air Force Materiel Command
412th Test Wing - Edwards AFB, California
411th Flight Test Squadron – Conducted competition between YF-22 and YF-23 from 1989 to 1991. Continues to conduct flight test on F-22 armaments and upgrades.
Pacific Air Forces
3d Wing - Elmendorf AFB, Alaska
90th Fighter Squadron
525th Fighter Squadron
15th Wing - Hickam AFB, Hawaii
19th Fighter Squadron – Active Associate squadron to the 199th Fighter Squadron (Hawaii Air National Guard).
Air National Guard
192d Fighter Wing - Langley AFB, Virginia
149th Fighter Squadron, Virginia Air National Guard – Associate ANG squadron to the 1st Fighter Wing (Air Combat Command).
154th Wing - Hickam AFB, Hawaii
199th Fighter Squadron, Hawaii Air National Guard
Air Force Reserve Command
44th Fighter Group - Tyndall AFB, Florida
301st Fighter Squadron – Associate AFRC squadron to the 325th Fighter Wing (Air Combat Command).
477th Fighter Group - Elmendorf AFB, Alaska
302d Fighter Squadron – Associate AFRC squadron to the 3d Wing (Pacific Air Forces).
Accidents
In April 1992, the second YF-22 crashed while landing at Edwards AFB. The test pilot, Tom Morgenfeld, escaped without injury. The cause of the crash was found to be a flight control software error that failed to prevent a pilot-induced oscillation.
The first F-22 crash occurred during takeoff at Nellis AFB on 20 December 2004, in which the pilot ejected safely before impact. The investigation revealed that a brief interruption in power during an engine shutdown prior to flight caused a flight-control system malfunction;USAF AIB Report Executive Summary on 20 December 2004 F-22A mishap. consequently the aircraft design was corrected to avoid the problem. Following a brief grounding, F-22 operations resumed after a review.
On 25 March 2009, an EMD F-22 crashed northeast of Edwards AFB during a test flight, resulting in the death of Lockheed Martin test pilot David P. Cooley. An Air Force Materiel Command investigation found that Cooley momentarily lost consciousness during a high-G maneuver, then ejected when he found himself too low to recover. Cooley was killed during ejection by blunt-force trauma from windblast due to the aircraft's speed. The investigation found no design issues.USAF AIB Report on 25 March 2009 F-22A mishap. Retrieved: 31 May 2014.
On 16 November 2010, an F-22 from Elmendorf AFB crashed, killing the pilot, Captain Jeffrey Haney. F-22s were restricted to flying below 25,000 feet, then grounded during the investigation. The crash was attributed to a bleed air system malfunction after an engine overheat condition was detected, shutting down the Environmental Control System (ECS) and OBOGS. The accident review board ruled Haney was to blame, as he did not react properly and did not engage the emergency oxygen system. Haney's widow sued Lockheed Martin, claiming equipment defects. She later reached a settlement. After the ruling, the engagement handle of the emergency oxygen system was redesigned; the system should engage automatically if OBOGS shuts down due to engine failure. On 11 February 2013, the DoD's Inspector General released a report stating that the USAF had erred in blaming Haney, and that facts did not sufficiently support conclusions; the USAF stated that it stood by the ruling.
During a training mission, an F-22 crashed to the east of Tyndall AFB, on 15 November 2012. The pilot ejected safely and no injuries were reported on the ground. The investigation determined that a "chafed" electrical wire ignited the fluid in a hydraulic line, causing a fire that damaged the flight controls.
Aircraft on display
EMD F-22A 91-4003 is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Specifications (F-22A)
Notable appearances in media
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Aronstein, David C. and Michael J. Hirschberg. Advanced Tactical Fighter to F-22 Raptor: Origins of the 21st Century Air Dominance Fighter. Arlington, Virginia: American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, 1998. ISBN 978-1-56347-282-4.
Crosby, Francis. Fighter Aircraft. London: Lorenz Books, 2002. ISBN 0-7548-0990-0.
Holder, Bill and Mike Wallace. Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor: An Illustrated History (Schiffer Military/Aviation History). Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 1998. ISBN 978-0-76430-558-0.
Jenkins, Dennis R. and Tony R. Landis. Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58007-111-6.
Miller, Jay. Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor, Stealth Fighter. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-85780-158-X.
Miller, Jay. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works: The Official History… (updated ed). Leicester, UK: Midland Publishing, 1995. ISBN 1-85780-037-0.
Pace, Steve. F-22 Raptor: America's Next Lethal War Machine. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999. ISBN 0-07-134271-0.
Pace, Steve. X-Fighters: USAF Experimental and Prototype Fighters, XP-59 to YF-23. St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks International, 1991. ISBN 0-87938-540-5.
Polmar, Norman. The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-59114-685-8
Spick, Mike. The Illustrated Directory of Fighters. London: Salamander, 2002. ISBN 1-84065-384-1.
Sweetman, Bill. "Fighter EW: The Next Generation". Journal of Electronic Defense'', Volume 23, Issue 7, July 2000.
External links
F-22 page on GlobalSecurity.org
F-22 Demo at 2007 Capital Airshow in Sacramento – with narrative by F-22 pilot Paul "Max" Moga
F-022 Raptor
Category:United States fighter aircraft 1990–1999
Category:Twinjets
Category:Monoplanes
Category:Stealth aircraft
Category:Articles containing video clips |
2016-01 | Breaking_Bad-697477389 | Breaking_Bad | Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013. It tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, who, together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), turns to a life of crime, producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while dealing with various drug lords and opposition. The title is from a Southern colloquialism meaning to "raise hell". Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. a.k.a. Flynn (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer, drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters of Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).
Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time.
By the time the series finale aired, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including sixteen Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards and a People's Choice Award. For his leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the highest rated show of all time.
Production
Conception
Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series The X-Files. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. "Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades," he said. "When I realized this, the logical next step was to think, how can I do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?" He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface.
The show title is based on a Southern colloquialism meaning, among other things, "raising hell", and was chosen by Gilligan to describe Walter's transformation. According to Time entertainment editor Lily Rothman, the term has a broader meaning and is an old phrase which "connotes more violence than 'raising hell' does.... [T]he words possess a wide variety of nuances: to 'break bad' can mean to 'go wild,' to 'defy authority' and break the law, to be verbally 'combative, belligerent, or threatening' or, followed by the preposition 'on,' to 'completely dominate or humiliate.'"
The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their current unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a "meth lab in the back of an RV and [drive] around the country cooking meth and making money."
Gilligan said, before the series finale, that it was difficult to write for Walter White because the character was so dark and morally questionable: "I'm going to miss the show when it's over, but on some level, it'll be a relief to not have Walt in my head anymore." Gilligan later said the idea for Walter's character intrigued him so much that he "didn't really give much thought on how well it would sell", stating that he would have given up on the premise since it was "such an odd, dark story" that could have difficulties being pitched to studios.
As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of Breaking Bad made Walter increasingly unsympathetic. Gilligan said during the run of the series: "He's going from being a protagonist to an antagonist. We want to make people question who they're pulling for, and why." Cranston said by the fourth season: "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on his way to badass."
While still pitching the show to studios, Gilligan was initially discouraged when he learned of the existing series Weeds and its similarities to the premise of Breaking Bad. While his producers convinced him that the show was different enough to still be successful, he later stated that he would not have gone forward with the idea had he known about Weeds earlier.
Development history
The network ordered nine episodes for the first season (including the pilot), but the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike limited the production to seven episodes. The initial versions of the script were set in Riverside, California, but at the suggestion of Sony, Albuquerque was chosen for the production's location due to the favorable financial conditions offered by the state of New Mexico. Once Gilligan recognized that this would mean "we'd always have to be avoiding the Sandia Mountains" in shots directed toward the East, the story setting was changed to the actual production location. It was shot primarily on 35 mm film, with digital cameras employed as needed for additional angles, point of view shots and time-lapse photography. Breaking Bad reportedly cost $3 million per episode to produce, higher than the average cost for a basic cable program.
In July 2011, Vince Gilligan indicated that he intended to conclude Breaking Bad at the end of its fifth season. In early August 2011, negotiations began over a deal regarding the fifth and possible final season between the network AMC and Sony Pictures Television, the production company of the series. AMC proposed a shortened fifth season (six to eight episodes, instead of 13) to cut costs, but the producers declined. Sony then approached other cable networks about possibly picking up the show if a deal could not be made. On August 14, 2011, AMC renewed the series for fifth and final season consisting of 16 episodes.
In terms of Breaking Bads immense global popularity, creator Vince Gilligan thanked the on demand video service Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013. He even went as far as to say that Netflix "kept us on the air".
Casting
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan cast Bryan Cranston for the role of Walter White based on having worked with him in an episode of the science fiction television series The X-Files, on which Gilligan worked as a writer. Cranston played an anti-Semite with a terminal illness who took series co-protagonist Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) hostage. Gilligan said the character had to be simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, and that "Bryan alone was the only actor who could do that, who could pull off that trick. And it is a trick. I have no idea how he does it." AMC officials, who were initially reluctant with the casting choice, having known Cranston only as the over-the-top character Hal on the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle, approached actors John Cusack and Matthew Broderick about the role. When both actors declined, the executives were persuaded to cast Cranston after seeing his X-Files episode.
Cranston contributed significantly to the formation and development of the Walter White persona. When Gilligan left much of Walter's past unexplained during the development of the series, the actor wrote his own backstory for the character. At the start of the show, Cranston gained 10 pounds to reflect the character's personal decline and had the natural red highlights of his hair dyed a regular brown. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to create a mustache he described as "impotent" and like a "dead caterpillar". Cranston repeatedly identified elements within certain scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and went so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode's screenwriters. Cranston has said he was inspired partially by his elderly father for how Walter carries himself physically, which he described as "a little hunched over, never erect, [as if] the weight of the world is on this man's shoulders". In contrast to his character, Cranston has been described as extremely playful on set, with Aaron Paul describing him as "a kid trapped in a man's body".
Gilligan originally intended for Aaron Paul's character, Jesse Pinkman, to be killed at the end of Breaking Bads first season in a botched drug deal as a plot device to plague Walter White with guilt. However, Gilligan said by the second episode of the season, he was so impressed with Paul's performance that "it became pretty clear early on that would be a huge, colossal mistake, to kill off Jesse".
Scientific accuracy
Donna Nelson, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, checked scripts and provided dialogue. She also drew chemical structures and wrote chemical equations which were used as props. According to creator Vince Gilligan,
Dr. Donna Nelson from the University of Oklahoma approached us several seasons back and said, "I really like this show, and if you ever need help with the chemistry, I'd love to lend a hand." She's been a wonderful advisor. We get help wherever we need it, whether it's chemistry, electrical engineering, or physics. We try to get everything correct. There's no full-time [advisor] on set, but we run certain scenes by these experts first.
"[Because] Walter White was talking to his students, I was able to dumb down certain moments of description and dialogue in the early episodes which held me until we had some help from some honest-to-God chemists," says Gilligan. According to Gilligan, Nelson "vets our scripts to make sure our chemistry dialogue is accurate and up to date. We also have a chemist with the Drug Enforcement Administration based out of Dallas who has just been hugely helpful to us." Nelson spoke of Gilligan's interest in having the science right: "[He] said it made a difference to him."
In 2013, two scenes from the first season of Breaking Bad were put under scrutiny in a Mythbusters Breaking Bad Special. Despite several modifications to what was seen in the show, both myths were "busted" (i.e., the scenes depicted in the show were shown to be physically impossible).
Jason Wallach of Vice magazine commended the accuracy of the cooking methods presented in the series. In early episodes, a once common clandestine route, the Nagai red phosphorus/iodine method, is depicted, which uses pseudoephedrine as a precursor to d-(+)-methamphetamine. By the seventh episode of season 1 ("A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal"), Walt chooses to use a different synthetic route based on the difficulty of acquiring enough pseudoephedrine to produce on the larger scale required. The new method Walt chooses is a reductive amination reaction, relying on phenyl-2-propanone and methylamine. On the show, the phenyl-2-propanone (otherwise known as phenylacetone or P2P) is produced from phenylacetic acid and acetic acid using a tube furnace and thorium dioxide (ThO2) as a catalyst, as mentioned in episodes "A No Rough-Stuff-Type Deal" and "Más". P2P and methylamine form an imine intermediate; reduction of this P2P-methylamine imine intermediate is performed using mercury aluminum amalgam, as shown in several episodes including "Hazard Pay".
One of the important plot points in the series is that the crystal meth Walter "cooks" has very long crystals, is very pure, and (despite its purity) has a strong cyan blue color. Truly ultra-pure crystal meth would tend to be clear or white. Nonetheless, it is noted during the show that some competing meth producers were dying their product blue in order to trick their customers into thinking they were buying Walt's highly potent product.
In their article "Die Chemie bei Breaking Bad" on Chemie in unserer Zeit (translated into English on ChemistryViews as "The Chemistry of 'Breaking Bad'"), Tunga Salthammer and Falk Harnish discuss the plausibility of the chemistry portrayed in certain scenes. According to the two, chemistry is clearly depicted as a manufacturing science without much explanation of analytical methods being provided. On the other hand, serious scientific subjects are intelligently mixed into the dialog in order to show a world where chemistry plays a key role. This is quite unlike standard TV/movie science fiction where the scientist is either a nerdy hero or a crazed madman and any chemistry shown is almost always highly inaccurate.
Technical aspects
Michael Slovis was the cinematographer of Breaking Bad beginning with the second season and he received critical acclaim for his work throughout the series. Critics appreciated the bold visual style adopted by the TV series. Although series creator Vince Gilligan and Slovis wanted to shoot Breaking Bad in cinemascope, Sony and AMC didn't grant them permission, which finally worked in favor of the series' reputation. Gilligan cited Sergio Leone's Westerns as a reference for how he wanted the series to look. For his work, he received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Cinematography for a One Hour Series and Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series.
Kelley Dixon was one of the editors of Breaking Bad and edited many of the series' "meth montages". For the montages, she would use techniques such as jump cuts and alternating the speed of the film, either faster or slower. For her work, she received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series and won the award in 2013.
Cast and characters
Main characters
Bryan Cranston as Walter White – a chemistry teacher diagnosed with Stage IIIA lung cancer who turns to making meth to secure his family's finances. As his shady businesses progress, Walter gains a notorious reputation under the name of 'Heisenberg'. Cranston stated that, though he enjoyed doing comedy, he decided he "... should really focus on doing something else. But I think any good drama worth its weight always has a sprinkling of comedy in it, because you can ease the tension to an audience when it's necessary, and then build it back up again. Walt White has no clue he's occasionally funny, but as an actor I recognize when there are comedic moments and opportunities."
Anna Gunn as Skyler White – Walter's wife who was pregnant with their second child prior to his diagnosis, and who becomes increasingly suspicious of her husband after he begins behaving in unfamiliar ways. Gunn sees Skyler as "grounded, tough, smart and driven". Gunn sees Skyler's stalled writing career as her biggest dream, saying "I think she really deep down yearns to be an artist and to be creative and productive."
Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman – Walter's former student, Jesse, is a drug dealer who partners up with Walt and makes high-level meth. Paul sees Jesse as a funny kid. "He's just this lost soul – I don't think he's a bad kid, he just got mixed in the wrong crowd." Paul elaborated on the character's background, saying "He doesn't come from an abusive, alcoholic background. But maybe he just didn't relate to his father, maybe his father was too strict and too proper for Jesse." Paul compared the character's relationship with Walt to The Odd Couple.
Dean Norris as Hank Schrader – Marie's husband, Walter and Skyler's brother-in-law and a DEA agent. At the beginning of the series, Hank was intended to be the "comic relief." Norris, who has played several cops before in film and television, stated, "Having played so many cops, I've talked with a lot of technical advisers, so I've been able to pick up a lot. Coincidentally, one of my best friends growing up is a cop in Chicago, and one of my other best friends out in LA is a sheriff. So I get to see all the components of that culture."
Betsy Brandt as Marie Schrader – Skyler's sister and Hank's kleptomaniac wife. Brandt described Marie as "an unpleasant bitch", but also stated there was more to her than that. "I think we're seeing more of it now that she would be there for her family. But it's all about her."
RJ Mitte as Walter White, Jr. – Walter and Skyler's son, who has cerebral palsy. He begins lashing out after Walter's cancer announcement. Like Walter Jr., Mitte has cerebral palsy, although his is a milder form. Mitte stated he had to regress from his therapy to portray the character, staying up late into the night to slur his speech and learning to walk on crutches so his walking wouldn't look fake.
Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman (recurring season 2, main cast season 3–5) – a crooked strip mall lawyer who represents Walt and Jesse. Odenkirk based his character on film producer Robert Evans. "I thought about Robert Evans because I've listened to The Kid Stays in the Picture on CD. He's constantly switching up his cadence and his delivery. He emphasizes interesting words. He has loads of attitude in almost every line that he says. So when I rehearse the scenes alone I do my impersonation of Robert Evans to find those moments and turns. Then I go out and I do Saul."
Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo "Gus" Fring (recurring season 2, main cast season 3–4) – a high level drug distributor who has a cover as an owner of a fast food chain Los Pollos Hermanos. Esposito stated that for the third season, he incorporated his yoga training in his performance. "Gus is the coolest cucumber that ever walked the Earth. I think about Eddie Olmos way back in Miami Vice. He was like dead – he was hardly breathing. I thought, how is this guy just standing in this fire and doing nothing? Gus has totally allowed me that level of flexibility and relaxation – not because he has ultimate power and he knows he can take someone's life. He's just confident."
Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut (guest star season 2, main cast season 3–5: part 1) – works for Gus as an all-purpose cleaner and hitman, and also works for Saul as a private investigator. The character of Mike has been compared to Harvey Keitel's Winston Wolf character in Pulp Fiction, which Banks says he isn't trying to emulate: "I immediately tried to put it out of my mind, quite honestly. His cleaner ain't my cleaner. But throughout this world, you would suspect there had been a great many cleaners, whether government-run or individual contractors."
Laura Fraser as Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (recurring season 5: part 1, main cast season 5: part 2) – a high-ranking employee of Madrigal Electromotive and a former associate of Gus Fring. She reluctantly begins supplying Walt and Jesse with methylamine and helps Walt expand his operation overseas.
Jesse Plemons as Todd Alquist (recurring season 5: part 1, main cast season 5: part 2) – an employee of Vamonos Pest Control who becomes an associate of Walt and Jesse.
Recurring characters
Steven Michael Quezada as Steven "Gomie" Gomez – Hank's DEA partner and best friend who assists in tracking down and learning the identity of Heisenberg. In comical situations between him and Hank, Gomez serves as the "straight man".
Matt L. Jones as Brandon "Badger" Mayhew – Jesse's dimwitted friend and junkie, who often serves as the series' comic relief.
Charles Baker as Skinny Pete – A friend of Jesse's and a fellow pusher.
Rodney Rush as Christian "Combo" Ortega – Also a friend of Jesse's and a fellow pusher.
Jessica Hecht and Adam Godley as Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz – Co-owners of Gray Matter, a company that they co-founded alongside Walter, who left the business prior to its major success. Gretchen was a former flame of Walt's and partially the reason he left.
Raymond Cruz as Tuco Salamanca – A psychopathic Mexican drug kingpin who becomes Walt and Jesse's meth distributor.
Mark Margolis as Hector Salamanca – A former high-ranking member of the Juarez Cartel who is now unable to walk or speak because of a stroke, communicating with the help of a bell. He is the uncle of Tuco, Marco and Leonel Salamanca.
Christopher Cousins as Ted Beneke – Skyler's boss and president of Beneke Fabricators who begins developing financial issues, resulting in an intervention from Skyler.
Krysten Ritter as Jane Margolis – Jesse's apartment manager and girlfriend, who is a recovering addict.
John de Lancie as Donald Margolis – Jane Margolis' father, an air traffic controller who causes an airplane collision while being distraught over his daughter's death.
David Costabile as Gale Boetticher – A chemist hired by Gus Fring to work alongside Walter.
Daniel Moncada and Luis Moncada as Leonel & Marco Salamanca – Two ruthless and taciturn hit-men for the Juarez Cartel who are the cousins of Tuco Salamanca and the nephews of Hector Salamanca.
Emily Rios as Andrea Cantillo – Jesse's second girlfriend, who is also a recovering addict. She has a young son named Brock.
Jeremiah Bitsui as Victor – A loyal henchman to Gus who serves as his enforcer along with Mike.
Ray Campbell as Tyrus Kitt – Gus' enforcer along with Mike during season 4.
Lavell Crawford as Huell Babineaux – Saul's bodyguard who also handles problems Walter needs fixing.
Bill Burr as Patrick Kuby – A hired con man of Saul's who handles various sensitive tasks involving verbal intimidation, coercion and misdirection.
Michael Bowen as Jack Welker – Todd's uncle and the leader of a white supremacist gang.
Special guest appearances
Danny Trejo as Tortuga – A Mexican cartel member and DEA informant.
DJ Qualls as Getz – An Albuquerque police officer who brings Badger into police custody, prompting Walt to turn to Saul Goodman.
Jim Beaver as Lawson – An Albuquerque arms dealer who obtains several guns for Walt.
Steven Bauer as Don Eladio Vuente – The leader of the Juarez Cartel who has a history with Gus.
Robert Forster as Ed – A vacuum cleaner repairman whose undercover business is a new identity specialist.
Charlie Rose as himself.
Themes and symbols
Moral consequences
In an interview with The New York Times, creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that "actions have consequences". He elaborated on the show's philosophy:
In a piece examining the show in comparison to The Sopranos, Mad Men and The Wire, Chuck Klosterman said that Breaking Bad is "built on the uncomfortable premise that there's an irrefutable difference between what's right and what's wrong, and it's the only one where the characters have real control over how they choose to live." Klosterman added that the central question of Breaking Bad is "What makes a man 'bad' – his actions, his motives, or his conscious decision to be a bad person?" Klosterman concluded that, in the world of Breaking Bad, "goodness and badness are simply complicated choices, no different than anything else."
Ross Douthat of The New York Times, in a response to Klosterman's piece, compared Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, stating that both series are "morality plays" that are "both interested in moral agency". Douthat went on to say that Walter White and Tony Soprano "represent mirror-image takes on the problem of evil, damnation and free will". Walter is a man who "deliberately abandons the light for the darkness" while Tony is "someone born and raised in darkness" who turns down "opportunity after opportunity to claw his way upward to the light."
Devotion to family
The show explores most of the main characters' connections to their families in great detail. Walt justifies his decision to cook crystal meth and become a criminal because of his desire to provide for his family. In the third season he tries to exit the business because it has driven Skyler to leave him. Gus convinces him to stay, telling him it is a man's job to provide for his family, even if he is unloved. In the final episode of the series, however, Walt finally admits to Skyler that the main motivation for his endeavors in the meth business was his own interest, in spite of secretly securing the 9.72 million dollars (which is all that he had managed to salvage) for her and the children. Jesse's loneliness in the early seasons of the show can be partly explained by his parents' decision to kick him out of their home due to his drug-related activities. This parental disconnect brings him closer to Jane, whose father berates her for her drug use. When Walt crosses paths with Jane's father, he refers to Jesse as his nephew, and laments the fact that he can't get through to him. Jane's father responds by telling him to keep trying, saying "Family. You can't give up on them, ever. What else is there?" Jane's subsequent death, which Walt purposely did not prevent, is a major factor in her father causing the airline crash at the end of the second season.
Even the show's more hardened characters maintain ties to family. In the second season, Tuco Salamanca spends time caring for his physically disabled uncle, Hector. When Tuco is killed by Hank, his cousins vow revenge. Their actions are further explained in a flashback, where Hector explains to the brothers that "La familia es todo" ("Family is everything"). Gustavo Fring's franchise Los Pollos Hermanos translates to "The Chicken Brothers". This refers to the fact that the company was co-founded by Gus and a man named Max, with whom he shared a close personal connection. When Max is killed by Hector Salamanca, Gus vows to destroy the Salamanca family. In the first part of the fifth season, it is explained that Mike Ehrmantraut's intentions for being in this business were to provide for his granddaughter's future and by his last episode we see him conflicted when having to leave her in a park by herself once he's warned the police are onto him. While on the second part of the season, white supremacist Jack Welker says "don't skimp on family", and lets Walt live after capturing him in the desert because of love for his nephew Todd Alquist, who has great respect for Walt. Later, Lydia Rodarte-Quayle repeatedly demands that Mike leave her in her apartment so her daughter can find her, fearful she will think she abandoned her. Much like Walt and Mike, she seems to engage in the meth business in order to provide for her daughter, with actress Laura Fraser saying in one interview that she is important to how "Lydia justified what she did to herself."
Pink teddy bear
A motif within the second season is the image of a damaged teddy bear and its missing eye. The teddy bear first appears at the end of the music video "Fallacies" for Jesse's band "TwaüghtHammër", which was released as a webisode in February 2009 leading to the second season. The teddy bear can also be spotted on the mural on Jane's bedroom wall during the final episode of the second season, further connecting the crash to Jane. It is seen in flashforwards during four episodes, the titles of which, when put together in order, form the sentence "Seven Thirty-Seven down over ABQ". The flashforwards are shot in black and white, with the sole exception of the pink teddy bear, which is an homage to the film Schindler's List, in which the color red is used to distinguish a little girl in a coat. At the end of the season, Walter indirectly helps cause the midair collision of two airplanes; the pink teddy bear is then revealed to have fallen out of one of the planes and into the Whites' swimming pool. Vince Gilligan called the plane accident an attempt to visualize "all the terrible grief that Walt has wrought upon his loved ones" and "the judgment of God."
In the first episode of the third season, the NTSB fishes the teddy bear out of his pool and Walt later finds the missing eye in the pool filter. Television critic Myles McNutt has called it "a symbol of the damage [Walter] feels responsible for," and The A.V. Club commented that "the pink teddy bear continues to accuse." Fans and critics have compared the appearance of the teddy bear's face to an image of Gus Fring's face in the fourth season finale.
The teddy bear was auctioned off, among other memorabilia, on September 29, 2013, the air date of the show finale. On October 29 of the same year, Aaron Paul posted production pictures of Cranston posing with the teddy bear on Instagram.
Walt Whitman
Walter White's name is reminiscent of the poet Walt Whitman. The mid-season finale of season five, "Gliding Over All", is titled after poem 271 of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. During the series, Gale Boetticher gives Walt a copy of Leaves of Grass. Prior to giving this gift, Boetticher, recites "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer". In the episode "Bullet Points", Hank finds the initials W.W. written in Boetticher's notes, and jokes with Walt that they are his initials, although Walt indicates that they must refer to Whitman.
In the episode "Hazard Pay", Walt finds the copy of Leaves of Grass as he is packing up his bedroom, briefly smiles and leaves it out to read. This occurs at an especially high point in his life, where he feels that things are coming together and he is succeeding in all his ventures. A poem in the book, "Song of Myself", is based on many of these same feelings, furthering the connection between Walt's life and Whitman's poetry. In the episode "Gliding Over All", Hank finds Leaves of Grass in Walt's bathroom and opens it to the cover page where he reads the hand-written inscription: "To my other favorite W.W. It's an honour working with you. Fondly G.B." Upon reading this, Hank becomes visibly shocked, realizing the truth about Walter for the first time, which provides the opening premise for the second half of the final season.
Episodes
The complete series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 26, 2013, in a collectable box shaped like one of the barrels used by Walt to bury his money. The set contains various features, including a two-hour documentary and a humorous alternate ending that features Cranston as his character from Malcolm in the Middle and Jane Kaczmarek as hers, in a nod to the final scene from Newhart.
Season 1 (2008)
The first season was originally intended to be nine episodes, but due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike only seven episodes were filmed. The first season premiered on January 20, 2008, and concluded on March 9, 2008. The complete first season was released on Region 1 DVD on February 24, 2009, and Region A Blu-ray on March 16, 2010.
A struggling high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), is diagnosed with inoperable, advanced lung cancer. On a ride-along with his DEA agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), Walter sees a former student of his, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), fleeing the scene of a meth lab. He later contacts Jesse and devises a scheme to become partners in an attempt to combine their skills to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, with Walter cooking the product and Jesse using his street connections to distribute it. Walter says he wants to provide financial stability for his pregnant wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn) and disabled son, and to pay for his expensive cancer treatment. During Walter and Jesse's first days of selling Albuquerque's finest meth, they encounter a series of problems with local drug dealers. He continues to produce meth despite these setbacks using the alias 'Heisenberg'.
Season 2 (2009)
On May 7, 2008, AMC announced that Breaking Bad was renewed for a second, 13-episode season. Production began in July 2008, and the season premiered on March 8, 2009, and concluded on May 31, 2009. The complete second season was released on Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray on March 16, 2010.
Walter continues to find himself facing insurmountable medical bills from his cancer treatment. Despite having had several bad experiences while producing meth with Jesse, Walter agrees to rejoin his partner. The two begin producing meth but run into multiple problems. Jesse's friend Badger (Matt L. Jones) is arrested while selling meth in a sting operation. Walter hires a lawyer, Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), to help Badger. Walter and Jesse drive a recreational vehicle into the desert and produce meth for four days. Later, Combo, another of Jesse's friends and distributors, is killed by a rival gang for selling meth in their territory. Saul suggests the two find a new distribution model. Throughout this, Jesse has been building a relationship with his neighbor and landlord, Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter). Jane, who is a recovering addict, relapses and the two begin doing heroin. Saul finds them a new business partner, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), who is willing to pay $1.2 million for the 38 pounds of meth they produced. Walter hastily delivers the product to Gus, but misses his daughter's birth. Walt withholds Jesse's half of the money because of his drug use, but Jane finds out about it and blackmails Walt. Walt visits Jesse's house and witnesses Jane overdosing and choking on her own vomit, but perceiving her as an enemy, sits idly beside her and lets her die. Skyler confronts Walter about his frequent absences and excuses. She begins to piece together his secret life and demands that they separate.
Season 3 (2010)
On April 2, 2009, AMC announced that Breaking Bad was renewed for a third, 13-episode season. It premiered on March 21, 2010, and concluded on June 13, 2010. The complete third season was released on Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray on June 7, 2011.
Walter wishes to reunite his family, but Skyler is still suspicious of Walter's second life. Walter believes he can mend the tension between them by confessing to her that he has been producing meth. Skyler is appalled by the confession and demands a formal divorce. Meanwhile, Gus offers to pay Walter US$3M for three months of his service. He even offers to provide Walter with a state-of-the-art production facility and a brilliant lab assistant, Gale (David Costabile). Jesse is continuing to produce and sell meth by himself.
Hank is working with the DEA to investigate Jesse and is slowly gathering evidence to make an arrest. He survives an assassination attempt made by Tuco's twin cousins and manages to kill one of his assailants and critically injure the other, who later dies in the hospital. Hank suffers critical wounds but survives.
Jesse threatens to report Walter to the police if he is arrested, but Walter offers him Gale's position at the lab. After obtaining the position, Jesse begins stealing meth from the lab and selling it in secret on the side. Jesse gets romantically involved with a woman he meets in his rehab group and learns her kid brother, age 11, was put up by Gus and his street dealers to kill Combo. Jesse decides to avenge Combo. Walter aids Jesse in escaping from Gus's wrath. Gus begins to lose trust in Walter and asks Gale to take over the lab. He orders his henchmen to kill Walter and Jesse. After he is abducted by the henchmen, Walter instructs Jesse over the phone to kill Gale in order to force Gus not to kill Walter (and, by extension, Jesse) lest he eliminate his only remaining trained chemist.
Season 4 (2011)
On June 14, 2010, AMC announced Breaking Bad was renewed for a fourth, 13-episode season. Production began in January 2011, the season premiered on July 17, 2011, and concluded on October 9, 2011. Originally, mini episodes of four minutes in length were to be produced before the premiere of the fourth season, but these did not come to fruition.
Jesse follows Walter's instructions and murders Gale. Gus decides to discipline the two by enforcing stricter policies at the lab. He also tries to break Walter and Jesse's friendship by assigning them to separate work details. While Walter works in the meth lab, Jesse escorts Mike (Jonathan Banks), one of Gus's enforcers, to retrieve payments and provide back-up. Walter and Jesse become increasingly distant from, and hostile to, each other. Meanwhile, Hank, who has been recovering from his last engagement with the cartel, finds evidence linking Gale to Gus. He believes Gus is a major drug distributor and starts looking for tangible evidence to file charges. Gus realizes Walter's close ties with Hank could jeopardize his entire operation. Gus fires Walter and informs him Hank will be killed. He also warns Walter that if he intervenes his entire family will be murdered. Jesse and Walter put their differences aside and agree to murder Gus, convincing former cartel enforcer Hector Salamanca to detonate a suicide bomb; Hector succeeds in this endeavor, killing himself, Gus, and Tyrus, Gus's henchman. Walter and Jesse then destroy the meth lab and Walter declares to his wife, "I won."
Season 5 (2012–13)
On August 14, 2011, AMC announced that Breaking Bad was renewed for a fifth and final season consisting of 16 episodes. Season five is split into two parts, each consisting of 8 episodes. The first half premiered on July 15, 2012, while the second half premiered on August 11, 2013.
Following Gus Fring's death, Walter partners with Jesse and Mike to create a new meth production and distribution operation. Mike handles all business aspects of the partnership, while Walter and Jesse work with a team of house fumigators to produce meth in tented houses. Hank and the DEA are able to identify nine prison inmates and one lawyer with criminal ties to Mike. Walter kills Mike, and is fearful that the informants will flip on Walter's operation since Mike is no longer able to pay them to keep quiet. He hires Jack Welker, the leader of a neo-Nazi gang, to kill the ten informants from within prison. Walter's business continues unimpeded until he decides to retire after accruing $80 million, which he buries in the desert.
Later, Hank is invited to the Whites' home, where he unintentionally stumbles upon one of Walter's books with a signed message from Gale Boetticher. He realizes that Walter is the infamous Heisenberg and secretly restarts the investigation. Hank forms an alliance with Jesse, who now despises Walter for all his wrongdoings. Left with no options, Walter hires Jack again to murder Jesse. Walter attempts to confront Jesse in the desert, but instead Hank traps and arrests him. The neo-Nazi gang arrives and engages Hank in a fierce firefight. Jack executes Hank despite Walter's pleas. Jesse is captured and forced into slavery, producing meth for the gang. Before leaving, Jack and his gang take a majority of Walter's money, leaving him with only $11 million.
Skyler and Walter Jr. are distraught over Hank's death and hold Walter accountable. They refuse to leave Albuquerque with Walter and instead contact the police. Walter spends the next several months hiding in a cabin in New Hampshire while struggling with cancer. He returns to New Mexico in order to visit his family one final time and seek revenge against Jack. Later that night, Walter executes all of the gang's members at their compound with an automatic machine gun he has rigged in the trunk of his car and frees Jesse, who escapes from the compound before the police arrive. Walter realizes he is mortally wounded from a gunshot and slowly succumbs to his injury as the police search the compound.
Reception
Critical reception
Breaking Bad has received widespread critical acclaim and has been praised by many critics as one of the greatest television shows of all time. On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the first season scored 73 out of 100, the second season scored 85 out of 100, the third season scored 89 out of 100, the fourth season scored 96 out of 100, and the fifth season scored 99 out of 100. The American Film Institute listed Breaking Bad as one of the top ten television series of 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it as the ninth greatest TV series of all time. By its end, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television, with audience numbers doubling from the fourth season to the fifth.
For the first season, the series saw a mostly positive reception. New York Post critic Linda Stasi praised the series, particularly the acting of Cranston and Paul, stating "Cranston and Paul are so good, it's astounding. I'd say the two have created great chemistry, but I'm ashamed to say such a cheap thing." Robert Bianco of USA Today also praised Cranston and Paul, exclaiming "There is humor in the show, mostly in Walt's efforts to impose scholarly logic on the business and on his idiot apprentice, a role Paul plays very well. But even their scenes lean toward the suspenseful, as the duo learns that killing someone, even in self-defense, is ugly, messy work."
The second season saw critical acclaim. Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker stated "Bad is a superlatively fresh metaphor for a middle-age crisis: It took cancer and lawbreaking to jolt Walt out of his suburban stupor, to experience life again—to take chances, risk danger, do things he didn't think himself capable of doing. None of this would work, of course, without Emmy winner Cranston's ferocious, funny selflessness as an actor. For all its bleakness and darkness, there's a glowing exhilaration about this series: It's a feel-good show about feeling really bad." San Francisco Chronicle'''s Tim Goodman claimed "The first three episodes of Season 2 that AMC sent out continue that level of achievement with no evident missteps. In fact, it looks as if Gilligan's bold vision for Breaking Bad, now duly rewarded against all odds, has invigorated everyone involved in the project. You can sense its maturity and rising ambition in each episode." Horror novelist Stephen King lauded the series, comparing it to the likes of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet.
The third season also saw critical acclaim. Time proclaimed "It's a drama that has chosen the slow burn over the flashy explosion, and it's all the hotter for that choice." Newsday stated Breaking Bad was still TV's best series and it stayed true to itself. Tim Goodman praised the writing, acting, and cinematography, pointing out the "visual adventurousness" of the series. Goodman went on to call the show's visuals "a combination of staggering beauty – the directors make use of numerous wide-angle landscape portraits – and transfixing weirdness." After the finale aired, The A.V. Club said that season three was "one of television's finest dramatic accomplishments. And what makes it so exciting – what makes the recognition of the current golden age so pressing – is that the season has not been, as [another reviewer] put it in another context, 'television good.' The heart-in-the-throat quality of this season comes as much from the writers' exhilarating disregard for television conventions as from the events portrayed."
Season four won universal critical acclaim. The Boston Globe referred to the show as a "taut exercise in withheld disaster" and declared the show "riveting". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette labelled the series "smart and thought provoking that elevates the artistic achievements of the medium". Season four was listed by many critics as one of the best seasons of television in 2011. Time listed Walter White's "I am the one who knocks" line as one of the best television lines of 2011. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed it as the best series of 2011 while noting that, "Breaking Bad is that rare TV series that has never made a seriously damaging storytelling misstep." The A.V. Club's review of the finale summed it up as a "fantastically fitting end for a season that ran in slow motion, starting and continuing with so many crises begging for resolution week after week. Now the decks are cleared, but that doesn't mean anybody is home free. Nothing's ever easy on Breaking Bad." The reviewer continued to exalt the season, and proclaimed, "What a season of television – truly something none of us could ever have expected, or claimed we deserved."
Both halves of the fifth season received overwhelming acclaim from critics. Following the end of the series, critic Nick Harley summarized his commendation of the show: "Expertly written, virtuosic with its direction, and flawlessly performed, Breaking Bad is everything you could want in a drama. Critics will spend the next decade dissecting and arguing about what made it great, but the reasons are endless and already well documented." During the final season, the show also received praise from George R. R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, particularly the episode "Ozymandias"; Martin commented that "Walter White is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros." In his review of the second half of season 5, Seth Amitin of IGN stated, "This final batch of Breaking Bad is one of the best run of episodes TV has ever offered", and praised "Ozymandias" in particular, referring to it as "maybe the best episode of TV [he's] ever seen." Jonah Goldberg of National Review called it "the best show currently on television, and perhaps even the best ever." The veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins wrote a letter of praise to Bryan Cranston, telling him that his "performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever." He lauded the rest of the cast and crew as well. The letter first appeared on Steven Michael Quezada's (who portrayed DEA Agent Steven Gomez) Facebook page, and in spite of it being taken down, the letter soon went viral. In 2013, Guinness World Records named Breaking Bad the highest-rated TV series of all time, citing its season 5 Metacritic score of 99 out of 100.
Viewership
Awards and nominations
The series received numerous awards and nominations, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards and 58 nominations, including winning for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. It also won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 and one in 2013. For his portrayal of Walter White, Bryan Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2014. Cranston also won the TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2009 and the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series: Drama in 2008, 2009, and 2010, as well as the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series and the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television in 2012. Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Paul also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television in 2010 and 2012. Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. For his work on season four, Giancarlo Esposito won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. In 2010 and 2012, Breaking Bad won the TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama, as well as the TCA Award for Program of the Year in 2013. In 2009 and 2010, the series won the Satellite Award for Best Television Series – Drama, along with the Saturn Award for Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The series won the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Dramatic Series in both 2012 and 2013. In 2013, it was named No. 13 in a list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series of All Time by the Writers Guild of America and won, for the first time, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. Overall, the show has won 110 industry awards and been nominated for 262.
Spin-off and adaptations
After several days of speculation fueled by Univision, on March 13, 2013, Sony confirmed that it would be making a Spanish-language remake of Breaking Bad entitled Metástasis (see also: "metastasis") starring Diego Trujillo as Walter Blanco (Walter White) and Roberto Urbina as José Miguel Rosas (Jesse Pinkman), alongside Sandra Reyes and Julián Arango in unnamed roles. On October 2, 2013, the cast list was revealed to include Reyes as Cielo Blanco (Skyler White) and Arango as Henry Navarro (Hank Schrader), and that the show would be set in Colombia. The equivalent of Saul Goodman is named Saúl Bueno.
An opera based on the series was announced in October 2013 by New York composer Sung Jin Hong.
In April 2013, it was revealed that AMC and Sony were interested in a spin-off series that would focus on Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), with Gilligan and series writer Peter Gould developing the project. In September 2013, AMC and Sony Pictures Television officially ordered Better Call Saul, set as a prequel to Breaking Bad. The series focuses on Saul's life 6 years before he became Walter's lawyer, and premiered on February 8, 2015.
Real-life impact
Cult following
In 2015, series creator Vince Gilligan publicly requested fans of the series to stop reenacting a scene in which Walter angrily throws a pizza on his roof after his wife refuses to let him inside; this came after complaints from the home's real-life owner. Cranston reprised his role of the character in a commercial for Esurance which aired during Super Bowl XLIX, one week before the premiere of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul.
Obituary and funeral
A Breaking Bad fan group placed a paid obituary for Walter White in the Albuquerque Journal, October 4, 2013. On October 19, 2013, a mock funeral procession (including a hearse and a replica of White's meth lab RV) and service for the character was held at Albuquerque's Sunset Memorial Park cemetery. A headstone was placed with a photo of Cranston as White. While some residents were unhappy with the makeshift gravesite for closure with the show, tickets for the event raised nearly $17,000 for a local charity called Healthcare for the Homeless.
Alternative theory concerning death
Many fans of Breaking Bad, including actor Norm Macdonald and New York Magazine'' writer Emily Nussbaum, proposed a theory, in which most of the series finale happened in Walt's mind, and he really died in the stolen Volvo in the beginning of it. While Nussbaum merely stated that it would be her preferred ending, MacDonald emphasized the seemingly unreal scenarios of Walt's final day, as well as what he deemed unreliable acting. However, series creator Vince Gilligan debunked this theory, explaining that Walt could not possibly have known several things that happened, like Jesse being held in captivity by Jack's gang instead of being murdered by them, or that Todd had begun taking meetings with Lydia regarding the meth trade.
References
External links
– official AMC site
– official Sony Pictures site
Breaking Bad at Emmys.com
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2016-01 | Gilmore_Girls-697732436 | Gilmore_Girls | Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American comedy-drama television series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000 the series debuted on the WB to widespread critical acclaim, and remained a tent-pole to the WB until it was canceled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on the CW.
The show follows single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Graham) and her daughter, also named Lorelai but who prefers to be called Rory (Bledel), living in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. The town is filled with colorful characters and is located approximately 30 minutes from Hartford, Connecticut (as stated in the show's pilot). Ambition, education, work, family, and questions of class constitute some of the series' central concerns. The show's social commentary manifests most clearly in Lorelai's difficult relationship with her wealthy, appearance-obsessed parents, Emily and Richard Gilmore, and in Rory's interactions between the students at the Chilton Academy, and later, Yale University.
Gilmore Girls is known for its fast-paced dialogue filled with pop-culture references. The show earned several award nominations, winning one Emmy Award. It was also critically acclaimed placing 32 on Entertainment Weekly "New TV Classics" list, and was listed as one of Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 TV Shows" in 2007.
In October 2015, it was reported that the series would return as a limited series on Netflix to consist of four 90-minute episodes.
Production
Development
The show is set in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator, drew inspiration for Stars Hollow while she made a trip to Washington, Connecticut, where she stayed in an inn, the Mayflower Inn, which she found beautiful. She was amazed at how the people of the town knew each other very well and by the next morning of her stay she had written the pilot's dialogue. She explained: "If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town, I thought that would be wonderful. […] At the time I was there, it was beautiful, it was magical, and it was feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie. … There was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought—that's something that I would really love to put out there." The show's pace is inspired by Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy films.
The pilot episode of Gilmore Girls received financial support from the script development fund of the Family Friendly Programming Forum, which includes some of the nation's leading advertisers, making it one of the first network shows to reach the air with such funding.
In 2003, the WB planned a spin-off called "Windward Circle," featuring character Jess Mariano, in which Jess gets to know his estranged father, Jimmy (Rob Estes), and befriended by California skateboarders. However, the network canceled the show before it aired, citing high production costs to shoot on location in Venice Beach. Gilmore Girls Season 3 episode "Here Comes the Son" was effectively a backdoor pilot for the unaired spin-off.
Writing and filming
As signalled by its tagline "Life's short. Talk fast", Gilmore Girls is known for its fast-paced dialogue filled with pop-culture references. Usually a Gilmore Girls script was 77-78 pages long, and one page equaled less than a minute, which allowed the series to include more dialogues and scenes. Much of the dialogue is peppered with references to film, television shows, music, literature and celebrity culture. The relative obscurity of some of these allusions resulted in the production of "Gilmore-isms" booklets included by the WB in the DVD sets of the first four seasons. Subtitled "The 411 on many of the show's witty and memorable wordplays and pop culture references", the booklets also contain comments from the show creators.
Gilmore Girls also relied on a master shot filming style, in which a scene is filmed to frame characters and their dialogue together within a long and uninterrupted, single take; often illustrated through another method regularly employed on the show, the walk and talk. It took up to eight working days to shoot an episode.
The pilot episode was shot in Unionville, Ontario near Toronto while the rest of the series was filmed in Burbank, California at the Warner Bros. lot. The exterior shots of Rory's preparatory school, Chilton, were filmed at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, CA. A special stage was made of plaster and celotex for the scenes during which Rory is at Yale University, which were based on Calhoun College. While Rory's visit to Harvard was filmed at UCLA, her visit at Yale to decide which university she should choose was filmed at Pomona College.
Music
Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino served as the music supervisor of the series. Known for its distinct musical score consisting of melodic "la-la's", Gilmore Girls non-diegetic score was composed by singer-songwriter Sam Phillips throughout its entire run. For the score's instrumental arrangement, Phillips primarily used her own voice, an acoustic guitar, and on occasion included violin, drums, piano and electric guitar as well. In crafting the sound of the show, Sherman-Palladino requested the music to sound very connected to the girls themselves, almost like "an extension of their thoughts. And if they had music going in their head during a certain emotional thing in their life, if they were real people, this would be the music that was going on." Sherman-Palladino also stresses how "[she] thinks that is what elevated the show. Because [music] wasn’t a wasted element in the show. Everything was trying to say a little something, add a little something to it."
Music also plays a large part in the show as a frequent topic of conversation between characters and in its appearance in scenes themselves. In fact, the first conversation between Lorelai and Rory in the premiere episode, at Luke's Diner, involves the whereabouts of Macy Gray's debut album On How Life Is. The musical tastes of most of the main and recurring characters are revealed at some point, and the two leads have notoriously eclectic but discriminating tastes: Both mother and daughter dislike the "nondescript jazz" played at a baby shower, sculpt a snowman in Björk's image, and proclaim Metallica a "great band". Lorelai famously likes '80s music including the Bangles, XTC, and the Go-Go's, and her old bedroom at her parents' home has Duran Duran posters on the walls. Rory is often shown listening to alternative bands, like Pixies, Sonic Youth, Belle and Sebastian and Franz Ferdinand, and expresses her liking for P J Harvey and distaste for Smashing Pumpkins. Rory also swaps CDs with her mother, and credits her with introducing her to new books and music throughout her life in her address as Chilton's valedictorian.
Rory's best friend Lane is a music enthusiast, and her list of musical influences runs to five pages when she writes her "drummer-seeks-rock-band" want ad, which included the Ramones and Jackson Browne. Lane eventually forms her own band, Hep Alien, an anagram of the Gilmore Girls producer, Helen Pai's, name. The band plays rock with various influences, and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row, appears as Gil, Hep Alien's talented guitarist. The band's "reunion" occurred on October 4, 2014. Lorelai named her dog after the singer Paul Anka, who later appears in her dream sequence in the season 6 episode "The Real Paul Anka".
Other musical acts who made guest appearances include the Bangles, Sonic Youth, Sparks, the Shins, and Carole King, who re-recorded her 1971 song "Where You Lead" (lyrics by Toni Stern) as a duet with her daughter Louise Goffin for the Gilmore Girls theme song. Grant-Lee Phillips appears in at least one episode per season as the town's troubadour, singing his own songs and covers, while Sam Phillips, the score composer made her first and only appearance in the episode "Partings" (6.22). In 2002, a soundtrack to Gilmore Girls was released by Rhino Records, entitled Our Little Corner of the World: Music from Gilmore Girls. The CD booklet features anecdotes from show producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino about the large part music has played in their lives.
Change of network, cancellation and revival
In April 2006, it was announced that Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel could not come to an agreement with the CW, the new network that resulted from a merge between UPN and the WB. They said in an official statement: "Despite our best efforts to return and ensure the future of Gilmore Girls for years to come, we were unable to reach an agreement with the studio and are therefore leaving when our contracts expire at the end of this season. Our heartfelt thanks go out to our amazing cast, hard-working crew and loyal fans. We know that the story lines from this season will continue into the next, and that the integrity of the show will remain long after we leave Stars Hollow." David S. Rosenthal who had already worked on the show as a writer and producer, replaced them.
On May 3, 2007, the CW announced that the series would not be renewed. According to Variety, "Money was a key factor in the decision, with the parties involved not able to reach a deal on salaries for the main cast members. Other issues, such as number of episodes and production dates, may have also played a role". Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has expressed an interest in pursuing a Gilmore Girls film. Lauren Graham has noted that a lot of fans "were disappointed with how it [the series] ended" and commented on the possibility of a follow-up movie.
On June 11, 2012, while being interviewed for her new show Bunheads, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino reflected on the contract dispute and her own departure in an interview with Vulture, saying: "It was a botched negotiation. It really was about the fact that I was working too much. I was going to be the crazy person who was locked in my house and never came out. I heard a lot of 'Amy doesn’t need a writing staff because she and [her husband] Dan Palladino write everything!' I thought, That’s a great mentality on your part, but if you want to keep the show going for two more years, let me hire more writers. By the way, all this shit we asked for? They had to do [it] anyway when we left. They hired this big writing staff and a producer-director onstage. That’s what bugged me the most. They wound up having to do what we'd asked for anyway, and I wasn’t there."
On September 15, 2010, Lauren Graham told Vanity Fair that a Gilmore Girls movie is a definite possibility: "people with power, people who could actually make it happen, are talking about it." She stated the same thing in March 2013 through her Twitter account in the wake of companion show Veronica Mars earning Kickstarter funding for their film, saying it would be Sherman-Palladino's call for a film.
In May 2015, Scott Patterson said: "There are talks going on at the moment. I can't really go into any detail, but there is some activity. So I'm hopeful, and you know, I'm in. […] I think there's a lot of territory left unexplored that we could explore in a limited series or a TV movie or feature film, whatever that may be. I think it really just comes down to the script. I think everybody would jump on board." At the June 2015 ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas the cast reunited with creator Amy Sherman-Palladino where she told the audience, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing in the works at the moment,”
In October 2015, it was reported on TVLine that Netflix struck a deal with Warner Bros. to revive the series in a limited run, consisting of four 90-minute episodes. It has been reported that Sherman-Palladino will be in charge of the new episodes.
On October 25, 2015, during a Wizard World Tulsa pop culture convention Q&A, Milo Ventimiglia stated, "I've always been pretty vocal about 'Gilmore' and I know everybody's been waiting, and I was like, 'That will never happen,' and it's totally happening. While I was actually here, I got an email from the producers. Again, I'm always vocal (about producers) Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino; they’re two of my favorite people and two of my favorite writers ever of all time. Just to be able to speak their words again, of course I would do it. So I told them, yeah, of course I'll do it."
Cast and characters
Main
Notes:
Recurring
Notes:
Episodes
Premise
The pilot of Gilmore Girls sets up the premise of the show and a number of its recurrent themes as we learn that Lorelai became pregnant with Rory at age sixteen, but chose not to marry Rory's father, Christopher Hayden. Instead, she leaves her disappointed parents in Hartford, Connecticut for Stars Hollow. Later episodes reveal that Lorelai and infant Rory were taken in by Mia, owner of the Independence Inn, where Lorelai eventually progressed from maid to executive manager. In the pilot, Rory, who is about to turn sixteen, has been accepted to Chilton Preparatory School in order to pursue her dream of studying at Harvard University. Lorelai finds herself unable to afford Chilton's tuition. Desperation and determination lead Lorelai to approach her parents where she strikes a bargain. Her parents provide her with a loan to cover the tuition in exchange for an agreement that every Friday night she and Rory will join Emily and Richard for dinner at the senior Gilmores'.
The interaction with Lorelai and her parents foreshadows many conflicts within the series. The mother-daughter relationship of Lorelai-Emily and Lorelai-Rory becomes a defining theme of the show.
Lorelai's romantic life
Lorelai's various romantic entanglements also play a role in the show from the start. Her first relationship involves Max Medina (Scott Cohen), Rory's English teacher, who becomes briefly engaged to Lorelai. She also has short relationships with a divorced man named Alex (Billy Burke) and her father's business partner and childhood friend Jason Stiles (Chris Eigeman), with whom she breaks up after Jason and her father have a falling out in their business. She also has an on-again-off-again relationship with Rory's father, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), which becomes even more complicated after Chris and his girlfriend Sherry have a daughter, Georgia (Gigi).
However, Lorelai's relationship with local diner owner Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) is a constant throughout: It is a playful, close friendship until the end of Season 4, when the two finally become romantically involved. Lorelai's disapproving parents encourage Christopher to win Lorelai back, which results in a brief breakup between Lorelai and Luke. Despite this, at the end of Season 5, Luke and Lorelai become engaged. They split at the end of Season 6 when Luke discovers that he has a 12-year-old daughter, April (Vanessa Marano). After Luke doesn't respond to Lorelai's ultimatum to elope, she spends the night with Christopher. In Season 7, Lorelai and Christopher impulsively get married on a trip to France. But after Chistopher realizes that Luke and Lorelai still have feelings for one another, Christopher ends their marriage. In the final episode of the final season, Luke and Lorelai reconcile after Luke organizes a town farewell party for the graduating Rory. The final scene of the series mirrors the final scene of the first episode, with Lorelai and Rory eating in the diner and Luke behind the counter.
Rory's romantic life
As with Lorelai's, Rory's romantic attractions also run throughout the show.
Rory meets Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki) in the first episode of the series. The two maintain a relationship for nearly two-and-a-half years, with Rory rejecting advances from Chilton classmate Tristan Dugray (Chad Michael Murray) all the while. Rory and Dean break up briefly on their three-month anniversary date because Rory can't reciprocate Dean's feelings after he professes his love for her. Dean and Rory get back together in the end of Season 1. Rory and Dean break up again after Rory falls for the troubled Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia), Luke's nephew, whom Luke has taken in. Although Jess is reviled by the rest of the town, Rory's deep-seated connection with him is undeniable, and she finds that the two share interests in music and literature and maintain a special understanding of each other throughout the series. There is some anger and unresolved feelings between them a year after their break up, but they come to friendly terms years later, when Jess attributes Rory's confidence in him for getting his life on track, and he, in turn, does the same for her.
After Jess leaves town unannounced, Rory reunites with a now-married Dean, which ultimately ends Dean's marriage and creates a short-lived rift between Rory and her mother. Rory and Dean break up when he decides he can't compete with her life at Yale and her new Yale friends, including Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry), whom Rory eventually starts dating. A negative performance review from Logan's publisher father on Rory's future as a journalist causes Rory to temporarily quit Yale, become estranged from her mother, and live with her grandparents. At the wedding of Logan's sister, Rory learns that while the two were on a break months before, Logan had sex with most of his sister's bridesmaids, and she is disgusted at his shocking behavior. Rory moves in with driven, compulsive classmate Paris Geller, but Logan convinces Rory to come back to the apartment that they shared. For Rory's final year at Yale, the couple are in a long-distance relationship due to Logan working for his father's company in London. Eventually Rory graduates Yale, and Logan proposes to her, asking that she move to Silicon Valley with him. Rory reluctantly refuses his offer because she wants to pursue her journalism career and they break up, with Logan saying that it is marriage or nothing.
Rory's friends
Rory's friendships with long-time best friend Lane Kim (Keiko Agena), a second-generation Korean American from a strict Christian home, and Paris Geller (Liza Weil), a friend/rival at both Chilton and Yale, play strongly in the show. Although she shares a close bond with the two, Paris and Lane were rarely together with Rory in the show due to their separate lives and paths. At the end of Season 6, Lane marries Hep Alien band-mate Zach van Gerbig (Todd Lowe), a sweet, slightly clumsy rocker. At the beginning of Season 7, Lane discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant and gives birth to twins (Kwan and Steve) later in the season. Also in Season 7, Paris is accepted to Harvard Medical School. In Season 4, Doyle McMaster (Danny Strong) storms onto the show as the Yale Daily News editor. He and Paris start dating in Season 5, after Paris's relationship with a much older Professor Asher Fleming (Michael York) ends with Fleming's sudden death.
Reception
Critical response
Upon arrival, Gilmore Girls was lauded for the distinct, dialogue-infused style created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the strength of the dynamic familial themes, and the performances of its cast, particularly leading star Lauren Graham. In the San Francisco Chronicle review of the first season, John Carman said: "It's cross-generational, warm-the-cockles viewing, and it's a terrific show. Can this really be the WB, niche broadcaster to horny mall rats?" Newsday journalist Diane Werts reviewed the show, writing: "The way in which Gilmore Girls digs lightly but firmly into deep-seated emotion is as magical as the way Lorelai's yellow dream daisies end up scattered all over their town. We weekly wish we were there." Writing for The Cincinnati Post, Rick Bird called Gilmore Girls "one of the most witty and sassy mother-daughter buddy shows seen on TV in some time. This free-spirited dramedy is one of the more endearing, engaging shows of the new season."
In the Orlando Sentinel review of the second season premiere, critic Hal Boedeker writes "Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino writes clever dialogue and ingratiating comedy, but she also knows how to do bittersweet drama. That Gilmore Girls is a touching comedy is also a tribute to the actors, led by the luminous Graham. The Gilmore family is one television clan worth knowing, and that can't be said too often these days. The A.V. Club included in November 2002 the episode "They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?" on its list of the best TV episodes of the decade. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune described the fifth season as "uneven at best", explaining, "the protracted fight between Lorelai and Rory Gilmore left the writers scrambling to cram the show with filler plots that stretched many fans' patience to the limit." However, she highlighted Edward Herrmann and Kelly Bishop's performances, saying their characters "could have been stereotypical preppies, but thank goodness, they're so much more."
Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly rated the seasons one to six "A" and the last season "C". He wrote that Lorelai and Rory Gilmore combined with "Sherman-Palladino's protean gift for cultural references in some cross between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Ulysses," made you live each week in "an old world with a fresh coat of words." He described the last season as "a death-blow season [which] was more accurately Gilmore Ghosts, as the exhausted actors bumped into the furniture searching for their departed souls and smart punchlines" but concluded the previous seasons were "six seasons of magnificent mixed emotions, with performances as shaded as a spot under a Stars Hollow elm tree."
Gilmore Girls was listed as one of Time magazine's "All-TIME 100 TV Shows." Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Thank you, fast-talking Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, for suggesting moms and teenage daughters really can get along—all it takes is love, patience, and copious quantities of coffee."
Alan Sepinwall included the show in his "Best of the 00s in Comedies" list, saying: "It got on the air thanks in part to a coalition of advertisers looking for family-friendly programming, and "Gilmore" offered up an unconventional but enormously appealing family: mom Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and teen daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), so close in age that they often seemed more like sisters, plus the wealthy parents (Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann) Lorelai split from after getting pregnant at 16. As the quippy, pop culture-quoting younger Gilmores were forced to reconnect with their repressed elders, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino got plenty of laughs and tears out of the generational divide, and out of showing the family Lorelai created for herself and her daughter in the idealized, Norman Rockwell-esque town of Stars Hollow. At its best, Gilmore Girls was pure, concentrated happiness."
Awards and nominations
Gilmore Girls earned several accolades, receiving an American Film Institute Award in 2002 and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup for a Series for the episode "The Festival of Living Art" (2004). The series was honored by the Viewers For Quality Television with a "seal of quality" in 2000 and was also named New Program of the Year by the Television Critics Association in 2001. The show's actors have received many awards for their work on the series. Graham won a Family Television Awards, and she won the Teen Choice Award for Best TV Mom twice. Alexis Bledel won a Young Artist Award, two Teen Choice Awards, and a Family Television Award. The series also won a Family Television Award for New Series and was named Best Family TV Drama Series by the Young Artist Awards.
Ratings
The show was not a ratings success initially, airing in the tough Thursday 8pm/7pm Central time slot dominated by Survivor on CBS and sister Warner Bros. Television sitcom Friends on NBC in its seventh season. When it moved to Tuesday, its ratings surpassed its time slot competitor, popular series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which moved to the United Paramount Network (UPN) but retained the same time slot. It became The WB's third-highest-rated show. In its fifth season, Gilmore Girls became The WB's second-most-watched prime time show, with viewer numbers that grew by double digits in all major demographics.
The following list details the seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Gilmore Girls in the United States. The show rated first in the 18–25 demographic for women and second for men throughout the first four seasons. Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps. Broadcast Gilmore Girls first season commenced in the Thursday 8pm/7pm Central time slot, as a lead in for Charmed. Renewed for a second season, the show was relocated on Tuesdays 8pm/7pm, the time slot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which transferred to UPN, and served as a lead-in for Smallville. Later seasons saw it lead into One Tree Hill. In its syndicated release in the United States, the show airs on ABC Family, and from 2009 to 2013, aired in weekend timeslots on their sister network SOAPnet, which closed at the start of 2014. Reruns were added to UPtv on October 4, 2015, though ABC Family continues to air episodes daily in its traditional 11 a.m. ET/PT timeslot.
First season reruns aired on Monday nights from March until May 2001 while Roswell was on hiatus to spread audience awareness. An additional run of the first season aired in summer of 2002 on Sunday nights under the title Gilmore Girls Beginnings (which featured a modified opening sequence voiced with a monologue detailing the premise from Graham), and was one of two shows on The WB to give the Beginnings in its title for reruns (the other being 7th Heaven).
In the United Kingdom, Gilmore Girls was initially screened on Nickelodeon from 2003. It remains the only hour-long series to air on the network to date. Only the first three seasons were shown, with episodes edited for content and some, like "The Big One", dropped entirely. The series was subsequently picked up by the Hallmark Channel, which gave UK premieres to seasons 4 and 5, and E4, which continued to show all seven seasons in rotation, with occasional cuts to render it suitable for its early time slot, though not as drastic as Nickelodeon's cuts. On January 16, 2012, Gilmore Girls aired its final episode on E4. All seven seasons are now being aired, unedited, on 5*.
In Ireland, the series aired its entire run on RTÉ One on Sundays.
In Australia from 16 March 2015, Gilmore Girls began airing again weeknights on digital terrestrial network GEM.
Home media and online releases
Reruns of Gilmore Girls have aired on ABC Family and on Up. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has released all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD in region 1, 2, 4. All seasons are available for digital download on the iTunes Store, Amazon.com and other digital sales websites.
Seasons 4 through 7 are also available in HD on iTunes Store. On October 1, 2014 all seven seasons of the series began streaming on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" service.
Books
Four books for young adults, which adapted scripts for episodes in the first and second seasons into novel form from Rory's first-person point of view and included bonus "diary" content which included publicity photos from the series, were published by HarperCollins's HarperEntertainment/TV Tie-Ins imprint:
Like Mother, Like Daughter by Catherine Clark (2002, ISBN 0-06-051023-4)
I Love You, You Idiot by Cathy East Dubowski (2002, ISBN 0-06-050228-2)
I Do, Don't I? by Catherine Clark (2002, ISBN 0-06-009757-4)
The Other Side Of Summer by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Helen Pai (2002, ISBN 0-06-050916-3)
Two unofficial guides to the series;
Coffee At Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gab Fest (2007, ISBN 1-933771-17-8)
The Gilmore Girls Companion by A. S. Berman (2010, ISBN 1-59393-616-8)
See also Gilmore Guys'', an unofficial podcast discussing each episode of the series chronologically, which has also featured several cast members discussing the series
References
External links
Category:2000 American television series debuts
Category:2000s American television series
Category:2007 American television series endings
Category:American comedy-drama television series
Category:English-language television programming
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Category:Television series by Warner Bros. Television
Category:Television shows set in Connecticut
Category:The CW shows
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Category:Television shows set in Los Angeles, California
Category:College television series
Category:High school television series |
2016-01 | Miles_Davis-696702186 | Miles_Davis | Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, together with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, post-bop and jazz fusion.
In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which recognized him as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz". In 2008, his 1959 album Kind of Blue received its fourth platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of at least four million copies in the United States. On December 15, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution recognizing and commemorating the album Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary, "honoring the masterpiece and reaffirming jazz as a national treasure".
Life and career
Early life (1926–44)
Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African American family in Alton, Illinois. His father, Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., was a dentist. In 1927 the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They also owned a substantial ranch in the Delta region of Arkansas near the city of Pine Bluff, where Davis's father and grandfather were from. It was in both East St. Louis and near Pine Bluff that young Davis developed his earliest appreciation for music listening to the gospel music of the black church.
Davis' mother, Cleota Mae Davis (née Henry), wanted her son to learn the piano; she was a capable blues pianist but did not tell Miles. His musical studies began at 13, when his father gave him a trumpet and arranged lessons with local musician Elwood Buchanan. Davis later suggested that his father's instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpet's sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato; he was reported to have slapped Davis' knuckles every time he started using heavy vibrato. Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, "I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo and not too much bass. Just right in the middle. If I can’t get that sound I can’t play anything." Clark Terry was another important early influence.
By age 16, Davis was a member of the music society and, when not at school, playing professionally first at the local Elks Club. At 17, he spent a year playing in Eddie Randle's band, the Blue Devils. During this time, Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band, then passing through town, but Davis' mother insisted that he finish his final year of high school. He graduated from East St. Louis Lincoln High School in 1944.
In 1944, the Billy Eckstine band visited East St. Louis. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were members of the band; they invited Davis to play third trumpet for a couple of weeks because their regular member, Buddy Anderson, was ill. Even after this experience, once Eckstine's band left town, Davis' parents were still keen for him to continue formal academic studies.
New York City and the bebop years (1944–48)
In the fall of 1944, following graduation from high school, Davis moved to New York City to study at the Juilliard School of Music. Upon arriving in New York City, he spent most of his first weeks in town trying to get in contact with Charlie Parker, despite being advised against doing so by several people he met during his quest, including saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
Finally locating his idol, Davis became one of the cadre of musicians who held nightly jam sessions at two of Harlem's nightclubs, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's. The group included many of the future leaders of the bebop revolution: young players such as Fats Navarro, Freddie Webster, and J. J. Johnson. Established musicians including Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke were also regular participants.
Davis dropped out of Juilliard after asking permission from his father. In his autobiography, Davis criticized the Juilliard classes for centering too much on the classical European and "white" repertoire. He also acknowledged however that, in addition to greatly improving his trumpet playing technique, Juilliard helped give him a grounding in music theory that would prove valuable in later years.
Davis began playing professionally, performing in several 52nd Street clubs with Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. In 1945, he entered a recording studio for the first time, as a member of Herbie Fields's group. This was the first of many recordings Davis contributed to in this period, mostly as a sideman. He finally got the chance to record as a leader in 1946, with an occasional group called the Miles Davis Sextet plus Earl Coleman and Ann Hathaway—one of the rare occasions when Davis, by then a member of the groundbreaking Charlie Parker Quintet, can be heard accompanying singers. In these early years, recording sessions where Davis was the leader were the exception rather than the rule; his next date as leader would not come until 1947.
Around 1945, Dizzy Gillespie parted ways with Parker, and Davis was hired as Gillespie's replacement in his quintet, which also featured Max Roach on drums, Al Haig (replaced later by Sir Charles Thompson and Duke Jordan) on piano, and Curley Russell (later replaced by Tommy Potter and Leonard Gaskin) on bass.
With Parker's quintet, Davis went into the studio several times, already showing hints of the style he would become known for. On an oft-quoted take of Parker's signature song, "Now's the Time", Davis takes a melodic solo, whose unbop-like quality anticipates the "cool jazz" period that followed. The Parker quintet also toured widely. During a stop in Los Angeles, Parker had a nervous breakdown that landed him in the Camarillo State Mental Hospital for several months, and Davis found himself stranded. He roomed and collaborated for some time with bassist Charles Mingus, before getting a job on Billy Eckstine's California tour, which eventually brought him back to New York. In 1948, Parker returned to New York, and Davis rejoined his group.
The relationships within the quintet were growing tense however. Parker was behaving erratically due to his well-known drug addiction. Davis and Roach caused friction in the group by objecting to having Duke Jordan as a pianist and would have preferred Bud Powell. By December 1948, Davis' claims that he was not being paid began to strain the relationship even further. Davis finally left the group following a confrontation with Parker at the Royal Roost.
For Davis, his departure from Parker's group marked the beginning of a period when he worked mainly as a freelancer and sideman in some of the most important combos on the New York City jazz scene.
Birth of the Cool (1948–49)
In 1948 Davis grew close to the Canadian composer and arranger Gil Evans. Evans' basement apartment had become the meeting place for several young musicians and composers such as Davis, Roach, pianist John Lewis, and baritone sax player Gerry Mulligan who were unhappy with the increasingly virtuoso instrumental techniques that dominated the bebop scene. Evans had been the arranger for the Claude Thornhill orchestra, and it was the sound of this group, as well as Duke Ellington's example, that suggested the creation of an unusual line-up: a nonet including a French horn and a tuba (this accounts for the "tuba band" moniker that became associated with the combo).
Davis took an active role in the project, so much so that it soon became "his project". The objective was to achieve a sound similar to the human voice, through carefully arranged compositions and by emphasizing a relaxed, melodic approach to the improvisations.
The nonet debuted in the summer of 1948, with a two-week engagement at the Royal Roost. The sign announcing the performance gave a surprising prominence to the role of the arrangers: "Miles Davis Nonet. Arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan." It was, in fact, so unusual that Davis had to persuade the Roost's manager, Ralph Watkins, to word the sign this way. He prevailed only with the help of Monte Kay, the club's artistic director.
The nonet was active until the end of 1949, along the way undergoing several changes in personnel: Roach and Davis were constantly featured, along with Mulligan, tuba player Bill Barber, and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who had been preferred to Sonny Stitt (whose playing was considered too bop-oriented). Over the months, John Lewis alternated with Al Haig on piano, Mike Zwerin with Kai Winding on trombone (Johnson was touring at the time), Junior Collins with Sandy Siegelstein and Gunther Schuller on French horn, and Al McKibbon with Joe Shulman on bass. Singer Kenny Hagood was added for one track during the recording.
The presence of white musicians in the group angered some black jazz players, many of whom were unemployed at the time, but Davis rebuffed their criticisms.
A contract with Capitol Records granted the nonet several recording sessions between January 1949 and April 1950. The material they recorded was released in 1956 on an album whose title, Birth of the Cool, gave its name to the "cool jazz" movement that developed at the same time and partly shared the musical direction begun by Davis' group.
For his part, Davis was fully aware of the importance of the project, which he pursued to the point of turning down a job with Duke Ellington's orchestra.
The importance of the nonet experience would become clear to critics and the larger public only in later years, but, at least commercially, the nonet was not a success. The liner notes of the first recordings of the Davis Quintet for Columbia Records call it one of the most spectacular failures of the jazz club scene. This was bitterly noted by Davis, who claimed the invention of the cool style and resented the success that was later enjoyed—in large part because of the media's attention—by white "cool jazz" musicians (Mulligan and Dave Brubeck in particular).
This experience also marked the beginning of the lifelong friendship between Davis and Gil Evans, an alliance that would bear important results in the years to follow.
Hard bop and the "Blue Period" (1950–54)
The first half of the 1950s was, for Davis, a period of great personal difficulty. At the end of 1949, he went on tour in Paris with a group including Tadd Dameron, Kenny Clarke (who remained in Europe after the tour), and James Moody. Davis was fascinated by Paris and its cultural environment, where black jazz musicians, and African Americans in general, often felt better respected than they did in their homeland. While in Paris, Davis began a relationship with French actress and singer Juliette Gréco.
Although many of his new and old friends (Davis, in his autobiography, mentions Clarke) tried to persuade him to stay in France, Davis decided to return to New York City. Back in the USA, he began to feel deeply depressed. He attributed the depression to his separation from Gréco, his feeling under-appreciated by the critics (who hailed his former collaborators as leaders of the cool jazz movement)—and to the unraveling of his liaison with a former St. Louis schoolmate who lived with him in New York City, with whom he had two children.
Davis blamed these factors for the heroin habit that deeply affected him for the next four years. During this period, Davis supported his habit partly with his music and partly by living the life of a hustler. By 1953, his drug addiction began to impair his playing ability. Heroin had killed some of his friends (Navarro and Freddie Webster). He had been arrested for drug possession while on tour in Los Angeles, and his drug habit became public in a Down Beat interview of Cab Calloway.
Realizing his precarious condition, Davis tried several times to end his drug addiction, finally succeeding in 1954 after returning to his father's home in St. Louis for several months and locking himself in a room until he had gone through a painful withdrawal. During this period, he avoided New York City and played mostly in Detroit and other Midwestern towns, where drugs were then harder to come by. A widely related story, attributed to Richard (Prophet) Jennings was that Davis—while in Detroit playing at the Blue Bird club as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell's house band along with Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Betty Carter, Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Curtis Fuller and Donald Byrd—stumbled into Baker's Keyboard Lounge out of the rain, soaking wet and carrying his trumpet in a paper bag under his coat, walked to the bandstand and interrupted Max Roach and Clifford Brown in the midst of performing "Sweet Georgia Brown" by beginning to play "My Funny Valentine", and then, after finishing the song, stumbled back into the rainy night. Davis was supposedly embarrassed into getting clean by this incident. In his autobiography, Davis disputed this account, stating that Roach had requested that Davis play with him that night, and that the details of the incident, such as carrying his horn in a paper bag and interrupting Roach and Brown, were fictional and that his decision to quit heroin was unrelated to the incident.
Despite all the personal turmoil, the 1950–54 period proved to be a fruitful one for Davis artistically. He made quite a number of recordings and had several collaborations with other important musicians. He got to know the music of Chicago pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose elegant approach and use of space influenced him deeply. He also definitively severed his stylistic ties with bebop.
In 1951, Davis met Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records, and signed a contract with the label. Between 1951 and 1954, he released many records on Prestige, with several different combos. While the personnel of the recordings varied, the lineup often featured Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Davis was particularly fond of Rollins and tried several times, in the years that preceded his meeting with John Coltrane, to recruit him for a regular group. He never succeeded, however, mostly because Rollins was prone to make himself unavailable for months at a time. In spite of the casual occasions that generated these recordings, their quality is almost always quite high, and they document the evolution of Davis' style and sound. During this time he began using the Harmon mute, held close to the microphone, in a way that became his signature, and his phrasing, especially in ballads, became spacious, melodic, and relaxed. This sound became so characteristic that the use of the Harmon mute by any jazz trumpet player since immediately conjures up Miles Davis.
The most important Prestige recordings of this period (Dig, Blue Haze, Bags' Groove, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants, and Walkin') originated mostly from recording sessions in 1951 and 1954, after Davis' recovery from his addiction. Also of importance are his five Blue Note recordings, collected in the Miles Davis Volume 1 album.
With these recordings, Davis assumed a central position in what is known as hard bop. In contrast with bebop, hard bop used slower tempos and a less radical approach to harmony and melody, often adopting popular tunes and standards from the American songbook as starting points for improvisation. Hard bop also distanced itself from cool jazz by virtue of a harder beat and by its constant reference to the blues, both in its traditional form and in the form made popular by rhythm and blues. A few critics go as far as to call Walkin''' the album that created hard bop, but the point is debatable, given the number of musicians who were working along similar lines at the same time (many of whom recorded or played with Davis).
In this period, Davis gained a reputation for being distant, cold, and withdrawn, and for having a quick temper. Factors that contributed to this reputation included his contempt for the critics and specialized press, and some well-publicized confrontations with the public and with fellow musicians.
A near fight with Thelonious Monk during the recording of Bags' Groove, received wide exposure in the specialized press.
Davis had an operation to remove polyps from his larynx in October 1955. Even though he was not supposed to speak at all for ten days, he had an argument with somebody and raised his voice. This outburst damaged his vocal cords forever, giving him the characteristic raspy voice that came to be associated with him. "[...] in February or March 1956, that I had my first throat operation and had to disband the group while recovering. During the course of the conversation I raised my voice to make a point and fucked up my voice. I wasn't even supposed to talk for at least ten days, and here I was not only talking, but talking loudly. After that incident my voice had this whisper that has been with me ever since."
The "nocturnal" quality of Davis' playing and his somber reputation, along with his whispering voice, earned him the lasting moniker of "prince of darkness", adding a patina of mystery to his public persona.
First great quintet and sextet (1955–58)
Back in New York City and in better health, in 1955 Davis attended the Newport Jazz Festival, where his performance (and especially his solo on "'Round Midnight") was greatly admired and prompted the critics to hail the "return of Miles Davis". At the same time, Davis recruited the players for a formation that became known as his "first great quintet": John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
None of these musicians, with the exception of Davis, had received a great deal of exposure before that time; Chambers, in particular, was very young (19 at the time), a Detroit player who had been on the New York City scene for only about a year, working with the bands of Bennie Green, Paul Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson, and Kai Winding. Coltrane was little known at the time, in spite of earlier collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges. Davis hired Coltrane as a replacement for Sonny Rollins, after unsuccessfully trying to recruit alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
The repertoire included many bebop mainstays, standards from the Great American Songbook and the pre-bop era, and some traditional tunes. The prevailing style of the group was a development of the Davis experience in the previous years—Davis playing long, legato, and essentially melodic lines, while Coltrane, who during these years emerged as a leading figure on the musical scene, contrasted by playing high-energy solos.
With the new formation also came a new recording contract. In Newport, Rhode Island, Davis had met Columbia Records producer George Avakian, who persuaded him to sign with his label. The quintet made its debut on record with the extremely well received 'Round About Midnight. Before leaving Prestige, however, Davis had to fulfill his obligations during two days of recording sessions in 1956. Prestige released these recordings in the following years as four albums: Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. While the recording took place in a studio, each record of this series has the structure and feel of a live performance, with several first takes on each album. The records became almost instant classics and were instrumental in establishing Davis' quintet as one of the best on the jazz scene.
The quintet was disbanded for the first time in 1957, following a series of personal problems that Davis blames on the drug addiction of the other musicians. Davis played some gigs at the Cafe Bohemia with a short-lived formation that included Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Taylor, and then traveled to France, where he recorded the score to Louis Malle's film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. With the aid of French session musicians Barney Wilen, Pierre Michelot, and René Urtreger, and expatriate American drummer Kenny Clarke, he recorded the entire soundtrack with an innovative procedure, without relying on written material: starting from sparse indication of the harmony and a general feel of a given piece, the group played by watching the movie on a screen in front of them and improvising.
A performance of Les Ballets Africains from Guinea in 1958 sparked Davis's interest in modal music. This music, featuring the kalimba, stayed for long periods of time on a single chord, weaving in and out of consonance and dissonance. It was a very new concept in jazz at the time, then dominated by the chord-change based music of bebop.
Returning to New York City in 1958, Davis successfully recruited Cannonball Adderley for his standing group. Coltrane, who in the meantime had freed himself from his drug habits, was available after a highly fruitful experience with Thelonious Monk and was hired back, as was Philly Joe Jones. With the quintet re-formed as a sextet, Davis recorded Milestones, an album anticipating the new directions he was preparing to give to his music.
Almost immediately after the recording of Milestones, Davis fired Garland and, shortly afterward, Jones, again for behavioral problems; he replaced them with Bill Evans—a young white pianist with a strong classical background—and drummer Jimmy Cobb. With this revamped formation, Davis began a year during which the sextet performed and toured extensively and produced a record (1958 Miles, also known as 58 Sessions). Evans had a unique, impressionistic approach to the piano, and his musical ideas had a strong influence on Davis. But after only eight months on the road with the group, he was burned out and left. He was soon replaced by Wynton Kelly, a player who brought to the sextet a swinging, bluesy approach that contrasted with Evans' more delicate playing.
Recordings with Gil Evans (1957–63)
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Davis recorded a series of albums with Gil Evans, often playing flugelhorn as well as trumpet. The first, Miles Ahead (1957), showcased his playing with a jazz big band and a horn section arranged by Evans. Songs included Dave Brubeck's "The Duke," as well as Léo Delibes's "The Maids of Cadiz," the first piece of European classical music Davis had recorded. Another distinctive feature of the album was the orchestral passages that Evans had devised as transitions between the different tracks, which were joined together with the innovative use of editing in the post-production phase, turning each side of the album into a seamless piece of music.
In 1958, Davis and Evans were back in the studio to record Porgy and Bess, an arrangement of pieces from George Gershwin's opera of the same name. The lineup included three members of the sextet: Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. Davis called the album one of his favorites.
Also in 1958, he married his first wife Frances Taylor. Their marriage lasted 10 years, despite his persistent domestic violence.Sketches of Spain (1959–1960) featured songs by contemporary Spanish composers Joaquín Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla, as well as Gil Evans originals with a Spanish flavor. Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (1961) includes Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, along with other compositions recorded in concert with an orchestra under Evans' direction.
Sessions with Davis and Evans in 1962 resulted in the album Quiet Nights, a short collection of bossa novas that was released against the wishes of both artists: Evans stated it was only half an album, and blamed the record company; Davis blamed producer Teo Macero, to whom he did not speak for more than two years. This was the last time Evans and Davis made a full album together; despite the professional separation, Davis noted later that "my best friend is Gil Evans."
Kind of Blue (1959–64)
In March and April 1959, Davis re-entered the studio with his working sextet to record what is widely considered his magnum opus, Kind of Blue. He called back Bill Evans, months away from forming what would become his own seminal trio, for the album sessions, as the music had been planned around Evans' piano style. Both Davis and Evans were acquainted with the ideas of pianist George Russell regarding modal jazz; Davis from discussions with Russell and others before the Birth of the Cool sessions, and Evans from study with Russell in 1956. Davis, however, had neglected to inform current pianist Wynton Kelly of Evans' role in the recordings; Kelly subsequently played only on the track "Freddie Freeloader" and was not present at the April dates for the album. "So What" and "All Blues" had been played by the sextet at performances prior to the recording sessions, but for the other three compositions, Davis and Evans prepared skeletal harmonic frameworks that the other musicians saw for the first time on the day of recording, to allow a fresher approach to their improvisations. The resulting album has proven both highly popular and enormously influential. According to the RIAA, Kind of Blue is the best-selling jazz album of all time, having been certified as quadruple platinum (4 million copies sold). In December 2009, the US House of Representatives voted 409–0 to pass a resolution honoring the album as a national treasure.
The trumpet Davis used on the recording is currently displayed in the music building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was donated to the school by Arthur "Buddy" Gist, who met Davis in 1949 and became a close friend. The gift was the reason why the jazz program at UNCG is named the "Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program."
In August 1959, the Miles Davis Quintet was appearing at the famous Birdland nightclub in New York City. After finishing a recording for the armed services, Davis took a break outside the club. As he was escorting an attractive blonde woman across the sidewalk to a taxi, Davis was told by a patrolman to "move on." Davis explained that he worked at the nightclub and refused to move. The officer said that he would arrest Davis and grabbed him as Davis protected himself. Witnesses said that the patrolman punched Davis in the stomach with his nightstick without provocation. While two detectives held the crowd back, a third detective approached Davis from behind and beat him about the head. Davis was arrested and taken to jail where he was charged with feloniously assaulting an officer. He was then taken to St. Clary Hospital where he received five stitches for a wound on his head. The following October, he was acquitted of the charge of disorderly conduct and was likewise acquitted the following January of the charge of third-degree assault.
Davis tried to pursue the case by bringing a suit against the New York City Police Department, but eventually dropped the proceedings in a plea bargain so he could recover his suspended cabaret card – entertainers awaiting trial were automatically deprived of their cards – and return to work in New York City clubs. In his autobiography, Davis stated that the incident "changed my whole life and whole attitude again, made me feel bitter and cynical again when I was starting to feel good about the things that had changed in this country."
Davis persuaded Coltrane to play with the group on one final European tour in the spring of 1960. Coltrane then departed to form his classic quartet, although he returned for some of the tracks on Davis' 1961 album Someday My Prince Will Come. After Coltrane, Davis tried various saxophonists, including Jimmy Heath, Sonny Stitt, and Hank Mobley. The quintet with Hank Mobley was recorded in the studio and on several live engagements at Carnegie Hall and the Black Hawk jazz club in San Francisco. Stitt's playing with the group is found on a recording made in Olympia, Paris (where Davis and Coltrane had played a few months before) and the Live in Stockholm album.
In 1963, Davis' longtime rhythm section of Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb departed. He quickly got to work putting together a new group, including tenor saxophonist George Coleman and bassist Ron Carter. Davis, Coleman, Carter and a few other musicians recorded half the tracks for an album in the spring of 1963. A few weeks later, seventeen-year-old drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock joined the group, and soon afterward Davis, Coleman, and the new rhythm section recorded the rest of Seven Steps to Heaven.The rhythm players melded together quickly as a section and with the horns. The group's rapid evolution can be traced through the Seven Steps to Heaven album, In Europe (July 1963), My Funny Valentine (February 1964), and Four and More (also February 1964). The quintet played essentially the same repertoire of bebop tunes and standards that earlier Davis bands had played, but they tackled them with increasing structural and rhythmic freedom and, in the case of the up-tempo material, breakneck speed.
Coleman left in the spring of 1964, to be replaced by avant-garde saxophonist Sam Rivers, on the suggestion of Tony Williams. Rivers remained in the group only briefly, but was recorded live with the quintet in Japan; this configuration can be heard on Miles in Tokyo! (July 1964).
By the end of the summer, Davis had persuaded Wayne Shorter to leave Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and join the quintet. Shorter became the group's principal composer, and some of his compositions of this era (including "Footprints" and "Nefertiti") have become standards. While on tour in Europe, the group quickly made their first official recording, Miles in Berlin (September 1964). On returning to the United States later that year, ever the musical entrepreneur, Davis (at Jackie DeShannon's urging) was instrumental in getting the Byrds signed to Columbia Records.
Second great quintet (1964–68)
By the time of E.S.P. (1965), Davis's lineup consisted of Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). The last of his acoustic bands, this group is often referred to as the "second great quintet".
A two-night Chicago performance in late 1965 is captured on The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965, released in 1995. Unlike their studio albums, the live engagement shows the group still playing primarily standards and bebop tunes. Although some of the titles remain the same as the tunes played by the 1950s quintet, the quick tempos and musical departure from the framework of the tune are dramatic. It could be said that these live performances of standards are as radical as the studio recordings of new compositions on the albums listed below.
The recording of Live at the Plugged Nickel was not issued anywhere in the 1960s, first appearing as a Japan-only partial issue in the late 1970s, then as a double-LP in the U.S.A. and Europe in 1982. It was followed by a series of studio recordings: Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1967), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968). The quintet's approach to improvisation came to be known as "time no changes" or "freebop," because they abandoned the more conventional chord-change-based approach of bebop for a modal approach. Through Nefertiti, the studio recordings consisted primarily of originals composed by Shorter, with occasional compositions by the other sidemen. In 1967, the group began to play their live concerts in continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next, with only the melody indicating any sort of demarcation. Davis's bands would continue to perform in this way until his retirement in 1975.Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro,—which tentatively introduced electric bass, electric piano, and electric guitar on some tracks—pointed the way to the subsequent fusion phase of Davis's career. Davis also began experimenting with more rock-oriented rhythms on these records. By the time the second half of Filles de Kilimanjaro was recorded, bassist Dave Holland and pianist Chick Corea had replaced Carter and Hancock in the working band, though both Carter and Hancock occasionally contributed to future recording sessions. Davis soon began to take over the compositional duties of his sidemen.
Electric Miles (1968–75)
Davis's influences included 1960s rock and funk artists such as Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament/Funkadelic, many of whom he met through Betty Mabry (later Betty Davis), a young model and songwriter Davis married in September 1968 and divorced a year later. The musical transition required that Davis and his band adapt to electric instruments in both live performances and the studio. By the time In a Silent Way had been recorded in February 1969, Davis had augmented his quintet with additional players. At various times Hancock or Joe Zawinul were brought in to join Corea on electric keyboards, and guitarist John McLaughlin made the first of his many appearances with Davis. By this point, Shorter was also doubling on soprano saxophone. After recording this album, Williams left to form his group Lifetime and was replaced by Jack DeJohnette.
Six months later, an even larger group of musicians, including Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and Bennie Maupin, recorded the double LP Bitches Brew, which became a huge seller, reaching gold status by 1976. This album and In a Silent Way were among the first fusions of jazz and rock that were commercially successful, building on the groundwork laid by Charles Lloyd, Larry Coryell, and others who pioneered a genre that would become known as jazz fusion. Throughout 1969, Davis' touring band included Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette; as the group never completed a studio recording, it has been subsequently characterized as the "lost quintet" by many critics. The quintet's repertoire included material from Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and the 1960s quintet albums, along with an occasional standard.
Both Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way feature "extended" compositions (more than 20 minutes each) that were never actually "played straight through" by the musicians in the studio. Instead, Davis and producer Teo Macero selected musical motifs of various lengths from recorded extended improvisations and edited them together into a musical whole that exists only in the recorded version. Bitches Brew made use of such electronic effects as multi-tracking, tape loops, and other editing techniques. Both records, especially Bitches Brew, were big sellers. Starting with Bitches Brew, Davis's albums began to often feature cover art much more in line with psychedelic art or black power movements than that of his earlier albums. He took significant cuts in his usual performing fees in order to open for rock groups like the Steve Miller Band, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and Santana. Several live albums (with a transitional sextet/septet including Corea, DeJohnette, Holland, percussionist Airto Moreira, and saxophonist Steve Grossman that expanded to encompass Keith Jarrett on electronic organ by June 1970) were recorded at these performances: Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It's About That Time (March 1970), Black Beauty (April 1970), and Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East (June 1970).
By the time of Live-Evil in December 1970, Davis's ensemble—though retaining the exploratory imperative of Bitches Brew—had transformed into a much more funk-oriented group. Davis began experimenting with wah-wah effects on his horn. A new sextet including DeJohnette, Jarrett, Moreira, Gary Bartz and erstwhile Stevie Wonder bassist Michael Henderson—often referred to as the "Cellar Door band" (the live portions of Live-Evil were recorded at a Washington, D.C., club by that name)—is documented in the six-CD box set The Cellar Door Sessions, which was recorded over four nights in December 1970 (and included one night with John McLaughlin); however, the ensemble disbanded before recording a studio album. Earlier in 1970, Davis contributed extensively to the soundtrack of a documentary about the African-American boxer heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Himself a devotee of boxing, Davis drew parallels between Johnson, whose career had been defined by the fruitless search for a Great White Hope to dethrone him, and Davis's own career, in which he felt the musical establishment of the time had prevented him from receiving the acclaim and rewards that were due him. The resulting album, 1971's Jack Johnson, contained two long pieces that featured musicians (some of whom were not credited on the record) including guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, Herbie Hancock on a Farfisa organ, and drummer Billy Cobham. McLaughlin and Cobham went on to become founding members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971. In 1972, Davis was introduced to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Paul Buckmaster, leading to a period of new creative exploration. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote that "the effect of Davis' study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long... Davis' own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally." His recordings and performances during this period were described as "space music" by fans, by music critic Leonard Feather, and by Buckmaster, who described it as "a lot of mood changes—heavy, dark, intense—definitely space music."
During this period, Davis was committed to making music for the young African-American audience drawn to the more commercial, groove-oriented idioms of popular music that dominated the epoch; by November 1971, DeJohnette and Moreira had been replaced in the touring ensemble by drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler and percussionists James Mtume & Don Alias. On the Corner (1972) blended the incipient influence of Stockhausen with funk elements in a trenchantly improvisatory milieu. The album was highlighted by the appearance of saxophonist Carlos Garnett. Critics were not kind to the album; in his autobiography, Davis stated that critics could not figure out how to categorize it, and he complained that the album was not promoted to the right crowd. Columbia tried selling the album to the old jazz generation who didn't really understand it instead of the younger crowd that Miles intended the album for. After recording On the Corner, Davis put together a new group, with only Henderson and Mtume returning from the Jarrett-era band. It included Garnett, guitarist Reggie Lucas, organist Lonnie Liston Smith, tabla player Badal Roy, sitarist Khalil Balakrishna, and drummer Al Foster. It was unusual in that only Smith was a major jazz instrumentalist; as a result, the music emphasized rhythmic density and shifting textures instead of individual solos. This group, which recorded in Philharmonic Hall for the album In Concert (1972), was unsatisfactory to Davis. Through the first half of 1973, he dropped the tabla and sitar, took over keyboard duties, and added guitarist Pete Cosey. The Davis/Cosey/Lucas/Henderson/Mtume/Foster ensemble would remain virtually intact over the next two years. Initially, Dave Liebman played saxophones and flute with the band; in 1974, he was replaced by Sonny Fortune, who was eventually supplanted by Sam Morrison during the band's final American engagements in 1975.Big Fun (1974) was a double album containing four long improvisations, recorded between 1969 and 1972. Similarly, Get Up With It (1974) collected recordings from May 1970 to October 1974. Notably, the album included "He Loved Him Madly", a tribute to Duke Ellington, as well as one of Davis's most lauded pieces from this era, "Calypso Frelimo". It was his last studio album of the 1970s. In 1974 and 1975, Columbia recorded three double-LP live Davis albums: Dark Magus, Agharta, and Pangaea. Dark Magus captures a 1974 New York City concert; the latter two are recordings of consecutive concerts from the same February 1975 day in Osaka. At the time, only Agharta was available in the USA; Pangaea and Dark Magus were initially released only by CBS/Sony Japan. All three feature at least two electric guitarists (Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey, deploying an array of Hendrix-inspired electronic distortion devices; Dominique Gaumont is a third guitarist on Dark Magus), electric bass, drums, reeds, and Davis on electric trumpet and organ. These albums were the last he recorded for five years. Davis was troubled by osteoarthritis (which led to a hip replacement operation in 1976, the first of several), sickle-cell anemia, depression, bursitis, ulcers, and a renewed dependence on alcohol and drugs (primarily cocaine), and his performances were routinely panned by critics throughout late 1974 and early 1975. By the time the group reached Japan in February 1975, Davis was nearing a physical breakdown and required copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics to make it through his engagements. Nonetheless, as noted by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, during these concerts his trumpet playing "is of the highest and most adventurous order."
Although the Japanese performances have been lauded as the apogee of Davis' experimental period, Pete Cosey would later assert that "the band really advanced after the Japanese tour." Following his return from Japan, Davis undertook an arduous tour of the American Midwest opening for Herbie Hancock—who had commercially eclipsed his onetime bandleader with such efforts as Thrust (1974) and Man-Child (1975)—culminating in a series of club performances at the Bottom Line in New York City and Pall's Mall in Boston throughout the spring and summer. However, his precarious health was compounded by an ulcer-related hospitalization in March 1975 and the diagnosis of a hernia in August 1975. After a hometown performance at New York City's Schaefer Music Festival on September 5, 1975, Davis withdrew almost completely from the public eye for six years, enabled by an unprecedented special retainer issued by Columbia Records. As Gil Evans said, "His organism is tired. And after all the music he's contributed for 35 years, he needs a rest." In his memoirs, Davis is characteristically candid about his wayward mental state during this period, describing himself as a hermit, his Upper West Side apartment as a wreck, and detailing his drug and sex addictions. In 1976, Rolling Stone reported rumors of his imminent demise. Although he stopped practicing trumpet on a regular basis, Davis continued to compose intermittently and made three attempts at recording during his self-imposed exile from performing; these sessions (one with the assistance of Paul Buckmaster and Gil Evans, who left after not receiving promised compensation) bore little fruit and remain unreleased. In 1979, he placed in the yearly top-ten trumpeter poll of Down Beat. Columbia continued to issue compilation albums and records of unreleased vault material to fulfill contractual obligations. During his period of inactivity, Davis saw the fusion music that he had spearheaded over the past decade enter into the mainstream. When he emerged from retirement, Davis's musical descendants—most notably Prince—would be in the realm of new wave rock.
Later years and death
By 1979, Davis had rekindled his relationship with actress Cicely Tyson, with whom he overcame his cocaine addiction and regained his enthusiasm for music. As he had not played trumpet for the better part of three years, regaining his famed embouchure proved particularly toilsome. While recording The Man with the Horn at a leisurely pace throughout 1980–1981, Davis played mostly wahwah with a younger, larger band.
The initial large band was eventually abandoned in favor of a smaller combo featuring saxophonist Bill Evans (not to be confused with pianist Bill Evans of the 1958–59 sextet), and bass player Marcus Miller, both of whom would be among Davis's most regular collaborators throughout the decade. He married Tyson in 1981; they would divorce in 1988. The Man with the Horn was finally released in 1981 and received a poor critical reception despite selling fairly well. In May, the new band played two dates as part of the Newport Jazz Festival. The concerts, as well as the live recording We Want Miles from the ensuing tour, received positive reviews.
By late 1982, Davis's band included French percussionist Mino Cinelu and guitarist John Scofield, with whom he worked closely on the album Star People. In mid-1983, while working on the tracks for Decoy, an album mixing soul music and electronica that was released in 1984, Davis brought in producer, composer and keyboardist Robert Irving III, who had earlier collaborated with him on The Man with the Horn. With a seven-piece band, including Scofield, Evans, keyboardist and music director Irving, drummer Al Foster and bassist Darryl Jones (later of the Rolling Stones), Davis played a series of European gigs to positive receptions. While in Europe, he took part in the recording of Aura, an orchestral tribute to Davis composed by Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.You're Under Arrest, Davis' next album, was released in 1985 and included another brief stylistic detour. Included on the album were his interpretations of Cyndi Lauper's ballad "Time After Time", and Michael Jackson's pop hit "Human Nature". Davis considered releasing an entire album of pop songs and recorded dozens of them, but the idea was scrapped. Davis noted that many of today's accepted jazz standards were in fact pop songs from Broadway theater, and that he was simply updating the "standards" repertoire with new material. 1985 also saw Davis guest-star on the TV show Miami Vice as pimp and minor criminal Ivory Jones in the episode titled "Junk Love" (first aired November 8, 1985).You're Under Arrest was Davis' final album for Columbia. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis publicly dismissed Davis' more recent fusion recordings as not being "'true' jazz," comments Davis initially shrugged off, calling Marsalis "a nice young man, only confused." This changed after Marsalis appeared, unannounced, onstage in the midst of Davis' performance at the inaugural Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 1986. Marsalis whispered into Davis' ear that "someone" had told him to do so. Davis responded by ordering him off the stage.
Davis grew irritated at Columbia's delay releasing Aura. The breaking point in the label-artist relationship appears to have come when a Columbia jazz producer requested Davis place a goodwill birthday call to Marsalis. Davis signed with Warner Bros. Records shortly thereafter.
Davis collaborated with a number of figures from the British post-punk and new wave movements during this period, including Scritti Politti. At the invitation of producer Bill Laswell, Davis recorded some trumpet parts during sessions for Public Image Ltd.'s Album, according to Public Image's John Lydon in the liner notes of their Plastic Box box set. In Lydon's words, however, "strangely enough, we didn't use [his contributions]." According to Lydon in the Plastic Box notes, Davis favorably compared Lydon's singing voice to his trumpet sound during these sessions.
Having first taken part in the Artists United Against Apartheid recording, Davis signed with Warner Brothers records and reunited with Marcus Miller. The resulting record, Tutu (1986), was his first to use modern studio tools—programmed synthesizers, samples and drum loops—to create an entirely new setting for his playing. The album was described as the modern counterpart of Sketches of Spain and won a Grammy in 1987. He was featured on the instrumental Toto track Don't Stop Me Now from their Fahrenheit album (1986).
He followed Tutu with Amandla, another collaboration with Miller and George Duke, plus the soundtracks to four movies: Street Smart, Siesta, The Hot Spot (with bluesman John Lee Hooker), and Dingo. He continued to tour with a band of constantly rotating personnel and a critical stock at a level higher than it had been for 15 years. His last recordings, both released posthumously, were the hip hop-influenced studio album Doo-Bop and Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux, a collaboration with Quincy Jones for the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival. For the first time in three decades, Davis returned to the songs arranged by Gil Evans on such 1950s albums as Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain. This album was also the last album recorded by Davis. Many listeners and critics who had been disappointed with his experimental late period were happy that he had ended his career in such a way.
In 1988 he had a small part as a street musician in the film Scrooged, starring Bill Murray. In 1989, Davis was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Harry Reasoner. Davis received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.
In early 1991, he appeared in the Rolf de Heer film Dingo as a jazz musician. In the film's opening sequence, Davis and his band unexpectedly land on a remote airstrip in the Australian outback and proceed to perform for the surprised locals. The performance was one of Davis's last on film and one of the first released after his death in September.
During the last years of Miles Davis's life, there were rumors that he had AIDS, something that he and his manager Peter Shukat vehemently denied.Los Angeles Times, "Jazz Notes", article published in February 22, 1989. According to Quincy Troupe by that time Davis was taking azidothymidine (AZT), a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.Quincy Troupe (2002) Miles and Me, The George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies, ISBN 9780520234710
Davis died on September 28, 1991, from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 65. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
Views on his earlier work
Late in his life, from the "electric period" onwards, Davis repeatedly explained his reasons for not wishing to perform his earlier works, such as Birth of the Cool or Kind of Blue. In his view, remaining stylistically static was the wrong option. He commented: " "So What" or Kind of Blue, they were done in that era, the right hour, the right day, and it happened. It's over [...] What I used to play with Bill Evans, all those different modes, and substitute chords, we had the energy then and we liked it. But I have no feel for it anymore, it's more like warmed-over turkey." When Shirley Horn insisted in 1990 that Miles reconsider playing the ballads and modal tunes of his Kind of Blue period, he demurred. "Nah, it hurts my lip," was the reason he gave.
Other musicians regretted Davis's change of style, for example, Bill Evans, who was instrumental in creating Kind of Blue, said: "I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music."
Legacy and influence
Miles Davis is regarded as one of the most innovative, influential and respected figures in the history of music. He has been described as “one of the great innovators in jazz”. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll noted "Miles Davis played a crucial and inevitably controversial role in every major development in jazz since the mid-'40s, and no other jazz musician has had so profound an effect on rock. Miles Davis was the most widely recognized jazz musician of his era, an outspoken social critic and an arbiter of style—in attitude and fashion—as well as music". His album Kind of Blue is the best-selling album in the history of jazz music. On November 5, 2009, U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the United States House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music." It passed, unanimously, with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.
As an innovative bandleader and composer, Miles Davis has influenced many notable musicians and bands from diverse genres. Many well-known musicians rose to prominence as members of Davis's ensembles, including saxophonists Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis and Kenny Garrett; trombonist J. J. Johnson; pianists Horace Silver, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Kei Akagi; guitarists John McLaughlin, Pete Cosey, John Scofield and Mike Stern; bassists Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Marcus Miller and Darryl Jones; and drummers Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, and Al Foster. Miles' influence on the people who played with him has been described by music writer and author Christopher Smith as follows:
Miles Davis' artistic interest was in the creation and manipulation of ritual space, in which gestures could be endowed with symbolic power sufficient to form a functional communicative, and hence musical, vocabulary. [...] Miles' performance tradition emphasized orality and the transmission of information and artistic insight from individual to individual. His position in that tradition, and his personality, talents, and artistic interests, impelled him to pursue a uniquely individual solution to the problems and the experiential possibilities of improvised performance.
His approach, owing largely to the African American performance tradition that focused on individual expression, emphatic interaction, and creative response to shifting contents, had a profound impact on generations of jazz musicians.
In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Miles Davis an Honorary Doctorate for his extraordinary contributions to music. Since 1960 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) has honored him with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
In 2010, Moldejazz premiered a play called Driving Miles, which focused on a landmark concert Davis performed in Molde, Norway, in 1984.Miles Ahead, a biopic about Davis' life is scheduled to premiere at the New York Film Festival in October 2015, directed by and starring Don Cheadle as Davis. The film also features Emayatzy Corinealdi as Frances Taylor, and a cast including Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Keith Stanfield.
Awards
Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1955
Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1957
Winner; Down Beat Reader's Poll Best Trumpet Player 1961
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Composition Of More Than Five Minutes Duration for Sketches of Spain (1960)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance, Large Group Or Soloist With Large Group for Bitches Brew (1970)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for We Want Miles (1982)
Sonning Award for Lifetime Achievement In Music (1984; Copenhagen, Denmark)
Doctor of Music, honoris causa (1986; New England Conservatory)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Tutu (1986)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Aura (1989)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band for Aura (1989)
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990)
St. Louis Walk of Fame (May 20, 1990)
Australian Film Institute Award for Best Original Music Score for Dingo, shared with Michel Legrand (1991)
Knight of the Legion of Honor (July 16, 1991; Paris)
Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance for Doo-Bop (1992)
Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance for Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux (1993)
Hollywood Walk of Fame Star (February 19, 1998)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction (March 13, 2006)
Hollywood's Rockwalk Induction (September 28, 2006)
RIAA Quadruple Platinum for Kind of Blue (October 7, 2008)
Discography
Filmography
Only one song is composed by Miles Davis in cooperation with Marcus Miller ("Theme For Augustine").
Soundtrack is composed by Miles Davis in cooperation with Michel Legrand.
See also
Notes and references
Bibliography
Cook, Richard (2007). "It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record". Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8
Cook, Richard, and Brian Morton. Entry "Miles Davis" in Penguin Guide to Jazz, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-017949-6.
Mandel, Howard (2007). Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-96714-7.
Further reading
Cole, George. The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis 1980–1991''. ISBN 1-904768-18-0.
External links
Miles Davis – official Sony Music website
Miles Davis at Find A Grave
Discography
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2016-01 | Beyoncé-697549233 | Beyoncé | Beyoncé
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ) (born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child, and rose to fame in the late 1990s as lead singer of R&B girl-group Destiny's Child. Managed by her father, Mathew Knowles, the group became one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of Beyoncé's debut album, Dangerously in Love (2003), which established her as a solo artist worldwide; it sold 12 million copies, earned five Grammy Awards and featured the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the disbandment of Destiny's Child in June 2005, she released her second solo album, B'Day (2006), which contained hits "Déjà Vu", "Irreplaceable", and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also ventured into acting, with a Golden Globe-nominated performance in Dreamgirls (2006), and starring roles in The Pink Panther (2006) and Obsessed (2009). Her marriage to rapper Jay Z and portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which saw the birth of her alter-ego Sasha Fierce and earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010, including Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". Beyoncé took a hiatus from music in 2010 and took over management of her career; her fourth album 4 (2011) was subsequently mellower in tone, exploring 1970s funk, 1980s pop, and 1990s soul. Her critically acclaimed fifth studio album, Beyoncé (2013), was distinguished from previous releases by its experimental production and exploration of darker themes.
A self-described "modern-day feminist", Beyoncé creates songs that are often characterized by themes of love, relationships, and monogamy, as well as female sexuality and empowerment. On stage, her dynamic, highly choreographed performances have led to critics hailing her as one of the best entertainers in contemporary popular music. Throughout a career spanning 18 years, she has sold over 118 million records as a solo artist, and a further 60 million with Destiny's Child, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She has won 20 Grammy Awards and is the most nominated woman in the award's history. The Recording Industry Association of America recognized her as the Top Certified Artist in America during the 2000s decade. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade, the Top Female Artist of the 2000s and their Artist of the Millennium in 2011. Time listed her among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes magazine also listed her as the most powerful female musician of 2015.
Early life
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas, to Celestine Ann "Tina" Knowles (née Beyincé), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager. Beyoncé's name is a tribute to her mother's maiden name. Beyoncé's younger sister Solange is also a singer and a former member of Destiny's Child. Mathew is African-American, while Tina is of Louisiana Creole descent (with African, Native American, French, Cajun, and distant Irish and Spanish ancestry). Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard.
Beyoncé attended St. Mary's Elementary School in Fredericksburg, Texas, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing talent was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
At age eight, Beyoncé and childhood friend Kelly Rowland met LaTavia Roberson while in an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group with three other girls as Girl's Tyme, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995 Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
Career
1997–2001: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film, Men in Black. The following year, the group released their self-titled debut album, scoring their first major hit "No, No, No". The album established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their multi-platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin'" and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film, Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
2002–07: Dangerously in Love, B'Day, and Dreamgirls
In July 2002, Beyoncé continued her acting career playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film, Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the US box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother whom Gooding's character falls in love with. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the US charts.
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay Z's "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her first solo album Dangerously in Love was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006.
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 5, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–10: Marriage, I Am... Sasha Fierce, and Cadillac Records
On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé married Jay Z. She publicly revealed their marriage in a video montage at the listening party for her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, in Manhattan's Sony Club on October 22, 2008. I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008 in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love", selling 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halo"'s success in the US helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American country pop singer Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic, Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at the First Couple's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife who learns of a woman's obsessive behavior over her husband. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the US box office, grossing $68 million—$60 million more than Cadillac Records—on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and its music video. The song topped the US Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–present: 4 and Beyoncé
In 2011, documents obtained by WikiLeaks revealed that Beyoncé was one of many entertainers who performed for the family of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Rolling Stone reported that the music industry was urging them to return the money they earned for the concerts; a spokesperson for Beyoncé later confirmed to The Huffington Post that she donated the money to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Later that year she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years, and was named the highest-paid performer in the world per minute.
Her fourth studio album 4 was released on June 28, 2011 in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had", which both attained moderate success. The fourth single "Love on Top" was a commercial success in the US. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only.
On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Five months later, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to Blue Ivy.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film, which she directed and produced herself, featured footage from her childhood, her as a mother and businesswoman, recording, rehearsing for live performances, and her return to the spotlight following Blue Ivy's birth. Its DVD release in November 2013 was accompanied by footage from the Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live concerts and a new song, "God Made You Beautiful". In February 2013, Beyoncé signed a global publishing agreement with Warner/Chappell Music, which would cover her future songwriting and then-upcoming studio album.
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most-successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. She was also honorary chair of the 2013 Met Gala. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; The New York Times noted the album's unconventional, unexpected release as significant. Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In April 2014, after much speculation in the weeks before, Beyoncé and Jay Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Knowles also took home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row—earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition.
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year but the award was won by Beck for his Morning Phase album. In August, the cover of the September issue of Vogue magazine was unveiled online, Beyoncé as the cover star, becoming the first African-American artist and third African-American woman in general to cover the September issue. She headlined the 2015 Made in America festival in early September and also the Global Citizen Festival later that month. Beyoncé made a featured appearance on the track "Hymn for the Weekend" by British rock band Coldplay, on their seventh studio album A Head Full of Dreams (2015), which saw release in December.
Personal life
Family
Beyoncé is believed to have first started a relationship with Jay Z after a collaboration on "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, which would further fuel speculation of their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay Z were married without publicity. As of April 2014, the couple have sold a combined 300 million records together. The couple are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Beyoncé suffered a miscarriage in 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music in order to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay Z traveled to Paris in order to shoot the album cover for her 4, and unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris.
In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and started the performance saying "Tonight I want you to stand up on your feet, I want you to feel the love that's growing inside of me". At the end of the performance, she dropped her microphone, unbuttoned her blazer and rubbed her stomach, confirming her pregnancy she had alluded to earlier in the evening. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled term the week of August 29, 2011.
On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York under heavy security. Two days later, Jay Z released "Glory", a song dedicated to their child, on his website Lifeandtimes.com. The song detailed the couple's pregnancy struggles, including a miscarriage Beyoncé suffered before becoming pregnant. Blue Ivy's cries are included at the end of the song, and she was officially credited as "B.I.C." on it. At two days old, she became the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart when "Glory" debuted on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Politics
Beyoncé and husband Jay Z are friends with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. She performed "America the Beautiful" at the 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. Beyoncé and Jay Z held a fundraiser at the latter's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. Beyoncé uploaded pictures of her paper ballot on Tumblr, confirming she had voted in support for the Democratic Party and to encourage others to do so. She also performed the American national anthem at his second inauguration, singing along with a pre-recorded track. She publicly endorsed same sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. In July 2013, Beyoncé and Jay-Z attended a rally in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
In an interview published by Vogue in April 2013, Beyoncé was asked if she considers herself a feminist, to which she said, "that word can be very extreme... But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDxEuston conference in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses television and social media to encourage leadership in girls.
In 2015 Beyoncé signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.
Following the death of Freddie Gray, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, among other notable figures, met with his family. After the imprisonment of protesters of Gray's death, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated thousands of dollars to bail them out.
Net worth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. They placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, Forbes placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings. MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid black musician in history; she succeeded to do so in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at #1 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. As of May 2015, her net worth is estimated to be $250 million.
Artistry
Voice and songwriting
Beyoncé's vocal range spans four octaves. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". While another critic says she is a "Vocal acrobat, being able to sing long and complex melismas and vocal runs effortlessly, and in key. Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. The Daily Mail calls Beyoncé's voice "versatile", capable of exploring power ballads, soul, rock belting, operatic flourishes, and hip hop. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's strange rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 90s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay Z she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyoncé has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers.
In 2001, she became the first African-American woman and second woman songwriter to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American songwriter Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list.
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realised her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer" and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." She credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Aaliyah, Prince, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson, Anita Baker and Rachelle Ferrell.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album I Am... Sasha Fierce was inspired by Jay Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie with additional influences by The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by US First Lady Michelle Obama, saying "She proves you can do it all" and she has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman". She has also discussed how Jay Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music... he is lyrical and raw". In February 2013, Beyoncé said that Madonna inspired her to take control of her own career. She commented: "I think about Madonna and how she took all of the great things she achieved and started the label and developed other artists. But there are not enough of those women.".
Stage and alter ego
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song in B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, 2009–2010 I Am... World Tour and 2013–2014 The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour.
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of Star Phoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence.
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as a having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage." Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "Bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words booty and delicious) to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style an account of how fashion had an impact on the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
The Bey Hive is the name given to Beyoncé's fan base. Fans were previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage). The name Bey Hive derives from the word beehive, purposely misspelled to resemble her first name, and was penned by fans after petitions on the online social networking service Twitter and online news reports during competitions.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007, that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Legacy
In The New Yorker music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century..... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." When The Guardian named her Artist of the Decade, Llewyn-Smith wrote, "Why Beyoncé? [...] Because she made not one but two of the decade's greatest singles, with Crazy in Love and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), not to mention her hits with Destiny's Child; and this was the decade when singles – particularly R&B singles – regained their status as pop's favourite medium. [...] [She] and not any superannuated rock star was arguably the greatest live performer of the past 10 years." In 2013, Beyoncé made the Time 100 list, Baz Luhrmann writing "no one has that voice, no one moves the way she moves, no one can hold an audience the way she does... When Beyoncé does an album, when Beyoncé sings a song, when Beyoncé does anything, it's an event, and it's broadly influential. Right now, she is the heir-apparent diva of the USA — the reigning national voice." In 2014, Beyoncé was listed again on the Time 100 and also featured on the cover of the issue.
Beyoncé's work has influenced numerous artists including Adele, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Bridgit Mendler, Rihanna, Kelly Rowland, Chris Martin, Fergie, Nicole Scherzinger, Rita Ora, Jessie J, and Azealia Banks. American indie rock band White Rabbits also cited her an inspiration for their third album Milk Famous (2012), friend Gwyneth Paltrow studied Beyoncé at her live concerts while learning to become a musical performer for the 2010 film Country Strong. Nicki Minaj has stated that seeing Beyoncé's Pepsi commercial influenced her decision to appear in the company's 2012 global campaign.
Her debut single, "Crazy in Love" was named VH1's "Greatest Song of the 2000s", NMEs "Best Track of the 00s" and "Pop Song of the Century", considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time, earned two Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling singles of all time at around 8 million copies. The music video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", which achieved fame for its intricate choreography and its deployment of jazz hands, was credited by the Toronto Star as having started the "first major dance craze of both the new millennium and the Internet", triggering a number of parodies of the dance choreography and a legion of amateur imitators on YouTube. In 2013, Drake released a single titled "Girls Love Beyoncé", which featured an interpolation from Destiny Child's "Say My Name" and discussed his relationship with women. In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In July 2014, a Beyoncé exhibit was introduced into the "Legends of Rock" section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The black leotard from the "Single Ladies" video and her outfit from the Super Bowl half time performance are among several pieces housed at the museum.
Honors and awards
Beyoncé has received numerous awards. As a solo artist she has sold over 15 million albums in the US, and over 118 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Crazy in Love", "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, The Observer named her the Artist of the Decade and Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" list at number 15. In 2012 VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music". Beyoncé was the first female artist to be honored with the International Artist Award at the American Music Awards. She has also received the Legend Award at the 2008 World Music Awards and the Billboard Millennium Award at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards.
Beyoncé has won 20 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child, making her the second most honored female artist by the Grammys, behind Alison Krauss and the most nominated woman in Grammy Award history with 52 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name" and "Crazy in Love" had previously won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012. Following her role in Dreamgirls she was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture.
Other ventures
Endorsements
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 per cent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the water shed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In October 2014, it was announced that Beyoncé with her management company Parkwood Entertainment would be partnering with London-based fashion retailer Topshop, in a new 50/50 split subsidiary business named Parkwood Topshop Athletic Ltd. The new division was created for Topshop to break into the activewear market, with an athletic, street wear brand being produced. "Creating a partnership with Beyoncé, one of the most hard-working and talented people in the world, who spends many hours of her life dancing, rehearsing and training is a unique opportunity to develop this category" stated Sir Philip Green on the partnership. The company and collection is set to launch and hit stores in the fall of 2015.
On March 30, 2015, it was announced that Beyoncé is a co-owner, with various other music artists, in the music streaming service Tidal. The service specialises in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry, and to rival other streaming services such as Spotify, which have been criticised for their low payout of royalties. "The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value", stated Jay-Z on the release of Tidal.
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the US and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50-50 venture is called Parkwood Topshop Athletic Ltd and is scheduled to launch its first dance, fitness and sports ranges in autumn 2015. The line will launch in April 2016.
Philanthropy
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing for victims in the Houston area, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later.
Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. On March 5, 2010, Beyoncé and her mother Tina opened the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center at the Brooklyn Phoenix House, offering a seven-month cosmetology training course for men and women. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with US First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
In December, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 US mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013 in London and included other acts like Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine, and Rita Ora. In advance of the concert, she appeared in a campaign video released on 15 May 2013, where she, along with Cameron Diaz, John Legend and Kylie Minogue, described inspiration from their mothers, while a number of other artists celebrated personal inspiration from other women, leading to a call for submission of photos of women of viewers' inspiration from which a selection was shown at the concert. Beyoncé said about her mother Tina Knowles that her gift was "finding the best qualities in every human being." With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé is also taking part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supporting Goodwill charity through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Filmography
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubb Idol (2009)
Obsessed (2009)
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Epic (2013)
Tours and residency shows
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–10)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–14)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay Z) (2014)
Residency shows
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
Notes
References
External links
Beyoncé at AllRovi
Beyoncé at SoundCloud
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2016-01 | Islamic_terrorism-697727455 | Islamic_terrorism | Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism is, by definition, terrorist acts committed by Muslim groups or individuals who profess Islamic or Islamist motivations or goals. Islamic terrorists have relied on particular interpretations of the tenets of the Quran and the Hadith, citing these scriptures to justify violent tactics including mass murder, genocide, child molestation and slavery. In recent decades, incidents of Islamic terrorism have occurred on a global scale, occurring not only in Muslim-majority states in Africa and Asia, but also abroad in Europe, Russia, and the United States, and such attacks have targeted Muslims and non-Muslims. In a number of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, these terrorists have been met by armed, independent resistance groups, state actors and their proxies, and politically liberal Muslim protesters.
Although the literal existence of Islamic terrorism is not disputed, some have criticized what they perceive to be the blanket usage of the term. Such use in Western political speech has variously been called "counter-productive," "unhelpful," "highly politicized, intellectually contestable" and "damaging to community relations." This view, in turn, has been criticized by those who perceive it to be an act of evasion.
History
Extremism within Islam goes back to the 7th century to the Kharijites. From their essentially political position, they developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to Takfir, whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of death.
Motivations and Islamic terrorism
Profiles of terrorists
According to Scott Atran, a NATO researcher studying suicide terrorism, the available evidence contradicts a number of simplistic explanations for the motivations of terrorists, including mental instability, poverty, and feelings of humiliation.
Forensic psychiatrist and former foreign service officer Marc Sageman made an "intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad," in his book Understanding Terror Networks. He concluded social networks, the "tight bonds of family and friendship", rather than emotional and behavioral disorders of "poverty, trauma, madness, [or] ignorance", inspired alienated young Muslims to join the jihad and kill.
Author Lawrence Wright described the characteristic of "displacement" of members of the most famous Islamic terrorist group, al-Qaeda:
What the recruits tended to have in common – besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills – was displacement. Most who joined the jihad did so in a country other than the one in which they were reared. They were Algerians living in expatriate enclaves in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia. Despite their accomplishments, they had little standing in the host societies where they lived."
Scholar Olivier Roy describes the background of the hundreds of global (as opposed to local) terrorists who were incarcerated or killed and for whom authorities have records, as being surprising for their Westernized background; for the lack of Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans "coming to avenge what is going on in their country"; their lack of religiosity before being "born again" in a foreign country; the high percentage of converts to Islam among them; their "de-territorialized backgrounds" – "For instance, they may be born in a country, then educated in another country, then go to fight in a third country and take refuge in a fourth country"; their nontraditional belief that jihad is permanent, global, and "not linked with a specific territory."
This profile differs from that found among recent local (as opposed to global) Islamist suicide bombers in Afghanistan, according to a 2007 study of 110 suicide bombers by Afghan pathologist Dr. Yusef Yadgari. Yadgari found that 80% of the attackers studied had some kind of physical or mental disability. The bombers were also "not celebrated like their counterparts in other Arab nations. Afghan bombers are not featured on posters or in videos as martyrs." Daniel Byman, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, and Christine Fair, an assistant professor in peace and security studies at Georgetown University, say that many of the Islamic terrorists are foolish and untrained, perhaps even untrainable.
Western foreign policy
According to a graph by U.S State Department, terrorist attacks have escalated worldwide since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5, told the Iraq inquiry, the security services warned Tony Blair launching the War on Terror would increase the threat of terrorism. Robert Pape has argued that at least terrorists utilizing suicide attacks – a particularly effective form of terrorist attack – are driven not by Islamism but by "a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland." However, Martin Kramer, who debated Pape on origins of suicide bombing, stated that the motivation for suicide attacks is not just strategic logic but also an interpretation of Islam to provide a moral logic. For example, Hezbollah initiated suicide bombings after a complex reworking of the concept of martyrdom. Kramer explains that the Israeli occupation of Lebanon raised the temperature necessary for this reinterpretation of Islam, but occupation alone would not have been sufficient for suicide terrorism. "The only way to apply a brake to suicide terrorism," Kramer argues, "is to undermine its moral logic, by encouraging Muslims to see its incompatibility with their own values."
Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer argues that terrorist attacks (specifically al-Qaeda attacks on America) are not motivated by a religiously inspired hatred of American culture or religion, but by the belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East, condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are." U.S. foreign policy actions Scheuer believes are fueling Islamic terror include: the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq; Israel–United States relations, namely, financial, military, and political support for Israel; U.S. support for "apostate" police states in Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, and Kuwait; U.S. support for the creation of an independent East Timor from territory previously held by Muslim Indonesia; perceived U.S. approval or support of actions against Muslim insurgents in India, the Philippines, Chechnya, and Palestine; U.S. troops on Muslim 'holy ground' in Saudi Arabia; the Western world's religious discrimination against Muslim immigrants; historical justification, such as the Crusades.
Maajid Nawaz, in a debate with Mehdi Hasan, countered Scheuer's contention: "a tiny minority, from within the non-Iraqi British Muslim communities, reacted with violence on 7 July 2005. To interpret this simply as a “nationalist struggle" to remove occupation ignores the blatantly obvious fact that, first, the terrorists were not Iraqis, they were British-Pakistanis (though British Iraqis have lived here for a long time); second, the vast majority of the Stop the War protesters were non-Muslims, yet only a handful from among a minority of Muslims reacted to the war with terrorism. Even though occupation may have caused agitation among the 7 July bombers, these northern-born lads with thick Yorkshire accents confessed in their suicide tapes to considering themselves soldiers with a mission to kill our people (Britons) on behalf of their people (Iraqis). The prerequisite to such a disavowal of one’s country of birth is a recalibration of identity; this is the undeniable role of ideological narratives."
Religious motivation
According to one study in one country (Britain), there is little connection between religious piety and terrorism among Muslims. A "restricted" report of hundreds of case studies by the domestic counter-intelligence agency MI5 found that [f]ar from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.
Interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith
The Princeton University Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis states that Islamic jurisprudence does not allow terrorism. In 2001, Professor Lewis noted:
At no time did the (Muslim) jurist approve of terrorism. Nor indeed is there any evidence of the use of terrorism (in Islamic tradition). Muslims are commanded not to kill women, children, or the aged, not to torture or otherwise ill-treat prisoners, The rules and regulations concerning prisoners of war in Islam to give fair warning of the opening of hostilities, and to honor agreements. Similarly, the laws of Jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter. The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm non-combatants, women and children, "unless they attack you first." A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce. What the classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New York two weeks ago. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam.
But Bernard Lewis says Jihad is an unlimited offensive to bring the whole world under Islamic law; Christian crusades a defensive, limited response to, and imitation of, jihad.
Even the Christian crusade, often compared with the Muslim jihad, was itself a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in part also an imitation. But unlike the jihad it was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory...The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived [by Muslims] as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule.… The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.
Bernard Lewis says Islam imposes, without limit of time or space, the duty to subjugate non-Muslims.
"...it is the duty of those who have accepted them [Allah's word and message] to strive unceasingly to convert or at least to subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state."
Michael Sells and Jane I. Smith (a Professor of Islamic Studies) write that barring some extremists like al-Qaeda, most Muslims do not interpret Qura’nic verses as promoting warfare; and that the phenomenon of radical interpretation of scripture by extremist groups is not unique to Islam. According to Sells, "[Most Muslims] no more expect to apply [the verses at issue] to their contemporary non-Muslim friends and neighbors than most Christians and Jews consider themselves commanded by God, like the Biblical Joshua, to exterminate the infidels."
According to Robert Spencer, Muhammad said in one Hadith:
Furthermore, Muhammad said in another Hadith:
And another Hadith:
However, there are other Hadith that say:
And another Hadith:
Militant Islamic fundamentalist organisations portray their struggle in simply uncompromising terms. According to Antar Zouabri, a leader of a 1990s movement to establish an Islamic republic in Algeria, there can never be either dialogue or truce in his organisation’s struggle against the illegitimate, secular government. The word of God, he argued, is immutable: God does not negotiate or engage in discussion.
According to others, Islamic terrorism is linked to the practice of divinely sanctioned warfare against apostates. Many Muslim groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations argue that references to violence in Muslim sources have been taken out of context. They argue that these Koranic ayahs are only for self-defense when non-believers endanger Muslim life.
In his book No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan argues that there is an internal battle currently taking place within Islam between individualistic reform ideals and the traditional authority of Muslim clerics, similar to that of the 16th-century reformation in Christianity, which was as old as Islam currently is at that period. He writes,
According to conservative columnist Reihan Salam, the book has received a favorable response within the Muslim world.
Societal motivations
Scott Atran has found the greatest predictors of suicide bombings to be not religion but group dynamics:
While personal humiliation does not turn out to be a motivation for those attempting to kill civilians, the perception that others with whom one feels a common bond are being humiliated can be a powerful driver for action. "Small-group dynamics involving friends and family that form the diaspora cell of brotherhood and camaraderie on which the rising tide of martyrdom actions is based". Terrorists, according to Atran, are social beings influenced by social connections and values. Rather than dying "for a cause," they might be said to have died "for each other."
Economic motivations
The Muslim world has been afflicted with economic stagnation for many centuries. In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama stated that apart from crude oil, the exports of the entire Greater Middle East with its 400 million population roughly equals that of Switzerland. It has also been estimated that the exports of Finland, a European country of only five million, exceeded those of the entire 370 million-strong Arab world, excluding oil and natural gas. This economic stagnation is argued by historian David Fromkin in his work A Peace to End All Peace to have commenced with the demise of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, with trade networks being disrupted and societies torn apart with the creation of new nation states. Although the Ottoman Empire was referred to as the Sick man of Europe, the parts of the Middle East under Ottoman rule still had a diverse and steady growing economy with more general prosperity.
Citizenship issues
Another cause of embarrassment and resentment is that since the 1950s, Muslim immigrants have been forced to emigrate to western countries in large numbers because fellow Muslim countries that are well-off economically and socially do not accept them. Out of the 57 Muslim majority countries, only two nations (Turkey and Malaysia) offer a formal path for immigrants to become naturalized citizens, regardless of birthplace, religious beliefs, marital status or ethnic origin. Even the oil-rich Gulf states do not grant citizenship to immigrants, regardless of how long they have resided in those countries. To make matters more difficult, Gulf states have stringent laws which explicitly state that an immigrant or expat can become a citizen only if his/her father was a citizen or, in some cases, if an expat woman marries an Arab national. These laws make it almost impossible for expats (both Muslim and non-Muslim) to gain citizenship.
In 2014, the self-appointed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; the leader of the unrecognised Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant took advantage of this resentment among some Muslims living in other Arab states and urged those Muslims to emigrate to the new Islamic state. ISIS, also known as "The Islamic State," promised all Muslim immigrants "citizenship" immediately upon arrival. They even went as far as issuing "Caliphate Passports" to the newly arrived immigrants.
Ideology
One ideology that plays a role in terrorism by using the name of Islam, is Wahabism. Wahabism and its allies including Salafism (Salafi jihadism) supports war against any one and every one who is not like them. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab (militant group), Boko Haram, Indonesian Mujahedeen Council, Taliban, Sipah Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Hizbul Mujahideen follow intolerant Wahabi or Salafi ideology which is opposed by other Muslims. Non-Muslims, Sufis, and Shias are attacked by hard-core Wahhabis, Deobandis, and jamaatis in the same way that socialists and other leftist proletarians were assaulted by Mussolini's bandits, Jews and others by the Nazis, and "bourgeois," "kulak," intellectual, Jewish, "Menshevik," and "Trotskyist" dissenters, often only alleged to be so, by Stalinism.
In India, Wahabism was spread in the name of Deobandi movement, which was opposed by more tolerant Sufi oriented Indian Muslims.
Transnational Islamist ideology, specifically of the militant Islamists, assert that Western policies and society are actively anti-Islamic, or as it is sometimes described, waging a "war against Islam". Islamists often identify what they see as a historical struggle between Christianity and Islam, dating back as far as the Crusades, among other historical conflicts between practitioners of the two respective religions. Osama bin Laden, for example, almost invariably described his enemy as aggressive and his call for action against them as defensive. Defensive jihad differs from offensive jihad in being "fard al-ayn," or a personal obligation of all Muslims, rather than "fard al-kifaya", a communal obligation, that is, some Muslims may perform it but it is not required from others. Hence, framing a fight as defensive has the advantage of both appearing to be a victim rather than an aggressor, and of giving the struggle the very highest religious priority for all good Muslims.
Many of the violent terrorist groups use the name of jihad to fight against certain Western nations and Israel. An example is bin Laden's al-Qaeda, which is also known as "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders". Most militant Islamists oppose Israel's policies, and often its existence.
According to U.S. Army Colonel Dale C. Eikmeier, “ideology", rather than any individual or group, is the "center of gravity" of al-Qaeda and related groups, and that ideology is a "collection of violent Islamic thought called Qutbism." He summarizes the tenets of Qutbism as being:
A belief that Muslims have deviated from true Islam and must return to "pure Islam" as originally practiced during the time of Muhammad.
The path to "pure Islam" is only through a literal and strict interpretation of the Quran and Hadith, along with implementation of Muhammad’s commands.
Muslims should interpret the original sources individually without being bound to follow the interpretations of Islamic scholars.
That any interpretation of the Quran from a historical, contextual perspective is a corruption, and that the majority of Islamic history and the classical jurisprudential tradition is mere sophistry.
The historic rivalry between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent has also often been the primary motive behind some of the most deadly terrorist attacks in India. According to a U.S. State Department report, India topped the list of countries most affected by Islamic terrorism.
In addition, Islamist militants, scholars, and leaders opposed Western society for what they see as immoral secularism. Islamists have claimed that such unrestricted free speech has led to the proliferation of pornography, immorality, secularism, homosexuality, feminism, and many other ideas that Islamists often oppose. Although bin Laden almost always emphasized the alleged oppression of Muslims by America and Jews when talking about them in his messages, in his "Letter to America," he answered the question, "What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you," with
We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest (...) You separate religion from your policies, (...) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions (...) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants (...) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality (...) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. (...) You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.
Given their perceived piety, The Times noted the irony when an investigation discovered that Jihadists were seeking anonymity through some of the same networks used to distribute child pornography. The paper praised the raid's ability to "improve understanding of the mindsets of both types of criminals". Similarly, Reuters reported that pornography was found among the materials seized from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound that was raided by U.S. Navy SEALs.
In 2006, Britain's then head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller said of Al-Qaeda that it "has developed an ideology which claims that Islam is under attack, and needs to be defended". "This" she said "is a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the West’s response to varied and complex issues, from long-standing disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide." She said that the video wills of British suicide bombers made it clear that they were motivated by perceived worldwide and long-standing injustices against Muslims; an extreme and minority interpretation of Islam promoted by some preachers and people of influence; their interpretation as anti-Muslim of UK foreign policy, in particular the UK’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan." She also cautioned how difficult it was to gain a proper perspective, saying that although there are more important dangers we face daily without feeling so threatened by them, such as climate change and road deaths, and though terrorist deaths were few, the intelligence services had prevented some potentially large threats and that vigilance was needed.
Criticism of Islamic terrorist ideology
Although Islamic terrorism is commonly associated with the Salafis (or "Wahhabis"), the scholars of the group have constantly attributed this association to ignorance, misunderstanding and sometimes insincere research and deliberate misleading by rival groups. Following the September 11 attacks, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, made an official statement that "the Islamic Sharee'ah (legislation) does not sanction" such actions. A Salafi "Committee of Major Scholars" in Saudi Arabia has declared that "Islamic" terrorism, such as the May 2003 bombing in Riyadh, are in violation of Sharia law and aiding the enemies of Islam.
Criticism of Islamic terrorism on Islamic grounds has also been made by Abdal-Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter):
Certainly, neither bin Laden nor his principal associate, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are graduates of Islamic universities. And so their proclamations ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship, and instead take the form of lists of anti-American grievances and of Koranic quotations referring to early Muslim wars against Arab idolaters. These are followed by the conclusion that all Americans, civilian and military, are to be wiped off the face of the Earth. All this amounts to an odd and extreme violation of the normal methods of Islamic scholarship. Had the authors of such fatwas followed the norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no school of mainstream Islam allows the targeting of civilians. An insurrectionist who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghy, “armed aggression," a capital offense in Islamic law.
Colonel Eikmeier points out the "questionable religious credentials" of many Islamist theorists, or "Qutbists," which can be a "means to discredit them and their message":
With the exception of Abul Ala Maududi and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, none of Qutbism’s main theoreticians trained at Islam’s recognized centers of learning. Although a devout Muslim, Hassan al-Banna was a teacher and community activist. Sayyid Qutb was a literary critic. Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj was an electrician. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician. Osama bin Laden trained to be a businessman.
Fethullah Gülen, a prominent Turkish Islamic scholar, has claimed that "a real Muslim," who understood Islam in every aspect, could not be a terrorist. There are many other people with similar points of view such as Karen Armstrong, Prof. Ahmet Akgunduz, Harun Yahya and Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Huston Smith, an author on comparative religion, noted that extremists have hijacked Islam, just as has occurred periodically in Christianity, Hinduism and other religions throughout history. He added that the real problem is that extremists do not know their own faith.
Ali Gomaa, former Grand Mufti of Egypt, stated not only for the Islam but in general: "Terrorism cannot be born of religion. Terrorism is the product of corrupt minds, hardened hearts, and arrogant egos, and corruption, destruction, and arrogance are unknown to the heart attached to the divine."
Identity-based frameworks for analyzing Islamist-based terrorism
Islamist-based fundamentalist terrorism against Western nations and the U.S. in particular, has numerous motivations and takes place the larger context of a complex and tense relationship between the 'West' and the Arab and Muslim 'world,' which is highlighted in the previous section on motivations and Islamic terrorism. Identity-based theoretical frameworks, including theories of social identity, social categorization theory, and psychodynamics are used to explain the reasons terrorism occurs.
Social identity is explained by Karina Korostelina as a "feeling of belonging to a social group, as a strong connection with social category, and as an important part of our mind that affects our social perceptions and behavior" This definition can be applied to the case of Osama bin Laden, who, according to this theory, had a highly salient perception of his social identity as a Muslim, a strong connection to the social category of the Muslim Ummah or 'community,' which affect his social perceptions and behaviors. Bin Laden's ideology and interpretation of Islam led to the creation of al-Qaeda in response to perceived threats against the Muslim community by the Soviet Union, the U.S. in particular due to its troop presence in Saudi Arabia, and American support for Israel. The Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda has a group identity, which includes “shared experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and interests of in-group members," and is “described through the achievement of a collective aim for which this group has been created," which in this case is to achieve "a complete break from the foreign influences in Muslim countries, and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate."
Social categorization theory has been discussed as a three-stage process of identification, where “individuals define themselves as members of a social group, learn the stereotypes and norms of the group, and group categories influence the perception and understanding of all situations in a particular context" This definition can be applied to the U.S.-led war on terror, in which conflict features such as the phenomenon of Anti-Americanism and the phenomenon of non-Arab countries like Iran and Afghanistan lending support to Islamist-based terrorism by funding or harboring terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and al-Qaeda against Western nations, particularly Israel and the United States are, according to social categorization theory, influenced by a three-stage process of identification. In this three-stage process of identification, the Arab and Muslim world(s) are the social group(s), in which their members learn stereotypes and norms which categorize their social group vis-à-vis the West. This social categorization process creates feelings of high-level in-group support and allegiance among Arabs and Muslims and the particular context within which members of the Arab and Muslim world(s) social group(s) understand all situations that involve the West. Social categorization theory as a framework for analysis indicates causal relationships between group identification processes and features of conflict situations.
Muslim attitudes toward terrorism
Muslim popular opinion on the subject of attacks on civilians by Islamist groups varies. Fred Halliday, a British academic specialist on the Middle East, argues that most Muslims consider these acts to be egregious violations of Islam's laws. Muslims living in the West denounce the September 11th attacks against United States, while Hezbollah contends that their rocket attacks against Israeli civilian targets are defensive Jihad by a legitimate resistance movement rather than terrorism. Subsequently, however, on Osama bin Laden's death, some Muslims in the UK came out on streets in support of Osama, announcing him as an Islamic hero and condemned the role of US and west in killing him. The protest against Bin Laden’s death was organised by controversial preacher Anjem Choudary – who praised both 7/7 and the September 11 attacks. Statistics compiled by the United States government's Counterterrorism Center present a complicated picture: of known and specified terrorist incidents from the beginning of 2004 through the first quarter of 2005, slightly more than half of the fatalities were attributed to Islamic extremists but a majority of over-all incidents were considered of either "unknown/unspecified" or a secular political nature. The vast majority of the "unknown/unspecified" terrorism fatalities did however happen in Islamic regions such as Iraq and Afghanistan, or in regions where Islam is otherwise involved in conflicts such as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, southern Thailand and Kashmir.
View of Islamic law
Although the murder of Muslims is always forbidden in Islam, the murder of non-Muslims is also prohibited in certain circumstances. Many Muslim scholars have presented subjective evidence against the religious justification of terrorism against certain non-Muslims, a notable example being that of Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen who states regarding killing a non-Muslim who is living in an Islamic state or with whom Muslims have a peace treaty: "As for a non-Muslim living under Muslim rule and a Mu’āhid (a Non-Muslim ally with whom Muslims have a treaty, trust, peace, or agreement), the prophet said: “Whoever kills a Mu’āhid will not even smell the fragrance of paradise and its fragrance can be smelled from the distance of forty years away." and he also said: “Certainly, one of the most difficult situations for which there is no turning back for whomever casts himself into it - shedding sacred blood without right." However, this does not address the killing of non-Muslims living outside the Islamic world who do not have a specific treaty with Muslims.
Another example is that of late scholar Abd al-Aziz Ibn Baz who stated: "It is well-known to anyone with the slightest amount of common sense that hijacking planes and kidnapping embassy officials and similar acts are some of the greatest universal crimes that result in nothing but widespread corruption and destruction. They place such extreme hardships and injuries upon innocent people, the extent of which only Allāh knows."
Numerous fatwas (rulings) condemning terrorism and suicide bombing as haram have been published by Islamic scholars worldwide, one of the most extensive being the 600-page ruling by Sheikh Tahir-ul-Qadri, whose fatwa condemned them as kufir. On 2 March 2010, Qadri's fatwa was an "absolute" condemnation of terrorism without "any excuses or pretexts." He said that "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts." Qadri said his fatwa, which declares terrorists and suicide bombers to be unbelievers, goes further than any previous denunciation. Iranian Ayatollah Ozma Seyyed Yousef Sanei issued a fatwa (ruling) that suicide attacks against civilians are legitimate only in the context of war. The ruling did not say whether other types of attacks against civilians are justified outside of the context of war, nor whether jihad is included in Sanei's definition of war.
An influential group of Pakistani scholars and religious leaders denounced suicide attacks and beheadings as un-Islamic. 'Ulema' (clerics) and 'mushaikh' (spiritual leaders) of the Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnah, who gathered for a convention, declared suicide attacks and beheadings as un-Islamic in a unanimous resolution. Chairman of the Pakistani Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, said in his address that those who were fighting in the name of implementing Shariah or Islamic law must first abide by these same laws and killing minors is contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Some contemporary scholars who have followed a textual based approach to the study of the Quran with an emphasis over the coherence in the Book and the context of situation offered a radical interpretation on the verses and prophetic narratives that are usually quoted by the militants to promote militancy. According to Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (his booklet on Jihad is considered one of his most important contribution towards understanding the religion according to the principles of interpreting the Quran introduced by Farahi and Islahi) the Quran does not allow waging war except for against oppression under a sovereign state. He holds that jihad without a state is nothing but creating nuisance in the land when hijacked by the individuals and groups independent of the state authority defeats the purpose. The principle behind this study of the issue in the basic sources is the principle that there are divine injunctions in the Qur'an which are specific to the age of the Messenger. He says that nobody can be punished for apostasy or being non-Muslim after the Prophet who acted as the divine agent when he punished the disbelievers by sword who had rejected the message of God and his messenger even after the truth was made manifest to them. Ghamidi and his associates have written extensively on the topics related to these issues. In his book Meezan Ghamidi has concluded that:
Jihad can only waged against persecution Islamic jihad has only two purposes: putting an end to persecution even that of the non-Muslims and making the religion of Islam reign supreme in the Arabian peninsula. The latter type was specific for the messenger of God and is no more operative.
Under a sovereign state.
There are strict ethical limits for jihad which do not again allow fighting for example non-combatants.
Seen in this perspective acts of terrorism including suicide bombing becomes prohibited.
Opinion surveys
Gallup conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim countries between 2001 and 2007. It found that more than 90% of respondents condemned the killing of non-combatants on religious and humanitarian grounds.
In 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, Pew Research Center survey found that suicide bombings against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq were seen as "justifiable" by many Jordanians (70%), Pakistanis (46%), and Turks (31%). At the same time, the survey found that support for the U.S.-led War on Terror had increased.
A 2005 Pew Research study, that involved 17,000 people in 17 countries showed support for terrorism was declining in the Muslim world along with a growing belief that Islamic extremism represents a threat to those countries. A Daily Telegraph survey showed that 88% of Muslims said the July 2005 bombings in the London Underground were unjustified, while 6% disagreed. However it also found that 24% of British Muslims showed some sympathy with the people who carried out the attacks.
Polls taken by Saudi owned Al Arabiya and Gallup suggest moderate support for the September 11 terrorist attacks within the Islamic world, with 36% of Arabs polled by Al Arabiya saying the 9/11 attacks were morally justified, 38% disagreeing and 26% of those polled being unsure. A 2008 study, produced by Gallup, found similar results with 38.6% of Muslims questioned believing the 9/11 attacks were justified. Another poll conducted, in 2005 by the Fafo Foundation in the Palestinian Authority, found that 65% of respondents supported the September 11 attacks.
In Pakistan, despite the recent rise in the Taliban's influence, a poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow in Pakistan in January 2008 tested support for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, other militant Islamist groups and Osama bin Laden himself, and found a recent drop by half. In August 2007, 33% of Pakistanis expressed support for al-Qaeda; 38% supported the Taliban. By January 2008, al-Qaeda's support had dropped to 18%, the Taliban's to 19%. When asked if they would vote for al-Qaeda, just 1% of Pakistanis polled answered in the affirmative. The Taliban had the support of 3% of those polled.
Pew Research surveys in 2008, show that in a range of countries – Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh – there have been substantial declines in the percentages saying suicide-bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified to defend Islam against its enemies. Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable. The shift of attitudes against terror has been especially dramatic in Jordan, where 29% of Jordanians were recorded as viewing suicide-attacks as often or sometimes justified (down from 57% in May 2005). In the largest majority-Muslim nation, Indonesia, 74% of respondents agree that terrorist attacks are "never justified" (a substantial increase from the 41% level to which support had risen in March 2004); in Pakistan, that figure is 86%; in Bangladesh, 81%; and in Iran, 80%.
A poll conducted in Osama bin Laden's home country of Saudi Arabia in December 2008 shows that his compatriots have dramatically turned against him, his organisation, Saudi volunteers in Iraq, and terrorism in general. Indeed, confidence in bin Laden has fallen in most Muslim countries in recent years.
Examples of organizations and acts
Some prominent Islamic terror groups and incidents include the following:
South America
Argentina
The 1992 attack on Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, was a suicide bombing attack on the building of the Israeli embassy of Argentina, located in Buenos Aires, which was carried out on 17 March 1992. Twenty-nine civilians were killed in the attack and 242 additional civilians were injured. A group called Islamic Jihad Organization, which has been linked to Iran and possibly Hezbollah, claimed responsibility.
An incident from 1994, known as the AMIA bombing, was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires. It occurred on July 18 and killed 85 people and injured hundreds more. A suicide bomber drove a Renault Trafic van bomb loaded with about of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil explosive mixture, into the Jewish Community Center building located in a densely constructed commercial area of Buenos Aires. Prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out. The prosecution claimed that Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract to Tehran.
Central Asia
Afghanistan
According to Human Rights Watch, Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin forces have "sharply escalated bombing and other attacks" against civilians since 2006. In 2006, "at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed in at least 350 armed attacks, most of which appear to have been intentionally launched at civilians or civilian objects."
Tajikistan
The government blamed the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) for training those responsible for carrying out a suicide car bombing of a police station in Khujand on September 3, 2010. Two policemen were killed and 25 injured.
Uzbekistan
On February 16, 1999, six car bombs exploded in Tashkent, killing 16 and injuring more than 100, in what may have been an attempt to assassinate President Islam Karimov. The IMU was blamed.
The IMU launched a series of attacks in Tashkent and Bukhara in March and April 2004. Gunmen and female suicide bombers took part in the attacks, which mainly targeted police. The violence killed 33 militants, 10 policemen, and four civilians. The government blamed Hizb ut-Tahrir, though the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) claimed responsibility.
Furkat Kasimovich Yusupov was arrested in the first half of 2004, and charged as the leader of a group that had carried out the March 28 bombing on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
On July 30, 2004, suicide bombers struck the entrances of the US and Israeli embassies in Tashkent. Two Uzbek security guards were killed in both bombings. The IJU again claimed responsibility.
Foreign commentators on Uzbek affairs speculated that the 2004 violence could have been the work of the IMU, Al-Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, or some other radical Islamic organization.
Europe
Major lethal attacks on civilians in Europe credited to Islamist terrorism include the 1985 El Descanso bombing in Madrid, the 1995 Paris Metro bombings, 11 March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, where 191 people were killed, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, also of public transport, which killed 52 commuters, and the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, in Paris, where 12 people were killed due to the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo depicting cartoons of Muhammad. On November 13, 2015 the French capital was victim of a series of simultaneous attacks, claimed by ISIS, that killed 129 people in restaurants, the Bataclan theatre and the Stade de France during the France-Germany international friendly football match.
In 2009, a Europol report showed that more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe over the last three years were, in fact, carried out by non-Muslims. Out of 1,009 arrests for terrorism in 2008, 187 were in relation to Islamist terrorism. The report showed that the majority of Islamist terror suspects were second or third generation immigrants.
Eastern Europe
Russia
Politically and religiously motivated attacks on civilians in Russia have been traced to separatist sentiment among the largely Muslim population of its North Caucasus region, particularly in Chechnya, where the central government of the Russian Federation has waged two bloody wars against the local secular separatist government since 1994. In the Moscow theater hostage crisis in October 2002, three Chechen separatist groups took an estimated 850 people hostage in the Russian capital; at least 129 hostages died during the storming by Russian special forces, all but one killed by the chemicals used to subdue the attackers (whether this attack would more properly be called a nationalist rather than an Islamist attack is in question). In the September 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis more than 1,000 people were taken hostage after a school in the Russian republic of North Ossetia–Alania was seized by a pro-Chechen multi-ethnic group aligned to Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs; hundreds of people died during the storming by Russian forces.
Since 2000, Russia has also experienced a string of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people in the Caucasian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, as well as in Russia proper including Moscow. Responsibility for most of these attacks were claimed by either Shamil Basayev's Islamic-nationalist rebel faction or, later, by Dokka Umarov's pan-Islamist movement Caucasus Emirate which is aiming to unite most of Russia's North Caucasus as an emirate since its creation in 2007. Since the creation of the Caucasus Emirate, the group has abandoned its secular nationalist goals and fully adopted the ideology of Salafist-takfiri Jihadism which seeks to advance the cause of Allah on the earth by waging war against the Russian government and non-Muslims in the North Caucasus, such as the local Sufi Muslim population, whom they view as mushrikeen (polytheists) who do not adhere to true Islamic teachings. In 2011, the U.S. Department of State included the Caucasus Emirate on its list of terrorist organisations.
Turkey
Hezbollah in Turkey (unrelated to the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon) is a Sunni terrorist group accused of a series of attacks, including the November 2003 bombings of two synagogues, the British consulate in Istanbul and HSBC bank headquarters that killed 58. Hizbullah's leader, Hüseyin Velioğlu, was killed in action by Turkish police in Beykoz on 17 January 2000. Besides Hizbullah, other Islamic groups listed as a terrorist organization by Turkish police counter-terrorism include Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, al-Qaeda in Turkey, Tevhid-Selam (also known as al-Quds Army) and Caliphate State. Islamic Party of Kurdistan and Hereketa İslamiya Kurdistan are also Islamist groups active against Turkey, however unlike Hizbullah they're yet to be listed as active terrorist organizations in Turkey by Turkish police counter-terrorism.
Middle East / Southwest Asia
Iraq
The area that has seen some of the worst terror attacks in modern history has been Iraq as part of the Iraq War. In 2005, there were 400 incidents of one type of attack (suicide bombing), killing more than 2,000 people – many if not most of them civilians. n 2006, almost half of all reported terrorist attacks in the world (6,600), and more than half of all terrorist fatalities (13,000), occurred in Iraq, according to the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States. Along with nationalist groups and criminal, non-political attacks, the Iraqi insurgency includes Islamist insurgent groups, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who favor suicide attacks far more than non-Islamist groups. At least some of the terrorism has a transnational character in that some foreign Islamic jihadists have joined the insurgency.
Israel and the Palestinian territories
Hamas ("zeal" in Arabic and an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) began support for attacks on military and civilian targets in Israel at the beginning of the First Intifada in 1987. The 1988 charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel. Its "military wing" has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Israel, principally suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Hamas has also been accused of sabotaging the Israeli-Palestine peace process by launching attacks on civilians during Israeli elections to anger Israeli voters and facilitate the election of harder-line Israeli candidates. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, Japan, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. It is banned in Jordan. Russia does not consider Hamas a terrorist group as it was "democratically elected". During the second intifada (September 2000 through August 2005) 39.9 percent of the suicide attacks were carried out by Hamas. The first Hamas suicide attack was the Mehola Junction bombing in 1993. Hamas justifies these attacks as necessary in fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, and the attacks continue despite the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Hamas controlled territory as Israel continues to occupy other Palestinian territory, namely the West Bank, as well as keeping Gaza under siege. Hamas still states its goal to be the elimination of Israel. The wider Hamas movement also serves as a charity organization and provides services to Palestinians.
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine is a Palestinian Islamist group based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and dedicated to waging jihad to eliminate the state of Israel. It was formed by Palestinian Fathi Shaqaqi in the Gaza Strip following the Iranian Revolution which inspired its members. From 1983 onward, it engaged in "a succession of violent, high-profile attacks" on Israeli targets. The Intifada which "it eventually sparked" was quickly taken over by the much larger Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas. Beginning in September 2000, it started a campaign of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians. The PIJ's armed wing, the Al-Quds brigades, has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Israel, including suicide bombings. The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by several Western countries.
Lebanon
Hezbollah first emerged in 1982, as a militia during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, also known as Operation Peace for Galilee. Its leaders were inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its three main goals as "putting an end to any colonialist entity" in Lebanon, bringing the Phalangists to justice for "the crimes they [had] perpetrated," and the establishment of an Islamic regime in Lebanon. Hezbollah leaders have also made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel, which they refer to as a "Zionist entity... built on lands wrested from their owners."
Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development. They maintain strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population, and gained a surge of support from Lebanon's broader population (Sunni, Christian, Druze) immediately following the 2006 Lebanon War, and are able to mobilize demonstrations of hundreds of thousands. Hezbollah along with some other groups began the 2006–2008 Lebanese political protests in opposition to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. A later dispute over Hezbollah preservation of its telecoms network led to clashes and Hezbollah-led opposition fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods from Future Movement militiamen loyal to Fouad Siniora. These areas were then handed over to the Lebanese Army.
A national unity government was formed in 2008, in Lebanon, giving Hezbollah and its opposition allies control of 11 of 30 cabinets seats; effectively veto power. Hezbollah receives its financial support from the governments of Iran and Syria, as well as donations from Lebanese people and foreign Shi'as. It has also gained significantly in military strength in the 2000s. Despite a June 2008 certification by the United Nations that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory, in August, Lebanon's new Cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement which secures Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands." Since 1992, the organization has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, its Secretary-General. The United States, Canada, Israel, Bahrain, France, Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Netherlands regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, while the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia consider only Hezbollah's military wing or its external security organization to be a terrorist organization. Many consider it, or a part of it, to be a terrorist group responsible for blowing up the American embassy and later its annex, as well as the barracks of American and French peacekeeping troops and a dozens of kidnappings of foreigners in Beirut. It is also accused of being the recipient of massive aid from Iran, and of serving "Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests," or serving as a "subcontractor of Iranian initiatives" Hezbollah denies any involvement or dependence on Iran. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, on the other hand, Hezbollah is regarded as a legitimate and successful resistance movement that drove both Western powers and Israel out of Lebanon. In 2005, the Lebanese Prime Minister said of Hezbollah, it "is not a militia. It's a resistance."
Fatah al-Islam is an Islamist group operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. It was formed in November 2006, by fighters who broke off from the pro-Syrian Fatah al-Intifada, itself a splinter group of the Palestinian Fatah movement, and is led by a Palestinian fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi. The group's members have been described as militant jihadists, and the group itself has been described as a terrorist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda. Its stated goal is to reform the Palestinian refugee camps under Islamic sharia law, and its primary targets are the Lebanese authorities, Israel and the United States.
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
North Africa
Egypt
Algeria
The Armed Islamic Group, active in Algeria between 1992 and 1998, was one of the most violent Islamic terrorist groups, and is thought to have takfired the Muslim population of Algeria. Its campaign to overthrow the Algerian government included civilian massacres, sometimes wiping out entire villages in its area of operation. It also targeted foreigners living in Algeria, killing more than 100 expatriates in the country. In recent years it has been eclipsed by a splinter group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now called Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.
North America
Canada
According to recent government statements Islamic terrorism is the biggest threat to Canada. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reported that terrorist radicalization at home is now the chief preoccupation of Canada's spy agency. The most notorious arrest in Canada's fight on terrorism, was the 2006 Ontario terrorism plot in which 18 Al-Qaeda-inspired cell members were arrested for planning a mass bombing, shooting, and hostage taking terror plot throughout Southern Ontario. There have also been other arrests mostly in Ontario involving terror plots.
United States
Between 1993 and 2001, the major attacks or attempts against US interests stemmed from militant Islamic jihad extremism except for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. In September 2001, 2,977 civilians (including EMS workers), law enforcement officers, firefighters, and military personnel were killed in the September 11 attacks organized by 19 al-Qaeda members and largely perpetrated by Saudi nationals, sparking the War on Terror. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden considers homegrown terrorism to be the most dangerous threat and concern faced by American citizens today. As of July 2011, there have been 52 homegrown jihadist extremist plots or attacks in the United States since the September 11 attacks.
South Asia
Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, the group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was formed sometime in 1998, and gained prominence in 2001. The organization was officially banned in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs, but struck back in August when 300 bombs were detonated almost simultaneously throughout Bangladesh, targeting Shahjalal International Airport, government buildings and major hotels.
The Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), also called Ansar Bangla is an Islamic extremist organization in Bangladesh, implicated in crimes including some brutal attacks and murders of atheist bloggers from 2013 to 2015 and a bank heist in April 2015.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (, Ḥarkat al-Jihād al-Islāmiyah, meaning "Islamic Jihad Movement", HuJI) is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation most active in South Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India since the early 1990s. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005.
India
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are militant groups seeking accession of Kashmir to Pakistan from India. The Lashkar leadership describes Indian and Israel regimes as the main enemies of Islam and Pakistan that is an extremist thought but is not real. Lashkar-e-Toiba, along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, another militant group active in Kashmir are on the United States’ foreign terrorist organizations list, and are also designated as terrorist groups by the United Kingdom, India, Australia and Pakistan. Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in 1994 and has carried out a series of attacks all over India. The group was formed after the supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from another Islamic militant organization, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed by some as the "deadliest" and "the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir". The group was also implicated in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Some major bomb blasts and attacks in India were perpetrated by Islamic militants from Pakistan, e.g. the 2008 Mumbai attacks and 2001 Indian Parliament attack.
Pakistan
Southeast Asia
Indonesia
Thailand
Most of the terrorist incidents in Thailand are related to the South Thailand insurgency.
The Philippines
The Abu Sayyaf Group, also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, is one of several militant Islamic-separatist groups based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, in Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao) where for almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for a state, independent of the predominantly Christian Philippines. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic ابو, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("Swordsmith"). Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and extortion in their fight for an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago with the stated goal of creating a pan-Islamic superstate across southeast Asia, spanning from east to west; the island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, the island of Borneo (Malaysia, Indonesia), the South China Sea, and the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar). The U.S. Department of State has branded the group a terrorist entity by adding it to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Transnational
Al-Qaeda's stated aim is the use of jihad to defend and protect Islam against Zionism, Christianity, Hinduism, the secular West, and Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, which it sees as insufficiently Islamic and too closely tied to the United States. Formed by Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in the aftermath of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, al-Qaeda called for the use of violence against civilians and military of the United States and any countries that are allied with it.
Tactics
Suicide attacks
An increasingly popular tactic used by terrorists is suicide bombing. This tactic is used against civilians, soldiers, and government officials of the regimes the terrorists oppose. A recent clerical ruling declares terrorism and suicide bombing as forbidden by Islam. However, groups who support its use often refer to such attacks as "martyrdom operations" and the suicide-bombers who commit them as "martyrs" (Arabic: shuhada, plural of "shahid"). The bombers, and their sympathizers often believe that suicide bombers, as martyrs (shaheed) to the cause of jihad against the enemy, will receive the rewards of paradise for their actions.
Hijackings
Islamic terrorism sometimes employs the hijacking of passenger vehicles. The most famous were the "9/11" attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on a single day in 2001, effectively ending the era of aircraft hijacking.
Kidnappings and executions
Along with bombings and hijackings, Islamic terrorists have made extensive use of highly publicised kidnappings and executions, often circulating videos of the acts for use as propaganda. A frequent form of execution by these groups is decapitation, another is shooting. In the 1980s, a series of abductions of American citizens by Hezbollah during the Lebanese Civil War resulted in the 1986 Iran–Contra affair. During the chaos of the Iraq War, more than 200 kidnappings foreign hostages (for various reasons and by various groups, including purely criminal) gained great international notoriety, even as the great majority (thousands) of victims were Iraqis. In 2007, the kidnapping of Alan Johnston by Army of Islam resulted in the British government meeting a Hamas member for the first time.
Islamist militants, including Boko Haram, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the ISIS, have used kidnapping as a method of fundraising, as a means of bargaining for political concessions, and as a way of intimidating potential opponents.
Michael Rubin argued in 2005 that hostage-taking became popular among terrorist groups as a tactic that can hold the attention of a public that had become inured to mass death techniques such as suicide bombing, and that it can garner significant "political and diplomat" payoff. Rubin writes that Islamist kidnappers have the additional, "ideological goals" of using hostages both to "shock the outside world" and to "appeal to their own constituency", and that the public humiliation of hostages is a specific Islamist goal. He also deems hostage taking as an effective technique for cowing a population by making governments appear weak and by inspiring fear of opposing the Islamists. He does not regard kidnapping as an effective recruitment technique.
In his 2007 book, Islamic Terror Abductions in the Middle East, military historian Shaul Shay argued in 2014 that Islamists consider hostage taking as a strategic tool that can effectively gain concessions from targeted governments.
Kidnapping as political tactic
In September 2014, the German Foreign Ministry reported that the Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf had kidnapped two German nationals and was threatening to kill them unless the German government withdraw its support for the war against ISIS and also pay a large ransom. In September 2014 an Islamist militant group kidnapped a French national in Algeria and threatened to kill the hostage unless the government of France withdrew its support for the war against ISIS.
Islamist self-justifications
According to the International Business Times, in October, 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a five-point justification of its right to take non-Muslims hostage, and decapitate, ransom or enslave them. British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary told The Clarion Project that kidnapping and even beheading hostages is justified by Islam.
Kidnapping as revenue
Nasir al-Wuhayshi leader of the Islamist militant group Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula describes kidnapped hostages as "an easy spoil... which I may describe as a profitable trade and a precious treasure."
A 2014 investigation, by journalist Rukmini Maria Callimachi published in The New York Times demonstrated that between 2008 and 2014, Al Qaeda and groups directly affiliated with al-Qaeda took in over US$125 million in from kidnapping, with $66 million of that total paid in 2013 alone. he article showed that from a somewhat haphazard beginning in 2003, kidnapping grew into the group's main fundraising strategy, with targeted, professional kidnapping of civilians from wealthy European countries - principally France, Spain and Switzerland - willing to pay huge ransoms. US and UK nationals are less commonly targeted since these governments have shown an unwillingness to pay ransom.
Boko Haram kidnapped Europeans for the Ransom their governments would pay in the early 2010s. For example, in the spring of 2013, Boko haram kidnapped and within 2 months released a French family of 7 and 9 other hostages in exchange for a payment by the French government of $3.15 million.
According to Yochi Dreazen writing in Foreign Policy, although ISIS received funding fm Qatar, Kuwait and other Gulf oil states, "traditional criminal techniques like kidnapping", are a key funding source for ISIS. Armin Rosen writing in Business Insider, kidnapping was a "crucial early source" of funds as ISIS expanded rapidly in 2013. n March, upon receiving payment from the government of Spain, ISIS released 2 Spanish hostages working for the newspaper El Mundo, correspondent Javier Espinosa and photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova, who had been held since September, 2013. Philip Balboni, CEO of GlobalPost told the press that he had spent "millions" in efforts to ransom journalist James Foley, and an American official told the Associated Press that demand form ISIS was for 100 million ($132.5). In September 2014, following the release of ISIS Beheading videos of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British Prime Minister David Cameron appealed to members of the G7 to abide by their pledges not to pay ransom "in the case of terrorist kidnap."
Holding foreign journalists as hostages is so valuable to ISIS that Rami Jarrah, a Syrian who has acted as go-between in efforts to ransom foreign hostages, told the Wall Street Journal that ISIS had "made it known" to other militant groups that they "would pay" for kidnapped journalists. ISIS has also kidnapped foreign-aid workers and Syrians who work for foreign-funded groups and reconstruction projects in Syria. By mid-2014, ISIS was holding assets valued at US$2 billion, which made it the world's wealthiest Islamist group.
Kidnapping women for sex
According to Islamism expert Jonathan N.C. Hill, in 2014, under the influence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram had begun kidnapping large numbers of girls and young women for sexual use. The attacks echoed kidnappings of girls and young women for sexual use by Algerian Islamists in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Haleh Esfandiari from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has highlighted the abuse of local women by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants after they have captured an area. "They usually take the older women to a makeshift slave market and try to sell them. The younger girls ... are raped or married off to fighters", she said, adding, "It's based on temporary marriages, and once these fighters have had sex with these young girls, they just pass them on to other fighters." Speaking of Yazidi women captured by ISIS, Nazand Begikhani said "[t]hese women have been treated like cattle... They have been subjected to physical and sexual violence, including systematic rape and sex slavery. They've been exposed in markets in Mosul and in Raqqa, Syria, carrying price tags." The UN confirmed in 2014 that 5,000–7,000 Yazidi women and children had been abducted by ISIL and sold into slavery.
Islamist self-justification
According to CNN, the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "justifies its kidnapping of women as sex slaves citing Islamic theology" in an article entitled, 'The revival (of) slavery before the Hour,' (of Judgement Day), published in the ISIL online magazine, "Dabiq", claimed that Yazidi women can be taken captive and forced to become sex slaves or concubines under Islamic law, "One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar -- the infidels -- and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah, or Islamic law."
Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, a Nigerian extremist group, said in an interview "I shall capture people and make them slaves." when claiming responsibility for the 2014 Chibok kidnapping.
Kidnapping as psychological warfare
Boko Haram has been described as using kidnapping as a means of intimidating the civilian population into non-resistance.
According to psychologist Irwin Mansdorf, Hamas demonstrated effectiveness of kidnapping as a form of psychological warfare in the 2006 capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit when public pressure forced the government of Israel to release 1027 prisoners, including 280 convicted of terrorism by Israel, in exchange for his release. According to the New York Times, "Hamas has recognized the pull such incidents have over the Israeli psyche and clearly has moved to grab hostages in incidents such as the Death and ransoming of Oron Shaul.
Internet recruiting
In the beginning of the 21st century, emerged a worldwide network of hundreds of web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the West, taking less prominent roles in mosques and community centers that are under scrutiny. According to The Washington Post, "Online recruiting has exponentially increased, with Facebook, YouTube and the increasing sophistication of people online".
Selected attacks
18 April 1983 – 1983 United States embassy bombing 63 killed, 120 wounded.
23 October 1983 – 1983 Beirut barracks bombing 305 killed, 75 wounded.
26 February 1993 – World Trade Center bombing, New York City. Six killed.
13 March 1993 – 1993 Bombay bombings. Mumbai, India. 250 dead, 700 injured.
28 July 1994 – Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vehicle suicide bombing attack against AMIA building, the local Jewish community representation. 85 dead, more than 300 injured.
24 December 1994 – Air France Flight 8969 hijacking in Algiers by three members of Armed Islamic Group of Algeria and another terrorist. Seven killed, including the hijackers.
25 June 1996 – Khobar Towers bombing, 20 killed, 372 wounded.
17 November 1997 – Luxor attack, six terrorists attack tourists at Egypts famous Luxor Ruins. 68 foreign tourists killed.
14 February 1998 – Bombing in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. 13 bombs explode within a 12 km radius. 46 killed and over 200 injured.
7 August 1998 – 1998 United States embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. 224 dead. 4000+ injured.
4 September 1999 – A series of bombing attacks in several cities of Russia, nearly 300 killed.
12 October 2000 – Attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.
11 September 2001 – Four planes hijacked and crashed into World Trade Center, The Pentagon and into a field in Shanksville by 19 hijackers. 2,977 killed and over 6,000 injured.
13 December 2001 – Suicide attack on Indian parliament in New Delhi by Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organizations, Jaish-E-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Aimed at eliminating the top leadership of India and causing anarchy in the country. 7 dead, 12 injured.
27 March 2002 – Suicide bomb attack on a Passover Seder in a Hotel in Netanya, Israel. 30 dead, 133 injured.
30 March 2002 and 24 November 2002 – Attacks on the Hindu Raghunath temple, India. Total 25 dead.
24 September 2002 – Machine gun attack on Hindu temple in Ahmedabad, India. 31 dead, 86 injured.
12 October 2002 – Bombing in Bali nightclub. 202 killed, 300 injured.
16 May 2003 – Casablanca Attacks – Four simultaneous attacks in Casablanca killing 33 civilians (mostly Moroccans) carried by Salafia Jihadia.
11 March 2004 – Multiple bombings on trains near Madrid, Spain. 191 killed, 1460 injured (alleged link to Al-Qaeda).
1 September 2004 – Beslan school hostage crisis, approximately 344 civilians including 186 children killed.<ref
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2 November 2004 – The murder of Theo van Gogh (film director) by Amsterdam-born jihadist Mohammed Bouyeri.
5 July 2005 – Attack at the Hindu Ram temple at Ayodhya, India; one of the most holy sites of Hinduism. 6 dead.
7 July 2005 – Multiple bombings in London Underground. 53 killed by four suicide bombers. Nearly 700 injured.
23 July 2005 – Bomb attacks at Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian resort city, at least 64 people killed.
29 October 2005 – 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings, India. Over 60 killed and over 180 injured in a series of three attacks in crowded markets and a bus, just 2 days before the Diwali festival.
9 November 2005 – 2005 Amman bombings. a series of coordinated suicide attacks on hotels in Amman, Jordan. Over 60 killed and 115 injured. Four attackers including a husband and wife team were involved.
7 March 2006 – 2006 Varanasi bombings, India. A series of attacks in the Sankatmochan Hanuman temple and Cantonment Railway Station in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. 28 killed and over 100 injured.
11 July 2006 – 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, Mumbai, India; a series of seven bomb blasts that took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai. 209 killed and over 700 injured.
14 August 2007 – Qahtaniya bombings: Four suicide vehicle bombers massacred nearly 800 members of northern Iraq's Yazidi sect in the deadliest Iraq war's attack to date.
26 July 2008 – 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, India. slamic terrorists detonate at least 21 explosive devices in the heart of this industrial capital, leaving at least 56 dead and 200 injured. A Muslim group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility. Indian authorities believe that extremists with ties to Pakistan and/or Bangladesh are likely responsible and are intent on inciting communal violence. Investigation by Indian police led to the eventual arrest of a number of terrorists suspected of carrying out the blasts, most of whom belong to a well-known terrorist group, the Students Islamic Movement of India.
13 September 2008 – Bombing series in Delhi, India. Pakistani extremist groups plant bombs at several places including India Gate, out of which the ones at Karol Bagh, Connaught Place and Greater Kailash explode leaving around 30 people dead and 130 injured, followed by another attack two weeks later at the congested Mehrauli area, leaving 3 people dead.
26 November 2008 – Muslim extremists kill at least 174 people and wound numerous others in a series of coordinated attacks on India's largest city and financial capital, Mumbai. he government of India blamed Pakistan based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and stated that the terrorists killed/caught were citizens of Pakistan, a claim which the Pakistani government has refused. Ajmal Kasab, one of the terrorists, was caught alive.
25 October 2009 – Baghdad, Iraq. During a terrorist attack, two bomber vehicles detonated in the Green Zone, killing at least 155 people and injuring 520.
28 October 2009 – Peshawar, Pakistan. A car bomb is detonated in a woman exclusive shopping district, and over 110 killed and over 200 injured.
3 December 2009 – Mogadishu, Somalia. A male suicide bomber disguised as a woman detonates in a hotel meeting hall. The hotel was hosting a graduation ceremony for local medical students when the blast went off, killing four government ministers as well as other civilians.
1 January 2010 – Lakki Marwat, Pakistan. A suicide car bomber drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a volleyball pitch as people gathered to watch a match killing more than 100 people.
1 May 2010 – New York, New York, USA. Faisal Shahzad, an Islamic Pakistani American who received U.S. citizenship in December 2009, attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square working with the Pakistani Taliban or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan–
13 May 2011 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed attacks on two mosques simultaneously belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, killing nearly 100 and injuring many others.
13 July 2011 – Three bombs exploded at different locations in Mumbai, perpetrated by Indian Mujahideen.
11 September 2012 – The 2012 Benghazi Attack took place on the evening of September 11, 2012; Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer.
15 April 2013 – Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev set off two pressure cooker bombs at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon and killed three people.
22 May 2013 – Two Nigerian men attack and kill British Soldier, Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, UK.
22 September 2013 – 61 civilians, 6 Kenyan soldiers, and 5 attackers die in the Westgate shopping mall attack.
1 March 2014 Kunming attack – Kunming, China. A group of knife-wielding Uyghur attackers stormed Kunming Railway Station, killing 29 civilians and wounding 143 people. 4 of the attackers were shot dead.
7 January 2015 – Charlie Hebdo shooting - Two masked gunmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles and shotguns stormed the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. They shot and killed 12 people, and wounded 11 others.
26 June 2015 – Three separate attacks in a single day by ISIS terrorists, during the month of Ramadan, were carried out: in a US-owned gas factory outside Lyon, France, a man driving a delivery van gained entry and caused a massive explosion, leaving the head of his decapitated boss impaled on the factory's fence; in the Tunisian resort of Sousse, an ISIS gunman opened fire on tourists, targeting British holiday makers in particular, killing 38 people; and in Kuwait City, a suicide bomber detonated himself in a mosque packed with around 2,000 people, killing at least 25 people.
13 November 2015 – Coordinated shootings and suicide bombings in Paris, France. 130 dead, 368 injured.
U.S. State Department list
Abu Sayyaf, Philippines
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Gaza Strip and West Bank
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Egypt
Al-Qaeda, worldwide
Al-Shabaab, Somalia
Ansar al-Islam, Iraq
Ansar al-sharia, Libya
Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Algeria
Boko Haram, Nigeria
Caucasus Emirate (IK), Russia
East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), China
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Egypt
Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (IBDA-C), Turkey
Hamas, Gaza Strip and West Bank
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Alami, Pakistan
Hezbollah, Lebanon
Islamic Movement of Central Asia, Central Asia
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Iraq and Syria
Jaish-e-Mohammed, Pakistan and Kashmir
Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna, Iraq
Jemaah Islamiyah, Indonesia
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan and Kashmir
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Pakistan
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Philippines
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, Morocco and Europe
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Gaza Strip and West Bank
Tawhid and Jihad, Iraq
See also
Jihad
United States and state-sponsored terrorism
Religion and peacebuilding
Religious war
List of Islamic terrorist attacks
Islamic extremism
Christian Terrorism
Criticism of Islamism
History of terrorism
Homegrown terrorism
Iran and state terrorism
Islamism
Islam: What the West Needs to Know
Arab-Israeli conflict
Zionist political violence
Jewish religious terrorism
Palestinian political violence
Notes
References
Further reading
Falk, Avner. (2008). Islamic Terror: Conscious and Unconscious Motives. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Security International. ISBN 978-0-313-35764-0.
Gabriel, Brigitte. (2006). Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-35837-7.
Kepel, Gilles. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.
Kepel, Gilles. The War for Muslim Minds.
Category:Islam-related controversies
Category:Criticism of Islam
Category:Religious terrorism |
2016-01 | Windows_8-696938656 | Windows_8 | Windows 8
Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Development of Windows 8 started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7, in 2009. It was announced at CES 2011, and followed by the release of three pre-release versions from September 2011 to May 2012. The operating system was released to manufacturing on 1 August 2012, and was released for general availability on 26 October 2012.
Windows 8 introduced major changes to the operating system's platform and user interface to improve its user experience on tablets, where Windows was now competing with mobile operating systems, including Android and iOS. In particular, these changes included a touch-optimized Windows shell based on Microsoft's "Metro" design language, the Start screen (which displays programs and dynamically updated content on a grid of tiles), a new platform for developing apps with an emphasis on touchscreen input, integration with online services (including the ability to sync apps and settings between devices), and Windows Store, an online store for downloading and purchasing new software. Windows 8 added support for USB 3.0, Advanced Format hard drives, near field communications, and cloud computing. Additional security features were introduced, such as built-in antivirus software, integration with Microsoft SmartScreen phishing filtering service and support for UEFI Secure Boot on supported devices with UEFI firmware, to prevent malware from infecting the boot process.
Windows 8 was released to a mixed critical reception. Although reaction towards its performance improvements, security enhancements, and improved support for touchscreen devices was positive, the new user interface of the operating system was widely criticized for being potentially confusing and difficult to learn (especially when used with a keyboard and mouse instead of a touchscreen). Despite these shortcomings, 60 million Windows 8 licenses have been sold through January 2013, a number which included both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new PCs.
On 17 October 2013, Microsoft released Windows 8.1. It addresses some aspects of Windows 8 that were criticized by reviewers and early adopters and incorporates additional improvements to various aspects of the operating system. Windows 8 was ultimately succeeded by Windows 10 in July 2015.
Development history
Early development
Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 had shipped in 2009. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011, it was announced that the next version of Windows would add support for ARM system-on-chips alongside the existing x86 processors produced by vendors, especially AMD and Intel. Windows division president Steven Sinofsky demonstrated an early build of the port on prototype devices, while Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the company's goal for Windows to be "everywhere on every kind of device without compromise." Details also began to surface about a new application framework for Windows 8 codenamed "Jupiter", which would be used to make "immersive" applications using XAML (similarly to Windows Phone and Silverlight) that could be distributed via a new packaging system and a rumored application store.
Three milestone releases of Windows 8 leaked to the general public. Milestone 1, Build 7850, was leaked on 12 April 2011. It was the first build where the text of a window was written centered instead of aligned to the left. It was also probably the first appearance of the Metro-style font, and its wallpaper had the text shhh... let's not leak our hard work. However, its detailed build number reveals that the build was created on 22 September 2010. The leaked copy edition was Enterprise edition. The OS still reads as "Windows 7". Milestone 2, Build 7955, was leaked on 25 April 2011. The traditional Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) was replaced by a new Black screen, although this was later scrapped. This build introduced a new ribbon in Windows Explorer. Build 7959, with minor changes but the first 64-bit version, was leaked on 1 May 2011. The "Windows 7" logo was temporarily replaced with text displaying "Microsoft Confidential". On 17 June 2011, build 7989 64-bit edition was leaked. It introduced a new boot screen featuring the same fish as the default Windows 7 Beta wallpaper, which was later scrapped, and the circling dots as featured in the final (although the final version comes with smaller circling dots throbber). It also had the text Welcome below them, although this was also scrapped.
On 1 June 2011, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8's new user interface as well as additional features at both Computex Taipei and the D9: All Things Digital conference in California.
The "Building Windows 8" blog launched on 15 August 2011, featuring details surrounding Windows 8's features and its development process.
Previews
Microsoft unveiled more Windows 8 features and improvements on the first day of the Build conference on 13 September 2011. Microsoft released the first public beta build of Windows 8, Windows Developer Preview (build 8102) at the event. A Samsung tablet running the build was also distributed to conference attendees.
The build was released for download later in the day in standard 32-bit and 64-bit versions, plus a special 64-bit version which included SDKs and developer tools (Visual Studio Express and Expression Blend) for developing Metro-style apps. The Windows Store was announced during the presentation, but was not available in this build. According to Microsoft, there were about 535,000 downloads of the developer preview within the first 12 hours of its release. Originally set to expire on 11 March 2012, in February 2012 the Developer Preview's expiry date was changed to 15 January 2013.
On 19 February 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new logo to be adopted for Windows 8. Designed by Pentagram partner Paula Scher, the Windows logo was changed to resemble a set of four window panes. Additionally, the entire logo is now rendered in a single solid color.
On 29 February 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the beta version of Windows 8, build 8250. Alongside other changes, the build removed the Start button from the taskbar for the first time since its debut on Windows 95; according to Windows manager Chaitanya Sareen, the Start button was removed to reflect their view that on Windows 8, the desktop was an "app" itself, and not the primary interface of the operating system. Windows president Steven Sinofsky said more than 100,000 changes had been made since the developer version went public. The day after its release, Windows 8 Consumer Preview had been downloaded over one million times. Like the Developer Preview, the Consumer Preview expired on 15 January 2013.
Many other builds were released until the Japan's Developers Day conference, when Steven Sinofsky announced that Windows 8 Release Preview (build 8400) would be released during the first week of June. On 28 May 2012, Windows 8 Release Preview (Standard Simplified Chinese x64 edition, not China-specific version, build 8400) was leaked online on various Chinese and BitTorrent websites. On 31 May 2012, Windows 8 Release Preview was released to the public by Microsoft. Major items in the Release Preview included the addition of Sports, Travel, and News apps, along with an integrated version of Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer. Like the Developer Preview and the Consumer Preview, the release preview expired on 15 January 2013.
Release
On 1 August 2012, Windows 8 (build 9200) was released to manufacturing with the build number 6.2.9200.16384 . Microsoft planned to hold a launch event on 25 October 2012 and release Windows 8 for general availability on the next day. However, only a day after its release to manufacturing, a copy of the final version of Windows 8 Enterprise N (a version for European markets lacking bundled media players to comply with a court ruling) leaked online, followed by leaks of the final versions of Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise a few days later. On 15 August 2012, Windows 8 was made available to download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Windows 8 was made available to Software Assurance customers on 16 August 2012. Windows 8 was made available for students with a DreamSpark Premium subscription on 22 August 2012, earlier than advertised.
Relatively few changes were made from the Release Preview to the final version; these included updated versions of its pre-loaded apps, the renaming of Windows Explorer to File Explorer, the replacement of the Aero Glass theme from Windows Vista and 7 with a new flat and solid-colored theme, and the addition of new background options for the Start screen, lock screen, and desktop. Prior to its general availability on 26 October 2012, updates were released for some of Windows 8's bundled apps, and a "General Availability Cumulative Update" (which included fixes to improve performance, compatibility, and battery life) was released on Tuesday, 9 October 2012. Microsoft indicated that due to improvements to its testing infrastructure, general improvements of this nature are to be released more frequently through Windows Update instead of being relegated to OEMs and service packs only.
Microsoft began an advertising campaign centered around Windows 8 and its Surface tablet in October 2012, starting with its first television advertisement premiering on 14 October 2012. Microsoft's advertising budget of US$1.5–1.8 billion was significantly larger than the US$200 million campaign used to promote Windows 95. As part of its campaign, Microsoft set up 34 pop-up stores inside malls (primarily focusing on Surface), provided training for retail employees in partnership with Intel, and collaborated with the electronics store chain Best Buy to design expanded spaces to showcase devices. In an effort to make retail displays of Windows 8 devices more "personal", Microsoft also developed a character known in English-speaking markets as "Allison Brown", whose fictional profile (including personal photos, contacts, and emails) is also featured on demonstration units of Windows 8 devices.
In May 2013, Microsoft launched a new television campaign for Windows 8 illustrating the capabilities and pricing of Windows 8 tablets in comparison to the iPad, which featured the voice of Siri remarking on the iPad's limitations in a parody of Apple's "Get a Mac" advertisements. On 12 June 2013 during game 1 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals, Microsoft premiered the first ad in its "Windows Everywhere" campaign, which promoted Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and the company's suite of online services as an interconnected platform.
New and changed features
New features and functionality in Windows 8 include a faster startup through UEFI integration and the new "Hybrid Boot" mode (which hibernates the Windows kernel on shutdown to speed up the subsequent boot), a new lock screen with a clock and notifications, and the ability for enterprise users to create live USB versions of Windows (known as Windows To Go). Windows 8 also adds native support for USB 3.0 devices, which allow for faster data transfers and improved power management with compatible devices, and hard disk 4KB Advanced Format support, as well as support for near field communication to facilitate sharing and communication between devices.
Windows Explorer, which has been renamed File Explorer, now includes a ribbon in place of the command bar. File operation dialog boxes have been updated to provide more detailed statistics, the ability to pause file transfers, and improvements in the ability to manage conflicts when copying files. A new "File History" function allows incremental revisions of files to be backed up to and restored from a secondary storage device, while Storage Spaces allows users to combine different sized hard disks into virtual drives and specify mirroring, parity, or no redundancy on a folder-by-folder basis.
Task Manager has been redesigned, including a new processes tab with the option to display fewer or more details of running applications and background processes, a heat map using different colors indicating the level of resource usage, network and disk counters, grouping by process type (e.g. applications, background processes and Windows processes), friendly names for processes and a new option which allows users to search the web to find information about obscure processes. Additionally, the Blue Screen of Death has been updated with a simpler and modern design with less technical information displayed.
Safety and security
New security features in Windows 8 include two new authentication methods tailored towards touchscreens (PINs and picture passwords), the addition of antivirus capabilities to Windows Defender (bringing it in parity with Microsoft Security Essentials). SmartScreen filtering integrated into Windows, Family Safety offers Parental controls, which allows parents to monitor and manage their children's activities on a device with activity reports and safety controls. Windows 8 also provides integrated system recovery through the new "Refresh" and "Reset" functions, including system recovery from USB drive. Windows 8's first security patches would be released on 13 November 2012; it would contain three fixes deemed "critical" by the company.
Windows 8 supports a feature of the UEFI specification known as "Secure boot", which uses a public-key infrastructure to verify the integrity of the operating system and prevent unauthorized programs such as bootkits from infecting the device's boot process. Some pre-built devices may be described as "certified" by Microsoft; these must have secure boot enabled by default, and provide ways for users to disable or re-configure the feature. ARM-based Windows RT devices must have secure boot permanently enabled.
Online services and functionality
Windows 8 provides heavier integration with online services from Microsoft and others. A user can now log in to Windows with a Microsoft account, which can be used to access services and synchronize applications and settings between devices. Windows 8 also ships with a client app for Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage service, which also allows apps to save files directly to SkyDrive. A SkyDrive client for the desktop and File Explorer is not included in Windows 8, and must be downloaded separately. Bundled multimedia apps are provided under the Xbox brand, including Xbox Music, Xbox Video, and the Xbox SmartGlass companion for use with an Xbox 360 console. Games can integrate into an Xbox Live hub app, which also allows users to view their profile and gamerscore. Other bundled apps provide the ability to link Flickr and Facebook. Due to Facebook Connect service changes, Facebook support is disabled in all bundled apps effective 8 June 2015.
Internet Explorer 10 is included as both a desktop program and a touch-optimized app, and includes increased support for HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration. The Internet Explorer app does not support plugins or ActiveX components, but includes a version of Adobe Flash Player that is optimized for touch and low power usage. Initially, Adobe Flash would only work on sites included on a "Compatibility View" whitelist; however, after feedback from users and additional compatibility tests, an update in March 2013 changed this behavior to use a smaller blacklist of sites with known compatibility issues instead, allowing Flash to be used on most sites by default. The desktop version does not contain these limitations.
Windows 8 also incorporates improved support for mobile broadband; the operating system can now detect the insertion of a SIM card and automatically configure connection settings (including APNs and carrier branding), track and reduce bandwidth use on metered networks. Windows 8 also adds an integrated airplane mode setting to globally disable all wireless connectivity as well. Carriers can also offer account management systems through Windows Store apps, which can be automatically installed as a part of the connection process and offer usage statistics on their respective tile.
Windows Store apps
Windows 8 introduces a new style of application, Windows Store apps. According to Microsoft developer Jensen Harris, these apps are to be optimized for touchscreen environments and are more specialized than current desktop applications. Apps can run either in a full-screen mode, or be snapped to the side of a screen. Apps can provide toast notifications on screen or animate their tiles on the Start screen with dynamic content. Apps can use "contracts"; a collection of hooks to provide common functionality that can integrate with other apps, including search and sharing. Apps can also provide integration with other services; for example, the People app can connect to a variety of different social networks and services (such as Facebook, Skype, and People service), while the Photos app can aggregate photos from services such as Facebook and Flickr.
Windows Store apps run within a new set of APIs known as Windows Runtime, which supports programming languages such as C, C++, Visual Basic .NET, C#, along with HTML5 and JavaScript. If written in some "high-level" languages, apps written for Windows Runtime can be compatible with both Intel and ARM versions of Windows, otherwise they are not binary code compatible. Components may be compiled as Windows Runtime Components, permitting consumption by all compatible languages. To ensure stability and security, apps run within a sandboxed environment, and require permissions to access certain functionality, such as accessing the Internet or a camera.
Retail versions of Windows 8 are only able to install these apps through Windows Storea namesake distribution platform which offers both apps, and listings for desktop programs certified for comparability with Windows 8. A method to sideload apps from outside Windows Store is available to devices running Windows 8 Enterprise and joined to a domain; Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT devices that are not part of a domain can also sideload apps, but only after special product keys are obtained through volume licensing.
The term "Immersive app" had been used internally by Microsoft developers to refer to the apps prior to the first official presentation of Windows 8, after which they were referred to as "Metro-style apps" in reference to the Metro design language. The term was phased out in August 2012; a Microsoft spokesperson denied rumors that the change was related to a potential trademark issue, and stated that "Metro" was only a codename that would be replaced prior to Windows 8's release. Following these reports, the terms "Modern UI-style apps", "Windows 8-style apps" and "Windows Store apps" began to be used by various Microsoft documents and material to refer to the new apps. In an interview on 12 September 2012, Soma Somasegar (vice president of Microsoft's development software division) confirmed that "Windows Store apps" would be the official term for the apps. An MSDN page explaining the Metro design language uses the term "Modern design" to refer to the language as a whole.
Web browsers
Exceptions to the restrictions faced by Windows Store apps are given to web browsers. The user's default browser can distribute a Metro-style web browser in same package as the desktop version, which has access to functionality unavailable to other apps, such as being able to permanently run in the background, use multiple background processes, and use Windows API code instead of WinRT (allowing for code to be re-used with the desktop version, while still taking advantage of features available to Windows Store apps, such as charms). Microsoft advertises this exception privilege "New experience enabled" (formerly "Metro-style enabled").
The developers of both Chrome and Firefox committed to developing Metro-style versions of their browsers; while Chrome's "Windows 8 mode" uses a full-screen version of the existing desktop interface, Firefox's version (which was first made available on the "Aurora" release channel in September 2013) uses a touch-optimized interface inspired by the Android version of Firefox. In October 2013, Chrome's app was changed to mimic the desktop environment used by Chrome OS. Development of the Firefox app for Windows 8 has since been cancelled, citing a lack of user adoption for the beta versions.
Interface and desktop
Windows 8 introduces significant changes to the operating system's user interface, many of which are aimed at improving its experience on tablet computers and other touchscreen devices. The new user interface is based on Microsoft's Metro design language, and uses a Start screen similar to that of Windows Phone 7 as the primary means of launching applications. The Start screen displays a customizable array of tiles linking to various apps and desktop programs, some of which can display constantly updated information and content through "live tiles". As a form of multi-tasking, apps can be snapped to the side of a screen. Alongside the traditional Control Panel, a new simplified and touch-optimized settings app known as "PC Settings" is used for basic configuration and user settings. It does not include many of the advanced options still accessible from the normal Control Panel.
A vertical toolbar known as the charms (accessed by swiping from the right edge of a touchscreen, or pointing the cursor at hotspots in the right corners of a screen) provides access to system and app-related functions, such as search, sharing, device management, settings, and a Start button. The traditional desktop environment for running desktop applications is accessed via a tile on the Start screen. The Start button on the taskbar from previous versions of Windows has been converted into a hotspot in the lower-left corner of the screen, which displays a large tooltip displaying a thumbnail of the Start screen. Swiping from the left edge of a touchscreen or clicking in the top-left corner of the screen allows one to switch between apps and Desktop. Pointing the cursor in the top-left corner of the screen and moving down reveals a thumbnail list of active apps. Aside from the removal of the Start button and the replacement of the Aero Glass theme with a flatter and solid-colored design, the desktop interface on Windows 8 is similar to that of Windows 7.
Removed features
Several notable features have been removed in Windows 8, beginning with the traditional Start menu. Support for playing DVD-Video was removed from Windows Media Player due to the cost of licensing the necessary decoders (especially for devices which do not include optical disc drives at all) and the prevalence of online streaming services. For the same reasons, Windows Media Center is not included by default on Windows 8, but Windows Media Center and DVD playback support can be purchased in the "Pro Pack" (which upgrades the system to Windows 8 Pro) or "Media Center Pack" add-on for Windows 8 Pro. As with prior versions, third-party DVD player software can still be used to enable DVD playback.
Backup and Restore, the backup component of Windows, is deprecated. It still ships with Windows 8 and continues to work on preset schedules, but is pushed to the background and can only be accessed through a Control Panel applet called "Windows 7 File Recovery". Shadow Copy, a component of Windows Explorer that once saved previous versions of changed files, no longer protects local files and folders. It can only access previous versions of shared files stored on a Windows Server computer. The subsystem on which these components worked, however, is still available for other software to use.
Hardware requirements
PCs
The minimum system requirements for Windows 8 are slightly higher than those of Windows 7. The CPU must support the Physical Address Extension (PAE), NX bit, and SSE2. Windows Store apps require a screen resolution of 1024×768 or higher to run; a resolution of 1366×768 or higher is required to use the snap functionality. To receive certification, Microsoft requires candidate x86 systems to resume from standby in 2 seconds or less.
Microsoft's Connected Standby specification, which hardware vendors may optionally comply with, sets new power consumption requirements that extend above the above minimum specifications. Included in this standard are a number of security-specific requirements designed to improve physical security, notably against Cold Boot Attacks.
32-bit SKUs of Windows 8 only support a maximum of 4 GB of RAM. 64-bit SKUs, however support more: Windows 8 x64 supports 128 GB while Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise x64 support 512 GB.
Tablets and convertibles
Microsoft released minimum hardware requirements for tablet and laplet devices to be "certified" for Windows 8, and defined a convertible form factor as a standalone device that combines the PC, display and rechargeable power source with a mechanically attached keyboard and pointing device in a single chassis. A convertible can be transformed into a tablet where the attached input devices are hidden or removed leaving the display as the only input mechanism. On 12 March 2013, Microsoft amended its certification requirements to only require that screens on tablets have a minimum resolution of 1024×768 (down from the previous 1366×768). The amended requirement is intended to allow "greater design flexibility" for future products.
Updated certification requirements were implemented to coincide with Windows 8.1. As of 2014, all certified devices with integrated displays must contain a 720p webcam and higher quality speakers and microphones, while all certified devices that support Wi-Fi must support Bluetooth as well. As of 2015, all certified devices must contain Trusted Platform Module 2.0 chips.
Editions
Windows 8 is available in three different editions, of which the lowest version, branded simply as Windows 8, and Windows 8 Pro, were sold at retail in most countries, and as pre-loaded software on new computers. Each edition of Windows 8 includes all of the capabilities and features of the edition below it, and add additional features oriented towards their market segments. For example, Pro added BitLocker, Hyper-V, the ability to join a domain, and the ability to install Windows Media Center as a paid add-on. Users of Windows 8 can purchase a "Pro Pack" license that upgrades their system to Windows 8 Pro through Add features to Windows. This license also includes Windows Media Center. Windows 8 Enterprise contains additional features aimed towards business environments, and is only available through volume licensing. A port of Windows 8 for ARM architecture, Windows RT, is marketed as an edition of Windows 8, but was only included as pre-loaded software on devices specifically developed for it.
Windows 8 was distributed as a retail box product on DVD, and through a digital download that could be converted into DVD or USB install media. As part of a launch promotion, Microsoft offered Windows 8 Pro upgrades at a discounted price of US$39.99 online, or $69.99 for retail box from its launch until 31 January 2013; afterward the Windows 8 price has been $119.99 and the Pro price $199.99. Those who purchased new PCs pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate between 2 June 2012 and 31 January 2013 could digitally purchase a Windows 8 Pro upgrade for US$14.99. Several PC manufacturers offered rebates and refunds on Windows 8 upgrades obtained through the promotion on select models, such as Hewlett-Packard (in the U.S. and Canada on select models), and Acer (in Europe on selected Ultrabook models). During these promotions, the Windows Media Center add-on for Windows 8 Pro was also offered for free.
Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 was distributed at retail in "Upgrade" licenses only, which require an existing version of Windows to install. The "full version software" SKU, which was more expensive but could be installed on computers without an eligible OS or none at all, was discontinued. In lieu of full version, a specialized "System Builder" SKU was introduced. The "System Builder" SKU replaced the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) SKU, which was only allowed to be used on PCs meant for resale, but added a "Personal Use License" exemption that officially allowed its purchase and personal use by users on homebuilt computers.
Retail distribution of Windows 8 has since been discontinued in favor of Windows 8.1. Unlike 8, 8.1 is available as "full version software" at both retail and online for download that does not require a previous version of Windows in order to be installed. Pricing for these new copies remain identical. With the retail release returning to full version software for Windows 8.1, the "Personal Use License" exemption was removed from the OEM SKU, meaning that end users building their own PCs for personal use must use the full retail version in order to satisfy the Windows 8.1 licensing requirements. Windows 8.1 with Bing is a special OEM-specific SKU of Windows 8.1 subsidized by Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Software compatibility
The three desktop editions of Windows 8 support 32-bit and 64-bit architectures; retail copies of Windows 8 include install DVDs for both architectures, while the online installer automatically installs the version corresponding with the architecture of the system's existing Windows installation. The 32-bit version runs on CPUs compatible with x86 architecture 3rd generation (known as IA-32) or newer, and can run 32-bit and 16-bit applications, although 16-bit support must be enabled first. (16-bit applications are developed for CPUs compatible with x86 2nd generation, first conceived in 1978. Microsoft started moving away from this architecture after Windows 95.)
The 64-bit version runs on CPUs compatible with x86 8th generation (known as x86-64, or x64) or newer, and can run 32-bit and 64-bit programs. 32-bit programs and operating system are restricted to supporting only of memory while 64-bit systems can theoretically support of memory. 64-bit operating systems require a different set of device drivers than those of 32-bit operating systems.
Windows RT, the only edition of Windows 8 for systems with ARM processors, only supports applications included with the system (such as a special version of Office 2013), supplied through Windows Update, or Windows Store apps, to ensure that the system only runs applications that are optimized for the architecture. Windows RT does not support running IA-32 or x64 applications. Windows Store apps can either support both the x86 and ARM architectures, or compiled to support a specific architecture.
Reception
Pre-release
Following the unveiling of Windows 8, Microsoft faced criticism (particularly from free software supporters) for mandating that devices receiving its optional certification for Windows 8 have secure boot enabled by default using a key provided by Microsoft. Concerns were raised that secure boot could prevent or hinder the use of alternate operating systems such as Linux. In a post discussing secure boot on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft developer Tony Mangefeste indicated that vendors would provide means to customize secure boot, stating that "At the end of the day, the customer is in control of their PC. Microsoft's philosophy is to provide customers with the best experience first, and allow them to make decisions themselves." Microsoft's certification guidelines for Windows 8 ultimately revealed that vendors would be required to provide means for users to re-configure or disable secure boot in their device's UEFI firmware. It also revealed that ARM devices (Windows RT) would be required to have secure boot permanently enabled, with no way for users to disable it. However, Tom Warren of The Verge noted that other vendors have implemented similar hardware restrictions on their own ARM-based tablet and smartphone products (including those running Microsoft's own Windows Phone platform), but still argued that Microsoft should "keep a consistent approach across ARM and x86, though, not least because of the number of users who'd love to run Android alongside Windows 8 on their future tablets." No mandate is made regarding the installation of third-party certificates that would enable running alternative programs.
Several notable video game developers criticized Microsoft for making its Windows Store a closed platform subject to its own regulations, as it conflicted with their view of the PC as an open platform. Markus "Notch" Persson (creator of the indie game Minecraft), Gabe Newell (co-founder of Valve Corporation and developer of software distribution platform Steam), and Rob Pardo from Activision Blizzard voiced concern about the closed nature of the Windows Store. However, Tom Warren of The Verge stated that Microsoft's addition of the Store was simply responding to the success of both Apple and Google in pursuing the "curated application store approach."
Critical reception
Reviews of the various editions of Windows 8 have been mixed. Tom Warren of The Verge said that although Windows 8's emphasis on touch computing was significant and risked alienating desktop users, a "tablet PC with Windows 8 makes an iPad feel immediately out of date" due to the capabilities of the operating system's hybrid model and increased focus on cloud services. David Pierce of The Verge described Windows 8 as "the first desktop operating system that understands what a computer is supposed to do in 2012" and praised Microsoft's "no compromise" approach and the operating system's emphasis on Internet connectivity and cloud services. Pierce also considered the Start Screen to be a "brilliant innovation for desktop computers" when compared with "folder-littered desktops on every other OS" because it allows users to interact with dynamic information. In contrast, an ExtremeTech article said it was Microsoft "flailing" and a review in PC Magazine condemned the Metro-style user interface. Some of the included apps in Windows 8 were considered to be basic and lacking in functionality, but the Xbox apps were praised for their promotion of a multi-platform entertainment experience. Other improvements and features (such as File History, Storage Spaces, and the updated Task Manager) were also regarded as positive changes. Peter Bright of Ars Technica wrote that while its user interface changes may overshadow them, Windows 8's improved performance, updated file manager, new storage functionality, expanded security features, and updated Task Manager were still positive improvements for the operating system. Bright also said that Windows 8's duality towards tablets and traditional PCs was an "extremely ambitious" aspect of the platform as well, but criticized Microsoft for emulating Apple's model of a closed distribution platform when implementing the Windows Store.
The interface of Windows 8 has been the subject of mixed reaction. Bright wrote that its system of hot corners and edge swiping "wasn't very obvious" due to the lack of instructions provided by the operating system on the functions accessed through the user interface, even by the video tutorial added on the RTM release (which only instructed users to point at corners of the screen or swipe from its sides). Despite this "stumbling block", Bright said that Windows 8's interface worked well in some places, but began to feel incoherent when switching between the "Metro" and desktop environments, sometimes through inconsistent means. Tom Warren of The Verge wrote that the new interface was "as stunning as it is surprising", contributing to an "incredibly personal" experience once it is customized by the user, but had a steep learning curve, and was awkward to use with a keyboard and mouse. He noted that while forcing all users to use the new touch-oriented interface was a risky move for Microsoft as a whole, it was necessary in order to push development of apps for the Windows Store. Others, such as Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet, considered the interface to be "clumsy and impractical" due to its inconsistent design (going as far as considering it "two operating systems unceremoniously bolted together"), and concluded that "Windows 8 wasn't born out of a need or demand; it was born out of a desire on Microsoft's part to exert its will on the PC industry and decide to shape it in a direction—touch and tablets -- that allows it to compete against, and remain relevant in the face of Apple's iPad."
In 2013, Frank X. Shaw, a Microsoft corporate vice president, said that while many of the negative reviews were extreme, it was a "good thing" that Microsoft was "listening to feedback and improving a product".
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reported a decline in Microsoft's customer satisfaction, the lowest it has been since Windows Vista.
Market share and sales
Microsoft says that 4 million users upgraded to Windows 8 over the weekend after its release, which CNET says was well below Microsoft's internal projections and was described inside the company as disappointing.
On 27 November 2012, Microsoft announced that it has sold 40 million licenses of Windows 8 in the first month, surpassing the pace of Windows 7.
However, according to research firm NPD, sales of devices running Windows in the United States have declined 21 percent compared to the same time period in 2011. As the holiday shopping season wrapped up, Windows 8 sales continued to lag, even as Apple reported brisk sales. The market research firm IDC reported an overall drop in PC sales for the quarter, and said the drop may have been partly due to consumer reluctance to embrace the new features of the OS and poor support from OEM for these features. This capped the first year of declining PC sales to the Asia Pacific region, as consumers bought more mobile devices than Windows PCs.
Windows 8 surpassed Windows Vista in market share with a 5.1% usage rate according to numbers posted in July 2013 by Net Applications, with usage on a steady upward trajectory. However, intake of Windows 8 still lags behind that of Windows Vista and Windows 7 at the same point in their release cycles. Windows 8's tablet market share has also been growing steadily, with 7.4% of tablets running Windows in Q1 2013 according to Strategy Analytics, up from nothing just a year before. However, this is still well below Android and iOS, which posted 43.4% and 48.2% market share respectively, although both operating systems have been on the market much longer than Windows 8. Strategy Analytics also noted "a shortage of top tier apps" for Windows tablets despite Microsoft strategy of paying developers to create apps for the operating system (in addition to for Windows Phone).
In March 2013, Microsoft also amended its certification requirements to allow tablets to use the 1024×768 resolution as a minimum; this change is expected to allow the production of certified Windows 8 tablets in smaller form factors—a market which is currently dominated by Android-based tablets. Despite the reaction of industry experts, Microsoft reported that they had sold 100 million licenses in the first six months. This matched sales of Windows 7 over a similar period. This statistic includes shipments to channel warehouses which now need to be sold in order to make way for new shipments.
In January 2014, Hewlett-Packard began a promotion for desktops running Windows 7, saying that it was "back by popular demand". Outside sources have suggested that this might be because HP or its customers thought the Windows 8 platform would be more appropriate for mobile computing than desktop computing, or that they were looking to attract customers forced to switch from XP who wanted a more familiar interface.
In February 2014, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft would be lowering the price of Windows 8 licenses by 70% for devices that retail under US$250; alongside the announcement that an update to the operating system would allow OEMs to produce devices with as little as 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, critics felt that these changes would help Windows compete against Linux-based devices in the low-end market, particularly those running Chrome OS. Microsoft had similarly cut the price of Windows XP licenses to compete against the early waves of Linux-based netbooks. Reports also indicated that Microsoft was planning to offer cheaper Windows 8 licenses to OEMs in exchange for setting Internet Explorer's default search engine to Bing. Some media outlets falsely reported that the SKU associated with this plan, "Windows 8.1 with Bing", was a variant which would be a free or low-cost version of Windows 8 for consumers using older versions of Windows. On 2 April 2014, Microsoft ultimately announced that it would be removing license fees entirely for devices with screens smaller than 9 inches, and officially confirmed the rumored "Windows 8.1 with Bing" OEM SKU on 23 May 2014.
On the information gathered by Net Applications, adoption rate in March 2015 for Windows 8.1 was at 10.55%, while the original Windows 8 was at 3.52%.
Chinese government ban
In May 2014, the Government of China banned the internal purchase of Windows 8-based products under government contracts requiring "energy-efficient" devices. The Xinhua News Agency claimed that Windows 8 was being banned in protest of Microsoft's support lifecycle policy and the end of support for Windows XP (which, as of January 2014, had a market share of 49% in China), as the government "obviously cannot ignore the risks of running OS without guaranteed technical support." However, Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had also previously warned that Windows 8 could allegedly expose users to surveillance by the United States government due to its heavy use of internet-based services.
In June 2014, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast a news story further characterizing Windows 8 as a threat to national security. The story featured an interview with Ni Guangnan, who stated that operating systems could aggregate "sensitive user information" that could be used to "understand the conditions and activities of our national economy and society", and alleged that per documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the U.S. government had worked with Microsoft to retrieve encrypted information. Yang Min, a computer scientist at Fudan University, also stated that "the security features of Windows 8 are basically to the benefit of Microsoft, allowing them control of the users’ data, and that poses a big challenge to the national strategy for information security." Microsoft denied the claims in a number of posts on the Chinese social network Sina Weibo, which stated that the company had never "assisted any government in an attack of another government or clients" or provided client data to the U.S. government, never "provided any government the authority to directly visit" or placed any backdoors in its products and services, and that it had never concealed government requests for client data.
Upgraded versions
An upgrade to Windows 8 known as Windows 8.1 was officially announced by Microsoft on 14 May 2013. Following a presentation devoted to the upgrade at Build 2013, a public beta version of the upgrade was released on 26 June 2013. Windows 8.1 was released to OEM hardware partners on 27 August 2013, and released publicly as a free download through Windows Store on 17 October 2013. Volume license customers and subscribers to MSDN Plus and TechNet Plus were initially unable to obtain the RTM version upon its release; a spokesperson said the policy was changed to allow Microsoft to work with OEMs "to ensure a quality experience at general availability." However, after criticism, Microsoft reversed its decision and released the RTM build on MSDN and TechNet on 9 September 2013.
The upgrade addressed a number of criticisms faced by Windows 8 upon its release, with additional customization options for the Start screen, the restoration of a visible Start button on the desktop, the ability to snap up to four apps on a single display, and the ability to boot to the desktop instead of the Start screen. Windows 8's stock apps were also updated, a new Bing-based unified search system was added, SkyDrive was given deeper integration with the operating system, and a number of new stock apps, along with a tutorial, were added. Windows 8.1 also added support for 3D printing, Miracast media streaming, NFC printing, and Wi-Fi Direct.
Microsoft markets Windows 8.1 as an "update" rather than as a "service pack" or "upgrade". However, Microsoft's support lifecycle policy treats Windows 8.1 similarly to previous Windows service packs: it is part of Windows 8's support lifecycle, and upgrading to 8.1 is required to maintain access to mainstream support and Windows updates after 12 January 2016.
Retail and OEM copies of Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows RT can be upgraded through Windows Store free of charge. However, volume license customers, TechNet or MSDN subscribers and users of Windows 8 Enterprise must acquire a standalone installation media for 8.1 and install through the traditional Windows setup process, either as an in-place upgrade or clean install. This requires an 8.1-specific product key.
See also
List of operating systems
References
Further reading
—Analysis of Windows 8 downgrade rights
Category:2012 software
Category:Windows 8
Category:IA-32 operating systems
Category:X86-64 operating systems
Category:Tablet operating systems |
2016-01 | Judas_Priest-696895478 | Judas_Priest | Judas Priest
Judas Priest are a British heavy metal band formed in Birmingham, England, in 1969. The band has sold over 45 million albums to date. MTV ranked them the second greatest metal band of all time.
Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in the latter half of the 1970s, the band struggled with indifferently-produced records, repeated changes of drummer and a lack of major commercial success or attention until 1980, when they adopted a more simplified sound on the album British Steel, which helped shoot them to rock superstar status. In 1989, they were named as defendants in an unsuccessful lawsuit alleging that subliminal messages on the song Better By You, Better Than Me had caused the suicide attempts of two young men.
The band's membership has seen much turnover, including a revolving cast of drummers in the 1970s, and the temporary departure of singer Rob Halford in the early 1990s. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band's best-selling album is 1982's Screaming for Vengeance with their most commercially successful line-up, featuring Halford, Tipton, Hill, K. K. Downing (guitar), and Dave Holland (drums).
Their influence, while mainly Rob Halford's operatic vocal style and the twin guitar sound of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton, has been adopted by many bands. Their image of leather, spikes, and other taboo articles of clothing were widely influential during the glam metal era of the 1980s. Their British Steel album has been referred to as the "record that, more than any other, codified what we mean by 'heavy metal'". Despite a decline in exposure during the mid 1990s, the band has once again seen a resurgence, including worldwide tours, being inaugural inductees into the VH1 Rock Honors in 2005, receiving a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2010, and their songs featured in video games such as Guitar Hero and the Rock Band series.
History
Origins (1969–1974)
An earlier band with a different line-up had been formed in the West Midlands area in 1969 by Al Atkins (lead vocals), Bruno Stapenhill (bass, born Brian Stapenhill, in 1948, Stone Cross, W. Bromwich), John Partridge (drums, born c. 1948, W. Bromwich), and John Perry (guitar). Stapenhill came up with the name Judas Priest from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" and they rehearsed at his house in Stone Cross. Perry died in a car accident shortly after the band's formation, and was subsequently replaced by Ernie Chataway.). The band played their first gig on 25 November 1969 at The George Hotel in Walsall and then toured Scotland in December 1969 and January 1970. The group disbanded in April 1970 after their last gig on 20 April at The Youth Centre in Cannock.
The line-up that took over the name of Judas Priest included lead guitarist Kenny K. K. Downing, bassist Ian 'Skull' Hill and drummer John Ellis. The first two had known each other since early childhood, growing up on the Yew Tree estate in West Bromwich and became close friends in their early teens, when they shared similar musical interests (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds) and learned to play instruments. The band was founded in October 1970 in Birmingham. They agreed to join with Atkins, who suggested using his old band's name, and rehearsed at Atkins' mother-in-law's house in Stone Cross. The reformed group played their first gig on 16 March 1971 at St John's Hall, Essington.
With Downing as acting leader, the band moved away from their original blues influences to play hard rock. The quartet played around Birmingham and the surrounding areas with various drummers until 1974, sometimes opening for bands such as Budgie, Thin Lizzy, and Trapeze. Eventually, financial difficulties and problems with their management, Tony Iommi's company, IMA, led to the departure of Alan Atkins and drummer Alan Moore in May 1973. At the time, Ian Hill was dating a Walsall woman who suggested her brother, Rob Halford, as the band's singer. Halford joined them, bringing drummer John Hinch from his previous band, Hiroshima. This line-up toured the UK, often supporting Budgie, and even headlining some shows in Norway and Germany.
Rocka Rolla (1974–1975)
Before the band entered the studio to record their first album, their record company suggested they add another musician to the line-up. As Downing was reluctant to incorporate a keyboard or horn player into the band, he chose another lead guitarist, Glenn Tipton, in April 1974, from the Stafford-based Flying Hat Band as their new member. The two guitarists worked together to adapt the existing material and Tipton also received credits as a songwriter. In August 1974, the band released their debut single "Rocka Rolla" and followed this a month later with an album of the same name.
Technical problems during the recording contributed to the poor sound quality of the record. Producer Rodger Bain, whose resume included Black Sabbath's first three albums as well as Budgie's first album, dominated the production of the album and made decisions with which the band did not agree. Bain also chose to leave fan favourites from the band's live set, such as "Tyrant", "Genocide" and "The Ripper", off the album and he cut the song "Caviar and Meths" from a 10-minute song down to a 2-minute instrumental.
The tour for Rocka Rolla was Judas Priest's first international tour with dates in Germany, Holland, Norway and Denmark including one show at Hotel Klubben in Tønsberg, one hour from Oslo, Norway, which scored them a somewhat negative review in the local press. The album flopped upon release, leaving Priest in dire financial straits. Priest attempted to secure a deal with Gull Records to get a monthly pay of 50 pounds, however, because Gull Records were struggling as well, they declined. Rocka Rolla (1974) has been for the most part dismissed by the band and none of its songs were played live after 1976 except for "Never Satisfied", which was revived during the Epitaph Tour in 2011.
Sad Wings of Destiny (1975–1977)
The band participated more in the production of their next album, recorded during November and December 1975, and chose the producers themselves. The result, Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), included a variety of old material, including the aforementioned stage favourites and immediately shifted the band from a psychedelic sound to straight gritty metal with the opening track, the progressive epic "Victim of Changes". This song was a combination of "Whiskey Woman", a stage classic from the Al Atkins' era of Judas Priest, and "Red Light Lady", a song that Halford had written with his previous group, Hiroshima. This album and a strong performance at the 1975 Reading Festival helped to raise wider interest in the band and expand their fanbase.
Major label debut (1977–1979)
Their next album, 1977's Sin After Sin, was the first Priest record under a major label, CBS and the first of eleven consecutive albums to be certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. With the termination of their contract with their previous label Gull, the band lost the rights to their first two albums. Sin After Sin was produced by ex-Deep Purple bass player Roger Glover. The band chose to use session drummer Simon Phillips for the recordings. He declined to become a permanent member of Judas Priest, so the band hired Les Binks on Glover's recommendation. Together, they recorded 1978's Stained Class, produced by Dennis MacKay, and Killing Machine (released in America as Hell Bent for Leather). Binks, credited with writing the powerful "Beyond the Realms of Death", was an accomplished and technically skilled drummer and his addition added a dexterous edge to the band's sound. Binks also played on Unleashed in the East (1979), which was recorded live in Japan during the Killing Machine tour. While the first three Judas Priest albums had considerable traces of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple in them, as well as ballads, Stained Class did not contain any ballads aside from the very dark "Beyond the Realms of Death." Killing Machine was the first nod to a more commercial sound, with simpler songs that brought back some blues influences. At about the same time, the band members adopted their now-famous "leather-and-studs" image.
Mainstream success (1979–1991)
Following the release of Killing Machine (1978) was the live release from the supporting tour, Unleashed in the East (1979). It was the first of many Judas Priest albums to go Platinum. There was some criticism of the band's use of studio enhancements and overdubbing in what was marketed as a live album. By this point the playing style of the band had grown progressively heavier, with live versions of songs such as "Exciter" and "Diamonds and Rust" sounding much heavier and faster than their studio counterparts.
Les Binks quit in late 1979, as he was unhappy with the band's desire to move towards a simplified radio rock sound, so they replaced him with Dave Holland, formerly from the band Trapeze. With this line-up, Judas Priest recorded six studio and one live album, which garnered different degrees of critical and financial success.
In 1980, the band released British Steel. The songs were shorter and had more mainstream radio hooks, but retained the familiar heavy metal feel. Tracks such as "United", "Breaking the Law", and "Living After Midnight" were frequently played on the radio. The next release, 1981's Point of Entry, followed the same formula, and the tour in support of the album featured new songs such as "Solar Angels" and "Heading Out to the Highway".
The 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance featured "You've Got Another Thing Comin'", which became a major radio hit in the US. Songs such as "Electric Eye" and "Riding on the Wind" also appeared on this album, and proved to be popular live. "(Take These) Chains" (by Bob Halligan, Jr) was released as a single and received heavy airplay. This album went Double Platinum.
Priest continued their success through the mid-1980s. "Freewheel Burning", released in 1983, was a regular on rock radio. Its album Defenders of the Faith was released the following year. Some critics dubbed it "Screaming for Vengeance II", due to its musical similarity to the previous album.
On 13 July 1985, Judas Priest, along with Black Sabbath and other performers, played at Live Aid. The band played at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Their setlist was "Living After Midnight", "The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)" and "(You've Got) Another Thing Comin'".
Turbo was released in April 1986. The band adopted a more colourful stage look and gave their music a more mainstream feel by adding guitar synthesisers. The album also went Platinum and had a successful arena tour in support, with 100 concerts in North America, Europe and Japan in 1986. A live album recorded on the tour, titled Priest...Live!, was released the next year, offering live tracks from the era. The video documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot was created by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn in 1986. It documents the heavy metal fans waiting on 31 May 1986 for a Judas Priest concert (with special guests Dokken) at the Capital Center (later renamed US Airways Arena) in Landover, Maryland.
In May 1988, Ram It Down was released, featuring several reworked songs left over from Turbo, in addition to new songs. The band recorded three tracks with pop producers Stock-Aitken-Waterman: two originals, "Runaround" and "I Will Return", and a cover of The Stylistics' hit "You Are Everything"; however, they were ultimately not included on this album due to a management decision. A reviewer has called Ram It Down a "stylistic evolution" that resulted from the band's "..attempt to rid themselves of the tech synthesiser approach..and return to the traditional metal of their fading glory days." The reviewer argued the album showed "...how far behind they were lagging... the thrashers they helped influence" in earlier years. As well, in the late 1980s, longtime drummer Dave Holland left the band.
In September 1990, the Painkiller album used a new drummer, Scott Travis (formerly from Racer X). This comeback album dropped the 1980s-style synthesisers for all songs except "A Touch of Evil". The tour used bands such as Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura and Testament as opening bands, and culminated in the Rock in Rio performance in Brazil in front of 100,000+ fans.
Part of the Judas Priest stage show often featured Halford riding onstage on a Harley-Davidson motorbike, dressed in motorcycle leathers and sunglasses. In a Toronto show in August 1991, Halford was seriously injured as he rode on stage, when he collided with a drum riser hidden behind clouds of dry ice mist. Though the show was delayed, he performed the set before going to a hospital. Hill later noted "he must have been in agony". In a 2007 interview, Rob claimed the accident had nothing to do with his departure from the band.
Subliminal message trial
In the summer of 1990, the band was involved in a civil action that alleged they were responsible for the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1985 of 20-year-old James Vance and 18-year-old Raymond Belknap in Sparks, Nevada, USA. On 23 December 1985, Vance and Belknap, after hours of drinking beer, smoking marijuana and allegedly listening to Judas Priest, went to a playground at a church in Sparks with a 12-gauge shotgun to end their lives. Belknap was the first to place the shotgun under his chin. He died instantly after pulling the trigger. Vance then shot himself but survived, suffering severe facial injuries. Following numerous complications, Vance too died in 1988, three years after the suicide pact.
The men's parents and their legal team alleged that a subliminal message of "do it" had been included in the Judas Priest song "Better By You, Better Than Me" (a cover of the Spooky Tooth number) from Stained Class (1978). They alleged the command in the song triggered the suicide attempt. The trial lasted from 16 July to 24 August 1990, when the suit was dismissed after the judge ruled that the so-called "do it" message was a result of an accidental mixup of background lyrics. One of the defence witnesses, Dr. Timothy E. Moore, wrote an article for Skeptical Inquirer chronicling the trial. The trial was covered in the 1991 documentary Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance Vs. Judas Priest.
Comedian Bill Hicks ridiculed the lawsuit as part of his act, pointing out the absurdity of the notion that a successful band would wish to kill off their purchasing fanbase.
Halford leaves (1991–1992)
After the Painkiller tour in 1991, Halford left Judas Priest. In September 1991, there were indications of internal tensions within the band. Halford went on to form a street-style thrash metal group named Fight, with Scott Travis on drums for the recording sessions. He formed this band to explore new musical territory, but due to contractual obligations, he remained with Judas Priest until May 1992.
Halford collaborated with Judas Priest in the release of a compilation album entitled Metal Works '73-'93 to commemorate their 20th anniversary. He also appeared in a video by the same title, documenting their history, in which his departure from the band was officially announced later that year.
In a 1998 interview on MTV, Halford publicly revealed his homosexuality.
Ripper Owens (1996–2003)
Tim "Ripper" Owens, who had previously sung in a Judas Priest tribute band called British Steel, was hired in 1996 as Judas Priest's new singer. This line-up released two albums, Jugulator (1997) and Demolition (2001), as well as two live double-albums – '98 Live Meltdown and Live in London (2003), the latter of which had a live DVD counterpart. Although Jugulator sold relatively well, it was given mixed reviews, though it contains the epic "Cathedral Spires", which became one of Ripper's most popular songs.
Reunion and Angel of Retribution (2003–2006)
After eleven years apart, faced with an ever-growing demand for a reunion, Judas Priest and Rob Halford announced they would reunite in July 2003, to coincide with the release of the Metalogy box set (despite Halford's earlier insistence that he "would never do it"). They did a concert tour in Europe in 2004, and co-headlined the 2004 Ozzfest, being named as the "premier act" by almost all US media coverage of the event. Judas Priest and "Ripper" Owens parted amicably, with Owens joining American heavy metal band Iced Earth.
A new studio album, Angel of Retribution, was released on 1 March 2005 (US) on Sony Music/Epic Records to critical and commercial success. A global tour in support of the album ensued. As for the band Halford, writing for the fourth release was cut off. However, after the Retribution tour in June 2006, Halford announced he would create his own record company, Metal God Entertainment, where he would release all his solo material under his own control. In November 2006 he remastered his back catalogue and released it exclusively through Apple's iTunes Store. Two new songs allegedly set for the fourth release, "Forgotten Generation" and "Drop Out", were released through iTunes as well.
VH1 Rock honors
Along with Queen, Kiss and Def Leppard, Judas Priest was an inaugural inductee into the "VH1 Rock Honors". The ceremony took place 25 May 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and first aired on 31 May. Their presentation was preceded by Godsmack performing a medley of "Electric Eye"/"Victim of Changes"/"Hell Bent for Leather." Judas Priest then played "Breaking the Law", "The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)" and "You've Got Another Thing Comin'", before which Halford rode a Harley onstage.
Nostradamus (2006–2010)
In a June 2006 interview with MTV.com, Halford said of the group's concept album about the 16th-century French writer Nostradamus, "Nostradamus is all about metal, isn't he? He was an alchemist as well as a seer – a person of extraordinary talent. He had an amazing life that was full of trial and tribulation and joy and sorrow. He's a very human character and a world-famous individual. You can take his name and translate it into any language and everybody knows about him, and that's important because we're dealing with a worldwide audience." In addition to digging new lyrical ground for the band, the album would contain musical elements which might surprise fans. "It's going to have a lot of depth", Halford said. "There'll be a lot of symphonic elements. We might orchestrate it, without it being overblown. There may be a massive choir at parts and keyboards will be featured more prominently, whereas they've always been in the background before." The album Nostradamus was released in June 2008; the band began a support tour in that same month.
In early February 2009, the band joined the ranks of bands speaking out against ticket-touting ("scalping"), issuing a statement condemning the practice of selling tickets at well above face value, and urging fans to buy tickets only from official sources. In the same month, Judas Priest continued their tour, bringing their "Priest Feast" (with guests Megadeth and Testament) to multiple arenas in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in February and March 2009. From there the tour progressed to multiple venues in Sweden. Later in March, Judas Priest performed in Portugal (at Lisbon on the Atlantic Pavilion), which they had not visited since 2005. The tour then continued to Milan, Italy, and then Paris, France; Halford had last performed with Judas Priest in Paris in 1991.
From June through August 2009, Judas Priest completed a North American tour to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of British Steel (1980); the album was performed in its entirety on each tour date, with some other songs thrown in. This tour was to be a joint effort with fellow Englishman David Coverdale and Whitesnake. Unfortunately, Whitesnake would have to leave the tour after the show in Denver, Colorado on 11 August 2009 due to Coverdale falling ill with a serious throat infection; he was advised to stop singing immediately to avoid permanently damaging his vocal cords.
On 14 July 2009, Judas Priest released a new live album, featuring 11 previously unreleased live tracks from the 2005 and 2008 world tours, A Touch of Evil: Live. The performance of "Dissident Aggressor" won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.
In May 2010, Halford said the band had been offered a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but "we've just never been there when they wanted to do the ceremony." He also revealed that a Nostradamus tour was still being contemplated: "We were in Hollywood recently and met with some producers and agents, so there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes." The Judas Priest song "Electric Eye" was used in the temp score for Toy Story 3 but was ultimately replaced by another piece of music.
Downing's retirement and Epitaph World Tour (2010–2011)
Judas Priest announced on 7 December 2010, that their Epitaph World Tour would be the band's farewell tour and would run up until 2012. In a January 2011 interview, Rob Halford said about the band's impending retirement that: "I think it's time, you know. We're not the first band to say farewell, it's just the way everyone comes to at some point and we're gonna say a few more things early next year, so I think the main thing that we just want to ask everybody to consider is don't be sad about this, start celebrating and rejoicing over all the great things we've done in Judas Priest."
On 27 January 2011, it was announced that Judas Priest was in the process of writing new material; the band also clarified their plans for the future, saying that "...this is by no means the end of the band. In fact, we are presently writing new material, but we do intend this to be the last major world tour." Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles on 26 May of the new material Glenn Tipton said: "It's quite a mixed bag. Really, there's more sentiment on this album. In a way, I suppose, it's also our farewell album, although it might not be our last one. There are some anthems on there, which pay tribute to our fans".
On 20 April 2011, it was announced that K. K. Downing had retired from the band and would not complete the Epitaph World Tour. Downing cited differences with the band and the management, and a breakdown in their relationship. Richie Faulkner, guitarist for Lauren Harris's band, was announced as his replacement for the Epitaph World Tour. Downing's retirement leaves bassist Ian Hill as the only remaining founder member of the band.
On 25 May 2011, Judas Priest played during the finale of American Idol season 10 with James Durbin, making it their first live performance without K.K. Downing. The band played a mixture of two songs: "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking the Law".
On 7 June 2011, the band announced that it planned to release the box set Single Cuts, a collection of singles, later that summer.
Redeemer of Souls and future touring plans (2011–present)
In an August 2011 interview with Billboard, Halford explained that he and Tipton "have about 12 or 14 tracks completely mapped out" for a new studio album. He went on to say that four of those were already recorded and mixed, and suggested a new album should be out in 2012. However, the year ended without seeing a release. In another interview with Billboard in August 2012, Halford said that the band is taking its time with the album, and did not give a definite release date, saying "I'm of the attitude it'll be ready when it's ready [...] I don't think we're going to slack off. We're determined to do a lot of work and be just as dedicated as we've always been and take a lot of care and attention with all the songs. We're not going to just bang this one out, so to speak."
On 13 September 2011, Priest announced its plans to release a new compilation album, The Chosen Few, a set of Priest songs chosen by other iconic heavy metal musicians. On 5 June 2013, Rob Halford confirmed that the Epitaph World Tour would not be the band's final tour. On 22 December 2013, Judas Priest released a short Christmas message on their official website, which confirmed that they would be releasing the new album sometime in 2014.
On 5 January 2014, the band appeared in the episode "Steal This Episode" of comedy cartoon show The Simpsons playing the song "Breaking the Law". Their music was referred to as "death metal", for which the producers subsequently apologised by having Bart Simpson write "Judas Priest is not 'Death Metal'" in the opening sequence chalkboard gag.
On 17 March 2014 at the Ronnie James Dio Awards in Los Angeles, Rob Halford announced that the new album is finished:
“The Priest album is finished. It’s done. I just heard from the mastering sessions that [guitarist] Glenn [Tipton is] looking over in England, it's finished. It's done. It's coming out at some point. We've got some more information we're about to drop but in the process of the magic of building up expectation and tension to the climax."
On 28 April 2014, the band released a brand new track for streaming on their official website entitled "Redeemer of Souls", which is the title track for their upcoming album of the same name.
In an interview given by Eddie Trunk on 5 May 2014, Glenn Tipton says that the band is looking to go back on the road:
"It's all a little bit 'play it by ear.' We're looking at starting some dates in the fall — exactly how many and what size, what capacity, we're not sure. But one thing that we have discussed is PRIEST have got such a wealth now of songs behind us, we probably won't go over the top on production like we've done before; the strength will be in the music. That's our feeling at the moment with this next tour."
The band toured the album in 2014 and continued touring throughout 2015.
Redeemer of Souls sold around 32,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 6 on The Billboard 200 chart, the band's highest charting position in the US after the double-disc concept album, "Nostradamus", debuted at No. 11. This was the band's first top 10 album in the US.
Musical style and influence
Musical style
Judas Priest's style has always been rooted in heavy metal, and many of their albums reflect diverse aspects of the genre. For example, their first album, Rocka Rolla (1974), is primarily rooted in heavy blues rock. From Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) through Stained Class (1978), their style was somewhat progressive, with complex guitar passages and poetic lyrics. Songs would often shift in dynamics and tempo, and the music was some of the heaviest of its day. This would later have a major influence on progressive metal bands. 1977's Sin After Sin introduced the combination of the double bass drum and rapid 16th bass rhythms combined with rapid 16th guitar rhythms that came to define the genre. While the double-bass rhythms of Judas Priest are generally measured and technical, the song "Dissident Aggressor" (1977) pushed an increase in "tempo and aggression" which was later adopted by bands like Motörhead with a much harder-edged approach. Starting with their fifth album, Killing Machine (1978), the band began to incorporate a more commercial, radio-friendly style to their music. The lyrics and music were simplified, and this style prevailed up to their seventh album, Point of Entry (1981). With their eighth album, Screaming for Vengeance (1982), the band incorporated a balance of these two styles. This continued on Defenders of the Faith (1984). With the follow-up album, Turbo (1986), the band incorporated guitar synthesizers into its signature heavy metal sound. On 1988's Ram It Down the band retained some of the more commercial qualities of Turbo but also returned to some of the fast tempo heavy metal found on their earlier works. This fast-tempo style continued with 1990's Painkiller. Jugulator (1997) tried to incorporate some of the 1990s contemporary groove metal styles. Demolition (2001) has a more traditional heavy metal sound with nu metal elements. Following the return of Halford for Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus, the band returned to the style of its early albums.
Vocal Style and Influence
Halford listened to and was influenced by Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin and Robert Plant as a vocalist. He learned to push to the limits of his vocal abilities by their vocal demonstrations on record. He developed a powerful, shouting vocal style with an impressive range from lower throaty growls to ear-piercing screams. He was also a fan of Freddie Mercury, referring to him as his ultimate hero.
Media recognition
Judas Priest have influenced a great deal of metal music since the late-mid 70s. They were ranked by MTV as the second "Greatest Metal Band" of all time (after Black Sabbath), and VH1 named them the 78th greatest artist of all time in 2010.
Fashion
In addition to the sound, Judas Priest is also known for being revolutionary in heavy metal fashion. Rob Halford thus began incorporating a macho image of what today is known as hardcore metal/biker/S&M style into his look as early as 1978 (to coincide with the release of their album Killing Machine), and the rest of the band followed. It became a mainstay in heavy metal; soon, several other bands, particularly of the NWOBHM and early black metal movements, began incorporating Halford's fashion into their look as well. This sparked a revival in metal in the early '80s, and catapulted them to fame, in both the mainstream and underground. Even in the present, it is not uncommon to find metal artists sporting such a look at concerts.
Their popularity and status as one of the exemplary and influential heavy metal bands has earned them the nickname "Metal Gods" from their song of the same name.
Personnel
Current members
Ian Hill – bass, backing vocals (1970–present)
Rob Halford – vocals (1973–1992, 2003–present)
Glenn Tipton – guitars, keyboards, synthesiser, backing vocals (1974–present)
Scott Travis – drums, percussion (1989–present)
Richie Faulkner – guitars, backing vocals (2011–present)
Discography
Rocka Rolla (1974)
Sad Wings of Destiny (1976)
Sin After Sin (1977)
Stained Class (1978)
Killing Machine (1978)
British Steel (1980)
Point of Entry (1981)
Screaming for Vengeance (1982)
Defenders of the Faith (1984)
Turbo (1986)
Ram It Down (1988)
Painkiller (1990)
Jugulator (1997)
Demolition (2001)
Angel of Retribution (2005)
Nostradamus (2008)
Redeemer of Souls (2014)
References
External links
Category:English hard rock musical groups
Category:English heavy metal musical groups
Category:Grammy Award winners
Category:Heavy metal
Category:Kerrang! Awards winners
Category:Lists of members by band
Category:Musical groups established in 1969
Category:Musical groups from Birmingham, West Midlands
Category:Musical quintets
Category:RCA Victor artists |
2016-01 | McFly-697787629 | McFly | McFly
McFly is an English pop rock band formed in 2003. The band consists of Tom Fletcher (lead vocals, ukulele, guitar and piano), Danny Jones (lead vocals, harmonica and guitar), Dougie Poynter (bass guitar and vocals), and Harry Judd (drums). They were signed to Island Records from their 2004 launch until December 2007, before creating their own label, Super Records.
McFly rose to fame after fellow band Busted helped launch them by inviting them to tour in 2004. In 2005, they won the Brit Award for Best British Pop Act. McFly's debut album Room on the 3rd Floor debuted at number 1 in the UK Album Chart and is certified as double platinum; this led to them becoming known as the youngest band ever to have an album debut at number one—a title taken from The Beatles. A month after the album was released, the band had their first UK headlining tour.
The band's second album, Wonderland, which was released in 2005, also charted at number 1 in the UK. Their third album, Motion in the Ocean, was released on 6 November 2006 and charted at number 6 in the UK. McFly released their All the Greatest Hits compilation album on 5 November 2007, which charted at number 4 in the UK. The band's fourth studio album, Radio:Active, was given away for free as a supplement in the Mail on Sunday on 20 July 2008, before being released in the conventional manner (via physical release) on 2 September 2008. Fifth album Above the Noise was released in November 2010 and charted at number 20. As of February 2014, McFly have had 18 consecutive UK top 20 singles, seven of which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart and seventeen of which were consecutive top ten singles.
In 2006, McFly appeared as themselves in the film Just My Luck, starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine. They released a US album, Just My Luck, which was also used as the film's soundtrack. They have also performed at various charity projects such as Comic Relief, Children in Need, Live 8, Sport Relief and Earth Hour.
The group have currently based on BPI certifications sold a minimum of 1.5 million albums in the UK alone. To date, McFly has sold more than 10 million records worldwide.
In November 2013, it was announced that McFly would be joining forces with Busted to form the supergroup McBusted. They played a 34-date tour with both Busted and McFly songs. The only member of the original groups not participating in the new lineup is former Busted singer Charlie Simpson.
History
2002–04: Formation and Room on the 3rd Floor
In 2001, Tom Fletcher auditioned for Busted, but lost out on the place to Charlie Simpson. Fletcher was originally accepted as part of Busted's line-up, but Island Records went on to reassess the situation and eventually decided to have the band as a three-piece rather than a four-piece. Though the record label decided against offering Fletcher a place in Busted, they were intrigued by his songwriting talents and later offered him a place on Busted's songwriting 'team', alongside band member (and already accomplished songwriter) James Bourne; Fletcher has since stated that it was Bourne who taught him how to "properly" structure songs and how to "come up with good, poppy melodies".
While writing Busted's second album, A Present for Everyone, Fletcher was asked by the record label if he was available to film auditions for a new band, V. It was at this time that Danny Jones and Fletcher met for the first time; Jones went to the audition mistaking the band to be an instrumental band rather than the conventional, all-singing, all-dancing boyband, for which they were intended. Fletcher was impressed with Jones' unique style and so approached and invited him to write with himself and Bourne. When writing projects for Busted had come to an end, the two began collaborating for their own (yet unnamed) band and, eventually, moved into the InterContinental Hotel in London for two months, (while still receiving help from Bourne) to concentrate on writing together. Bassist Dougie Poynter and drummer Harry Judd were subsequently recruited via a classified advertisement in the NME magazine. The pair, both Essex lads, coincidentally turned up at the same audition and got to talking over their shared appreciation of the band The Starting Line, after Poynter noticed their name and logo was printed on Judd's T-shirt.
McFly's early sound was surf/pop rock. Their debut single, "5 Colours in Her Hair", released 29 March 2004, entered the UK Singles Chart at number 1 in April 2004 and stayed there the following week. In July 2004 their second single, "Obviously", also topped the charts. This was followed by the album Room on the 3rd Floor debuting at number 1 in the UK Albums Chart. It would go on to be certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. The album broke records, as McFly earned an award from Guinness World Records for being the youngest band to have a debut album enter the charts in the top position, a distinction previously held by The Beatles. The idea for the album name came from where Jones and Fletcher wrote most of the songs for the album: room 363 in the InterContinental Hotel in London. The third single, "That Girl", was released on 6 September 2004, placing at number 3. The fourth single, Room on the 3rd Floor, the album's title track, was released on 15 November 2004 and reached number 5. McFly supported Busted on their nationwide arena tour along with V in February 2004 and then had their first headlining tour in September 2004.
2004–07: Wonderland and Motion in the Ocean
In March 2005, McFly released a double A-side of "All About You/You've Got a Friend" from their second album, Wonderland, which featured a 60-piece orchestra. The single reached number 1 for a week on 13 March 2005, with all profits donated to Comic Relief. The video for "You've Got a Friend" was shot in Uganda, Africa, which McFly visited for to raise awareness for the cause. Several months later, on 2 July, McFly co-headlined Live 8 Japan, with Björk and Good Charlotte. The second single from Wonderland, "I'll Be OK", was released in the UK on 15 August 2005 and scored them their fourth UK number 1. The album itself was released on 29 August 2005 entering at number 1. The third single from Wonderland, "I Wanna Hold You", was released on 17 October 2005 with an unknown song Easy Way Out on the single and it gave them their 6th top 3 single. Their fourth and final single, "Ultraviolet/The Ballad of Paul K" from Wonderland was released on 12 December 2005 and reached number 9. McFly headlined their Wonderland Arena Tour, which started on 15 September 2005, supported by Tyler James and Famous Last Words. A DVD of the tour, recorded live at the MEN Arena in Manchester, was released on 28 November. The band also played at the 2005 Royal Variety Performance. Nemesis, an inverted roller coaster at the Alton Towers theme park was renamed Wonderland for a month in 2005 to celebrate the album's release. The band were filmed riding Nemesis with competition winners by music show CD:UK.
In 2006, McFly turned their attentions to the United States, appearing in the Lindsay Lohan movie Just My Luck, released on 12 May, three days after the soundtrack of the movie, which comprised McFly songs taken from both Room on the 3rd Floor and Wonderland, as well as a new version of "Five Colours in Her Hair". The band played several gigs in Los Angeles and New York, as well as attending the American premiere of Just My Luck in Hollywood.
McFly's first single of 2006 was "Please, Please", released in the UK as a double A-side with a cover of the Queen hit "Don't Stop Me Now" on 17 July as the official song for Sport Relief 2006. It reached number 1 in the UK charts on 23 July, making it the band's fifth number 1 single of their career. On 14 September 2006, it was confirmed via an email newsletter from McFly's official website that the third album would be called Motion in the Ocean. The album was released on 6 November 2006 and reached number 6. The second release from the album, "Star Girl" was released on 23 October 2006, to promote the album. "Star Girl" reached number 1 in its first week. The third release from the album, "Sorry's Not Good Enough/Friday Night", was released on 18 December 2006, and reached number 3 in the UK singles charts. "Friday Night" is featured in the movie Night at the Museum, which was released on 22 December 2006, in Canada and the US and 26 December 2006, in the UK. Their next single, "Baby's Coming Back/Transylvania", was released on 7 May 2007, becoming the band's seventh number 1. The original single release date was due to be 26 February, but the band took up the offer to return at that time to the town of Kamwokya in Uganda, which they previously visited for Comic Relief in 2005. "Baby's Coming Back/Transylvania" holds the record for the biggest fall from number one for a non-limited edition single. It fell from number 1 to number 20 after a week, matching a limited edition Elvis Presley single, "One Night".
McFly held their Motion in the Ocean tour from 17 September 2006 and were supported by The Click Five and Nylon. They also held their McFly Up Close and Personal tour, supported by Lil' Chris, which started on 20 March 2007, and consisted of performing in twenty four locations not covered by their arena tours over thirty four dates.
Motion in the Ocean was re-released as a double disc edition with "Baby's Coming Back" and DVD from the Wembley show on 14 May 2007 and reached number 14.
2007–09: All the Greatest Hits, touring and Radio:Active
McFly's All the Greatest Hits compilation album was released on 5 November 2007 and reached number 4 in the charts. The first single from the album, The Heart Never Lies, which reached number 3 in the UK singles chart, was premiered at the V Festival in August. The album also featured two new songs alongside "The Heart Never Lies", "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Don't Wake Me Up". The band went on a 26-date Greatest Hits tour for a month, starting near the end of November 2007 supported by Elliot Minor and Saving Aimee, to promote the album.
On 23 February and 1 March 2008, they performed two small gigs at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, Australia while recording Radio:Active. They performed the same set list as for their Greatest Hits tour. It was here where they recorded the crowd singing "we don't care" which was later used on their single "One for the Radio". A compilation album of B-Sides was also released on 3 December 2007, The Greatest Bits: B-Sides & Rarities, which contains 12 B-sides of their UK singles.
On 20 May 2008, McFly confirmed that their fourth studio album would be titled Radio:Active (typeset as Radio:ACTIVE). It was recorded in Australia, and given away for free as a supplement in The Mail on Sunday on 20 July 2008. It was subsequently released in stores on 22 September 2008 with four additional tracks, a DVD and a 32-page booklet. The album was announced after McFly confirmed that they had left Island Records as they were unhappy with some of the decisions that the label was making for them. Since announcing the launch of their new record label, the band have said that they "won't rule out" signing other acts, but that for the moment they're just concentrating on releasing their "own stuff". Radio:Active mixes their love of vintage rock with a British twist on the modern pop-rock sound.The first single released from the Radio:Active album was "One for the Radio", a song about as the band's "constant struggle for critical acceptance". The single was premiered on BBC Radio 1's Switch with Nick Grimshaw on 1 June 2008 and was released on 14 July 2008. As of 25 June 2008, "One for the Radio" was included in Radio 2's A list, meaning that it receives primary airplay during the daytime. The single charted at number 2 in the charts. The album was recorded, and produced in Australia. McFly performed a showcase concert on 10 July 2008 at Shepherds Bush Empire and performed another concert at KOKO on 24 July 2008 as part of the iTunes Live Festival '08. An EP of the performance, released 4 August 2008, was made available to download from the iTunes Store. The second single from the album, "Lies" was released on 15 September 2008 and reached number 4 in the charts.
McFly embarked on their sixth arena tour in 2008, starting from 7 November 2008, attending 14 dates, supported by manufactured pop band Avenue and Indie pop rock band Reemer. They also performed four concerts in Brazil from 5 October 2008 to 11 October 2008. The third single from the album was "Do Ya/Stay With Me", released 23 November 2008. The song was released in aid of 2008's Children in Need and reached number 18 in the UK Singles Chart, the lowest charting position of any of their singles to date, and their first single not to reach Top 10. In 2009 McFly decided to once again arrange a tour to situate smaller venues, this time being called Up Close... And This Time It's Personal starting on 18 April in Amsterdam. They then did 14 dates in the UK before going on to do 7 dates in South America including Brasil, Argentina and Chile. David Archuleta, the American Idol runner up, supported them on their UK stint. They were due to also play in Mexico although this was cancelled due to the swine flu pandemic which started in this country.
McFly achieved their third number 1 album, Radio:Active, with the Radio:Active – Live at Wembley Tour DVD on 17 May 2009. The Up Close... And This Time It's Personal tour ended on 9 June. Later this month Mcfly did 3 shows for the forestry commission, which are concerts that take place every year to raise awareness of the UK forests. They were supported by indie-rock band Vagabond. Also in June, McFly made a surprise appearance at the Jonas Brothers' show at Wembley Stadium on 15 June, joining them on stage to sing "Star Girl".
2010–12: Above the Noise and Memory Lane... Best of McFly
In autumn of 2010, McFly re-signed and partnered with their previous Label (Island Records) to create and launch an interactive website, Super City, which provided fans with unprecedented access to the band. Subscribers would be able to download CDs before they were sold in stores. They would also gain access to video streams, web-chats, VIP access at gigs, and first call on tickets. This website was developed in a hope to combat any leaks (piracy) and gain loyalty from their fans, as they would have access to any new materials before they could be leaked. The website had about 50,000 visitors the first day, causing the site to shut down for two weeks.
The first single from their fifth album, "Party Girl", was written in Atlanta with Dallas Austin. It premiered on 14 July on BBC Radio 1 and was released on 5 September and reached number 6 in the UK charts. The "Party Girl" music video was voted number 1 by fans, in the 4Music Video Honours of 2010. The album, Above the Noise, was released on 15 November. It debuted at number 20 in the album charts & reached number 7 in the album download charts. The second single released from the album was "Shine a Light", a song penned with Taio Cruz. "Shine a Light" reached number 3 in the UK charts. The third single, "That's the Truth", was released on 6 March 2011.
The band made a mini 30-minute long movie titled Nowhere Left to Run which featured a vampire theme along with a sex scene involving Harry Judd. The "Party Girl" video was taken from the movie. This was released on DVD on 29 November exclusively to HMV stores.
In August 2011, McFly announced that they will be doing a tour consisting of 26 dates around the UK in March/April 2012. On 1 November McFly teamed up with Gioia Jewellery to release their first official jewellery range designs include each member's SuperCity logo and more coming soon. On 4 December, Dougie won the eleventh series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. On 17 December, Harry won the ninth series of Strictly Come Dancing.
On the band's latest tour, entitled Keep Calm and Play Louder Tour, they showcased three brand new songs entitled "Do Whatcha", "Red" and "Touch the Rain", all of which will be on their sixth studio album.
Judd was invited to carry the Olympic Torch as part of the Olympic Torch Relay Run for the 2012 London Olympics. On 4 August 2012, McFly played for a crowd of 50,000 people at an outdoor show in Hyde Park as part of the Olympic BTLondonLive celebration.
In September 2012, McFly played four shows in America. Two at L.A.'s famed Roxy and two at New York's legendary Gramercy Theatre. All four shows sold out in less than a minute and fans lined up hours before the shows. On the American shows, they premiered another brand new song entitled "Love Is Easy". In 2012, it was announced an autobiography entitled Unsaid Things: Our Story would be due for release on Amazon Stores in October 2012 and to coincide with the autobiography, the band also announced that they would be releasing another Greatest Hits album. Fletcher announced on Twitter that their next single would be "Red" as it had been so well received on the tour but this was later changed to "Love Is Easy", which was released on 11 November 2012, a week before the new Greatest Hits compilation.
In September 2012, for the final Chris Moyles Show, the band put together a special video for Chris's feature McFly day, where he would normally play Star Girl every Friday (since January 2010), this latest edition was called Star Boy as a tribute, thanking Chris Moyles for playing "Star Girl" every week.
In October 2012, it was announced that they would release a greatest hits which is titled Memory Lane: The Best of McFly featuring most of the band's hits and 3 brand new songs, Love Is Easy, "Do Whatcha" and "Cherry Cola". The album was released on 26 November 2012 and the new single "Love Is Easy" was released on 18 November 2012. It debuted at number 10, with the album following at number 21. A few weeks before "Love Is Easy" was due to go on sale, McFly announced that they would bring the release date forward a week, meaning that the new release date would be 11 November 2012. In November 2012, they also announced that they would be doing 18 tour dates in the UK between April and May 2013 in support of the album.
On 11 October 2012, McFly published their first autobiography, Unsaid Things: Our Story, named after a song from their first album. The book was a tell-all story which featured exclusive information that they revealed for the first time from the band's start to their present. They shared stories about their childhoods, the band's rise to fame and even the challenges they faced along the way.
2013–present: Sixth studio album and McBusted
McFly confirmed that they would embark an original 18-date tour (21 later) to promote their 2012 Memory Lane: The Best of McFly album which would run from April–May. They were joined for some for these dates by James Bourne. McFly have been on several writing trips for the writing stage of this album and have worked with Matt Willis and James Bourne in writing. Titles for songs confirmed are "Hyperion", "Break Me", "Love Is Easy", "Do Watcha", "Cherry Cola", "Red", "Love Is on the Radio" and "Touch the Rain". "Love Is Easy" was released as a single in 2012 while "Do Watcha" and "Cherry Cola" were both featured on Memory Lane: The Best of McFly. "Red" and "Touch the Rain" were both previewed during McFly's Keep Calm and Play Louder tour in 2012. "Love Is on the Radio" was previewed during McFly's 10th anniversary shows at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013. "Love Is on the Radio", the first single taken from their new album, was released on 24 November. The album was due to be released in the northern spring of 2014, but this has been put on hold. In the McBusted biography by Jennifer Parker it was hinted that the sixth album was abandoned in favour of the debut album of McBusted. In November 2013, the band wrote and performed the new theme tune to The Paul O'Grady Show. McFly have expressed their interest in a possible collaboration with Jessie J but have made no official plans. The album could possibly feature Bourne and Willis.
In late February, McFly went on a writing trip with Bourne and wrote five songs. In early April, McFly uploaded a video of an acoustic live demo called 'My TVR' to their official YouTube account. The song was written with Bourne. It is unknown whether this track will be on the new McFly album. On 19 May the band announced via their Twitter page that they would also be playing a two-date special concert at the Royal Albert Hall in celebration of their 10th anniversary as a band. Due to huge demand, two extra dates were announced. In addition, the Saturday show was streamed live from the band's website for fans who couldn't attend. During an interview with the Big Top 40 Webchat, Tom described the shows as his "favourite shows we've ever played". All four shows were held in September and featured McBusted, a surprise collaboration between McFly and Busted, minus Charlie Simpson. Following the shows with Busted, the two bands announced a 30-date UK arena tour as McBusted. The McBusted Tour was the biggest tour of 2014.
In 2015, they embarked on a second McBusted tour. They also released a DVD following the tour.
On 21 June, a solo interview by Fletcher was published by Fabulous magazine in time for Father's Day. Fletcher stated that "McBusted was an opportunity to have fun without knowing where it would take us, but McFly is for life. McBusted has been amazing fun, but it's not where our passion is. McFly is more than a band, we live and breathe it. We want to make album number six."
On a documentary with Fearne Cotton, Jones confirmed that McFly have three unreleased albums.
Super Records
Super Records Ltd. is an independent label operated and owned by McFly. Initially, McFly were signed to major record outlet Universal Island Records. Although they have left Universal, McFly's singles are distributed by a company named "Absolute" who also distribute for acts like Cascada and Jay Sean and are part of the Universal Group. Super Records was created after McFly decided to leave Island, Universal Records at the end of 2007. They returned to Island, Universal for their fifth album Above the Noise (2010).
Television and film appearances
Throughout the early years, McFly were regular guests on channels such as CBBC and CD:UK.
In January 2005, the band guest-starred in an episode of the long-running British drama series Casualty. In May 2006, they starred in the teen comedy film Just My Luck with Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine, which was released in the US on 12 May 2006 and in the UK on 30 June 2006. They play themselves in the film and the soundtrack features a variety of their songs from their first two albums. The band also recorded another song, "Just My Luck", which was to be included on the US-only album release of the same name. McFly held a concert at the London Hammersmith Apollo on 19 May 2005 which was used in the film. The UK premiere of the film took place on 28 June 2006 in London. The film generally did not receive good reviews, gaining a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
On 16 March 2007, McFly guest starred in the Top Gear comic relief show Top Gear of the Pops, where they were given a challenge to come up with a song from scratch without using the words 'love', 'baby', or 'heart', and including the words 'sofa', 'administration', and 'Hyundai'. Near the end of the show they performed the song they named 'The Top Gear Blues'. It was later renamed 'Sofa, Hyundai, Administration' and placed as a B-side on "The Heart Never Lies" single. On 23 June 2007, McFly made a cameo appearance in an episode of the science fiction series Doctor Who. The episode "The Sound of Drums", saw the band appearing in a spoof party political broadcast, which featured testimonials from British celebrities such as McFly and Sharon Osbourne showing their support for Mr Saxon (The Master played by John Simm) to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
On 22 October 2007, McFly hosted the first annual Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards.
McFly also appeared on the show Ghosthunting with... in 2007.
On 27 May 2008 McFly appeared on Gordon Ramsay's The F Word as the celebrity guests and cooked a three course meal for 50 customers. Their score was that 115 out of 150 dishes were paid for. On 20 July 2008, McFly also played at T4 on the Beach in Weston-super-Mare.
McFly's performance at KOKO on 24 July 2008, as part of the iTunes Live Festival '08, was broadcast at Vue cinemas across the UK on the same day.
On 25 August 2008, McFly performed at the London 2012 Olympic Visa Party. On 14 December, they were the headline music act for Miss World in South Africa, which had a predicted worldwide audience of over 2 billion viewers. Their hits "5 Colours in Her Hair" and "Lies" were played during the show. They appeared in teen soap Hollyoaks on Channel 4 on Friday, 8 May 2009 performing in the SU Bar with The Somethings as a support group. On 31 May 2009, McFly performed at the biggest TV show in Brazil Domingão do Faustão which had a predicted audience of over 30 million viewers. In June and July 2009, they did a Woodland tour, performing at forest venues around the UK. In October 2008 McFly performed on the 50th birthday programme of Blue Peter, live outside BBC Television Centre.
McFly made a cameo appearance in Derren Brown's Enigma tour in 2009–10. A recording of the live stage show first aired on Channel 4 on 6 January 2011. McFly made a return to T4 on the Beach in July 2011.
Fletcher took on The Cube in a celebrity special in the 3rd season and walked away with £100,000. Judd won the 9th series of Strictly Come Dancing with his dance partner Aliona Vilani. Poynter won the 11th series of the UK TV series I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Poynter and Judd appeared on the "Hunks Special" of Celebrity Juice in 1 March 2012. Jones also participated in 2010's Popstar to Operastar, placing 5th.
The band had their own McFly on the Wall documentary series in 2011. It followed the band as they embarked on their latest UK tour. It ran for 6 episodes. The first episode aired on Five Star on 11 May, and the last episode aired on 15 June. In 2012 McFly appeared on the celebrity edition of Deal or No Deal in which they won £10,000 for their chosen charities.
On 8 December 2012, McFly appeared as themselves on ITV in a one-off special called The McFly Show. It featured special guests, comedy sketches and the band performing their hit songs.
On 23 March 2013 McFly performed a one-off concert as part of an event organised by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for Earth Hour 2013 which was broadcast live via YouTube.
On 21 September 2013 McFly were the guest band on the BBC One show When Miranda Met Bruce with Miranda Hart and Bruce Forsyth.
Legacy and influence
McFly have been cited as having influenced a number of high-profile musicians in various different ways. Of particular note are Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction, who have credited the McFly as the opening act of the first concert they had ever attended. Speaking about meeting with the group, Jones said "it turned out that Niall and Louis were at one of our first ever shows. And they were all like, ‘we copied your haircuts, and you made us want to play guitar’, which is really amazing to hear. They’re the biggest band in the world right now. And their favourite band was us! We influenced them. It’s really strange, because you feel like a veteran!". Reviews for One Direction's debut album Up All Night had credited McFly as a notable influence, and Horan stated the group were very happy to have such a comparison noted. McFly had contributed song-writing to the first three studio albums that the group released. The group's debut featured the Fletcher-penned track I Want, while the group's 2nd album Take Me Home featured the song I Would penned by Fletcher, Jones and Poynter. Deluxe editions of the album also featured Irresistible, a track penned by all 5 members of One Direction alongside Fletcher, Jones and Poynter. This track marked the first time Jones was credited as the producer of any McFly-penned song for the group, with this trait continuing for later songs. Horan has since established a professional relationship with McFly, co-writing a number of album tracks for One Direction with Fletcher, Jones and Poynter, including the song Don't Forget Where You Belong from their 3rd album Midnight Memories, having previously credited them for teaching the group songwriting techniques. Horan, Fletcher, Jones and Poynter had written three songs together for the group's 4th album, due for release in late 2014. Despite this, none of the tracks were chosen for the release, marking the first time the band were not featured on the group's songwriting credits on any studio album. However, Horan has returned to work with the band for the group's 5th studio album in 2015, penning two tracks with Fletcher and Jones which are presently in production. On 16 June 2014, Horan told the group's audience at the Parken Stadium in Denmark that McBusted supporting the group was "something special" because "they were a lot of our favourite bands when we were growing up". One Direction have also praised McFly as role models for longevity, having stayed together as a band for over a decade. Tomlinson said "Oh, they're great role models. They've been through it, so it was really nice to have the chance to talk to them about their experiences. They've been so successful because they've managed to be themselves from the start. There aren't any egos, you know? I think that's really important in a band."
Also citing McFly as influences are British pop rock band The Vamps, who supported McFly on their 2013 Memory Lane tour. Guitarist and vocalist James McVey stated "McFly is a band we love to be compared to over other bands, simply for the fact of their good musicianship. They write very well and they're very energetic on stage, which is something we try to replicate in our own performances." Drummer Tristan Evans also spoke of the band, explaining "McFly were an influence on me wanting to get into music and we feel like the next generation of their take on pop," while bassist Connor Ball continued "They're chilled-out and we hope we can have that calm attitude if we ever get that successful." Frontman Brad Simpson also referred to McFly when asked about influences, stating "Their debut album was a first in all of our collections". The band credited their support slot as providing an opportunity to observe the band's skills for their own development. Simpson said "How to provide more energy to our performance and move around the stage was a massive one...McFly have been doing it for years and the little things we picked up have really improved our live performance." McVey also referred to the band's influence on performances by the Vamps, stating "Before I had seen them in concert, I would never have performed as we do now." The Vamps have covered several songs by McFly in a series of YouTube videos including Love Is Easy, performed alongside Fletcher's sister Carrie Hope Fletcher, "That Girl", filmed as a recreation of the music video including appearances from Poynter, and finally "Five Colours in Her Hair", which featured on the digital EP for their 2nd single "Wild Heart". Their debut album, Meet the Vamps featured the song "High Hopes" which was co-written by Fletcher, Jones and Poynter and produced by Jones. When The Vamps were compared to Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer, Simpson said "We both have a shared admiration for McFly. They’ve shaped the music of our generation... We find ourselves going to the same minor guitar chords like McFly would."
5 Seconds of Summer have themselves confirmed that McFly are an influence on their music on a number of occasions, while they have also been compared to McFly in reviews. Fletcher is credited as having co-written the 5 Seconds of Summer track "Try Hard". The song was originally released onto YouTube on 1 June 2013, and in 2014 featured as a B-Side to their hit single "Don't Stop". The band had written with McFly during a 6-month stay in London, and Guitarist Luke Hemmings had mentioned a second song called "Take It Away" that was penned with McFly for their debut album. Despite this, the track did not feature on the release. On 23 May 2013, Bassist Calum Hood uploaded a solo cover of McFly's All About You to his YouTube account.
When UK pop/R&B group Rixton were asked which bands they had looked up to when they were younger, Jake Roche said "I listened to a lot of McFly when I was growing up. I was a part of that era." He continued "these guys came out with instruments and they played and wrote all their own stuff and I was like, that's great - I want to do that." Band member Charley Bagnall agreed, saying "McFly was a huge part of my life." Roche's mother, English singer and TV presenter Coleen Nolan, said "To me he's still that little boy I watched singing and dancing around to McFly records...I took him to their show in Manchester when he was nine or 10 and he said to me, 'Mum, one day that will be me up there.'" Other acts to cite McFly as musical influences include R5.
Asked about influencing a new generation of bands, Jones stated "There's a few bands, like the 1D boys, and they're all getting to that age where Busted or McFly was the first gig they ever went to. It's really nice to see that bands are taking influence from what you do." He continued, "to actually see people in bands picking up guitars and doing their thing - any musical influence that we can give them - is amazing to see."
Discography
Studio albums
Room on the 3rd Floor (2004)
Wonderland (2005)
Motion in the Ocean (2006)
Radio:Active (2008)
Above the Noise (2010)
"Untitled" (2017)
Members
Tom Fletcher – lead and backing vocals, guitar, keyboards, piano, ukulele
Danny Jones – lead and backing vocals, guitar, harmonica (and producer)
Dougie Poynter – bass guitar, backing and occasional lead vocals, guitar
Harry Judd – drums, percussion
Touring members
Isaac Aryee – keyboards
Timeline
Tours
McFly: The Tour (2004)
Wonderland (2005)
Motion in the Ocean (2006)
Up Close and Personal (2007)
Greatest Hits (2007)
Radio:Active (2008)
Up Close ... and This Time It's Personal (2009)
Before the Noise (2010)
Above the Noise (2011)
Keep Calm & Play Louder (2012)
Memory Lane (2013)
10th Anniversary Shows (2013)
McBusted Tour (2014)
McBusted Down Under (2015)
McBusted's Most Excellent Adventure Tour (2015)
Awards
(Incomplete list)
2004
Walt Disney Awards – Best Newcomer
Smash Hits Awards – Best UK Band
Smash Hits Awards – Best Album for Room on the 3rd Floor
Smash Hits Awards – Best Video for "That Girl"
Smash Hits Awards – Best Stars of the Year
Smash Hits Awards – Most Fanciable Male (Danny Jones)
2005
Smash Hits Awards – Best UK Band
Smash Hits Awards – Most Snoggable Male (Danny Jones)
Smash Hits Awards – Best Single for "All About You'"
Smash Hits Awards – Best Album for Wonderland
BRIT Awards – Best Pop Act
2006
Virgin.net Music Awards – God Group
BT Digital Music Award for People's Choice Award for Best Official Music Site
2007
Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards – Best Band (also hosted)
UK Festival Awards – Best Pop Act (for appearance at V Festival)
Virgin.net Music Awards – Best Live Act
2008
Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards – Best Band
Star Smash Awards 2008 – Best Album (Radio:ACTIVE)
Star Smash Awards 2008 – Best Band
Star Smash Awards 2008 – Artist of the Year
2009
Meus Premios Nickelodeon Brazil 2009 – Best International Artist
UK Music Video Awards – Best Live Music Coverage
News of the World – The Most Sexiest Men of the Year (Dougie Poynter)
Also nominated for MTV Latin Awards
2010
4Music Video Honours – Best Video of 2010 for Party Girl
2011
Nordoff Robbins – American Express Digital Innovation Award
In Rock Magazine – Best British Band
2012
Nordoff Robbins Music Awards – Best Live Act
2013
The Verified Teen Awards – Best Live Act
The Verified Teen Awards - Best Band
2014
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards UK – Favourite UK Band of the Decade (Honorary award)
Publications
McFly - Unsaid Things...Our Story
References
External links
Category:Brit Award winners
Category:English pop rock music groups
Category:English pop punk musical groups
Category:English boy bands
Category:Musical groups established in 2004 |
2016-01 | Meryl_Streep-697355643 | Meryl_Streep | Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. A three-time Academy Award winner, she is widely regarded as one of the greatest film actors of all time. Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made her screen debut in the 1977 television film The Deadliest Season, and made her film debut later that same year in Julia. In 1978, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust, and received her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter. Nominated for 19 Academy Awards in total, Streep has more nominations than any other actor or actress in history, winning Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982) and for The Iron Lady (2011).
Streep is one of only six actors to have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. Her other nominated roles are The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), Ironweed (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), One True Thing (1998), Music of the Heart (1999), Adaptation (2002), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt (2008), Julie & Julia (2009), August: Osage County (2013), and Into the Woods (2014). She returned to the stage for the first time in over 20 years in The Public Theater's 2002 revival of The Seagull, won a second Emmy Award in 2004 for the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), and starred in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children. As an actress, Streep is particularly known for her chameleonic approach to her roles, transformation into the characters she plays, and her perfection of accents.
Streep has also received 29 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight—more nominations, and more competitive (non-honorary) wins than any other actor (male or female) in the history of the award. Her work has also earned her two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, two Australian Film Institute awards, five Grammy Award nominations, and five Drama Desk Award nominations, among several others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 at the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2010 National Medal of Arts and in 2014 the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 2003, the government of France made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Early life
Mary Louise Streep was born on June 22, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf Wilkinson (1915–2001), a commercial artist and an art editor; and Harry William Streep Jr. (1910–2003), a pharmaceutical executive. She has two brothers, Dana David and Harry William III.
Streep's father was of German and Swiss-German ancestry. Her father's lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname was later changed to "Streep"). Another line of her father's family was from Giswil, Switzerland. Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and were descended from 17th-century immigrants from England. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle in Rhode Island. Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania; records show that her family is among the first purchasers of land in the state. Streep's maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, the namesake of Streep's second daughter, were natives of the Hook Head district of Dunfanaghy, Ireland.
Streep's mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to Dame Judi Dench, strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from a very young age. Streep has said: "She was a mentor because she said to me, 'Meryl, you're capable. You're so great.' She was saying, 'You can do whatever you put your mind to. If you're lazy, you're not going to get it done. But if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.' And I believed her." Although Streep was naturally more introverted than her mother, at times when she later needed an injection of confidence in adulthood she would consult her mother, asking her for advice. Streep was raised as a Presbyterian in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School. Author Karina Longworth described her as a "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", yet noted that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home videos from a young age. At the age of 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, which led to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. However, despite her talent, she remarked that "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through". She quit after four years. Streep had many Catholic school friends, and regularly attended mass.
Although in high school Streep appeared in numerous school plays, she was uninterested in serious theatre until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. Vassar drama professor Clinton J Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself". Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received her BA at the college in 1971, before applying for an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. At Yale she supplemented her course fees by waitressing and typing, and appeared in over a dozen stage productions a year, to the point that she became overworked, developing ulcers. She contemplated quitting acting and switching to study law. Streep played a variety of roles onstage, from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato. One of her teachers was Robert Lewis, one of the co-founders of the Actors Studio. Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, remarking that the professors "delved into personal lives in a way I find obnoxious". She received her MFA from Yale in 1975. Streep also enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College in the fall of 1970, and received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981.
Career
1970s
Theater and film debut
Streep moved to New York City in 1975, and was cast by Joseph Papp in a production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Public Theater, opposite Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow. She went on to appear in five more roles in her first year in New York, including in Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raúl Juliá, and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale. She entered into a relationship with Cazale at this time, and resided with him until his death three years later. She starred in the musical Happy End on Broadway, and won an Obie for her performance in the off-Broadway play Alice at the Palace.
Although she had not set out for a film career, Robert De Niro's performance in Taxi Driver (1976) had a profound impact on young Streep, who said to herself, "that's the kind of actor I want to be when I grow up". Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role in Dino De Laurentiis's King Kong. Laurentiis stated in Italian to his son: "This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this". Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian and she remarked, "I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be but, you know—this is it. This is what you get". She continued to work on Broadway, appearing in the 1976 double bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays. For the former, she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination. Streep's other Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical Happy End, in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions.
Streep's first feature film role came opposite Jane Fonda in the 1977 film Julia, in which she had a small role during a flashback sequence. Most of her scenes were edited out, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress: "I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in a different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business". However, Streep cites Fonda as having a lasting influence on her as an actress, and has credited her as "open[ing] probably more doors than I probably even know about".
Breakthrough
Robert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard, suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in the war film The Deer Hunter (1978). Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, was also cast in the film, and Streep took on the role of a "vague, stock girlfriend" to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. Longworth notes that Streep "made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept—a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew". Pauline Kael, who would later become a strong critic of Streep's, remarked that Streep was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance. The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In the 1978 miniseries Holocaust, Streep played the leading role of a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She found the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain. Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought a wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself "on the verge of national visibility". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance. Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage.
Hoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale's death, Streep accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park, and also played a supporting role in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen. Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes, and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue. In the drama Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep was cast opposite Dustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as "too evil" and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles. The makers agreed with her, and the script was revised. In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children. The director Robert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who "hated her guts". Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, "She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing." The film was controversial among feminists, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep's "own emotional intensity", writing that she was one of the "rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery".
For Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979. Both The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were major commercial successes and were the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
1980s
Rise to stardom
In 1979, Streep began workshopping Alice in Concert, a musical version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of The New York Times referred to Streep as the "one wonder" of the production, but questioned why she had devoted so much energy to it. By 1980, Streep had progressed to leading roles in films. She was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine with the headline "A Star for the 80s", with Jack Kroll commenting, "There's a sense of mystery in her acting; she doesn't simply imitate (although she's a great mimic in private). She transmits a sense of danger, a primal unease lying just below the surface of normal behavior". Streep denounced the fervent media coverage of her at this time as "excessive hype".
The story within a story drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) was Streep's first leading role. The film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. Streep perfected an English accent for the part, but considered herself a misfit for the role: " I couldn't help wishing that I was more beautiful". A New York Magazine article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role. Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work. The following year, she reunited with Robert Benton for the psychological thriller, Still of the Night (1982), co-starring Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".
Greater success came later in 1982, when Streep starred in the drama Sophie's Choice (1982), portraying a Polish holocaust survivor caught in a love triangle between a young naive writer (Peter MacNicol) and a Jewish intellectual (Kevin Kline). Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Streep was determined to get the role. She obtained a pirated copy of the script, and threw herself on the ground begging the director Alan J. Pakula to give her the part. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting. Emma Brockes of The Guardian believes the scene in which Streep is ordered by an SS guard at Auschwitz to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp, is her most famous scene, remarking: "It's classic Streep, the kind of scene that makes your scalp tighten, but defter in a way is her handling of smaller, harder-to-grasp emotions". Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere magazine. Roger Ebert said of her delivery, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine.". Pauline Kael on the contrary called the film an "infuriatingly bad movie" and thought that Streep "decorporealizes" herself, which she believed explained why her movie heroines "don't seem to be full characters, and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her".
The year 1983 saw Streep play her first non-fictional character, the nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist Karen Silkwood who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant, in Mike Nichols's biographical film Silkwood. Streep felt a personal connection to Silkwood, and in preparation she met with people close to the woman, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of her personality. She said, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside." Jack Kroll of Newsweek considered Streep's characterization to have been "brilliant", while Silkwood's boyfriend Drew Stephens expressed approval in that Streep had played Karen as a human being rather than a myth, despite Karen's father Bill thinking that Streep and the film had dumbed his daughter down. Pauline Kael believed that Streep had been miscast. Streep next played opposite Robert De Niro in the romance Falling in Love (1984), which was poorly-received, and portrayed a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II in the British drama Plenty (1985). For the latter, Roger Ebert wrote that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms." In 2008, Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance in Plenty, believing it to be "one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous" films and "most feminist" role.
Out of Africa and backlash
Longworth considers Streep's next release, Out of Africa (1985), to have established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as the Danish writer Karen Blixen opposite Robert Redford's Denys Finch Hatton. Director Sydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role as he didn't think she was sexy enough, and had considered Jane Seymour for the part. Pollack recalls that Streep impressed him in a different way: "She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit. There was no shielding between her and me." Streep and Pollack often clashed during the 101-day shoot in Kenya, particularly over Blixen's voice. Streep had spent much time listening to tapes of Blixen and began speaking in an old-fashioned and aristocratic fashion, which Pollack thought excessive. A significant commercial and critical success, the film earned Streep another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, also winning Best Picture. Critic Stanley Kaufmann wrote, "Meryl Streep is back in top form. This means her performance in Out of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today".
Longworth notes that the dramatic success of Out of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time such as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, Streep "never seemed to play herself", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting. Her next films did not appeal to a wide audience; she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the television movie, Secret Service (1977). In A Cry in the Dark (1988), she played Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter despite claiming that the baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Streep has said of perfecting the Australian accent in the film: "I had to study a little bit for Australian because it's not dissimilar [to American], so it's like coming from Italian to Spanish. You get a little mixed up". Vincent Canby of The New York Times referred it to her performance as "another stunning performance", played with "the kind of virtuosity that seems to redefine the possibilities of screen acting".
In 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role in Oliver Stone's adaption of the play Evita, but two months before filming was due to commence she dropped out, citing "exhaustion" initially, although it was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary. By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role in She-Devil (1989), a satire that parodied Hollywood's obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer. Though not a success, Richard Corliss of Time wrote that Streep was the "one reason" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play. Reacting to her string of poorly received films, Streep said: "Audiences are shrinking; as the marketing strategy defines more and more narrowly who they want to reach—males from 16 to 25—it's become a chicken-and-egg syndrome. Which came first? First they release all these summer movies, then do a demographic survey of who's going to see them".
1990s
Unsuccessful comedies and The Bridges of Madison County
Biographer Karen Hollinger described the early 1990s as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties. Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family, a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care." At the Screen Actor's Guild National Women's Conference in 1990, Streep keynoted the first national event, emphasizing the decline in women's work opportunities, pay parity, and role models within the film industry. She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off.
After roles in the comedy-drama Postcards from the Edge (1990) and the comedy-fantasy Defending Your Life, Streep starred with Goldie Hawn in farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded writer David Koepp to rewrite several of the scenes, particularly the one in which her character has an affair with a younger man, which she believed was "unrealistically male" in its conception. The seven-month shoot was the longest of Streep's career, during which she got into character by "thinking about being slightly pissed off all of the time". Due to Streep's allergies to numerous cosmetics, special prosthetics had to be designed to age her by ten years to look 54, although Streep believed that they made her look nearer 70. Longworth considers Death Becomes Her to have been "the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling". Although it was a commercial success, earning $15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics. Times Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "She-Devil with a make-over" and one which "hates women".
In 1993, Streep appeared with Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in The House of the Spirits, set during the military dictatorship of Chile. The film was not well received by critics. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote: "This is really quite an achievement. It brings together Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, and Vanessa Redgrave and insures that, without exception, they all give their worst performances ever". The following year, Streep featured in The River Wild, as the mother of children on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) in the wilderness. Though critical reaction was generally mixed, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone found her to be "strong, sassy and looser than she has ever been onscreen".
Streep's most successful film of the decade came in the 1995 romance The Bridges of Madison County from director Clint Eastwood, who adapted the film from Robert James Waller's novel of the same name. It relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic, who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife in Iowa named Francesca (Streep). Though Streep disliked the novel it was based on, she found the script to be a special opportunity for an actress her age. She gained weight for the part, and dressed differently than the character in the book to emulate voluptuous Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren. Both Loren and Anna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewed Pier Paolo Passolini's Mamma Roma (1962) prior to filming. The film was a box office hit and grossed over $70 million in the United States. The film, unlike the novel, was warmly received by critics. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Eastwood had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal described it as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory". Longworth believes that Streep's performance was "crucial to transforming what could have been a weak soap opera into a vibrant work of historical fiction implicitly critiquing postwar America's stifling culture of domesticity". She considers it to have been the role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine".
Late 1990s
In 1996, Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie (Diane Keaton), a woman battling leukemia, in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Streep recommended Keaton for the role. The film also starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio as Streep's character's rebellious son. Roger Ebert stated that "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems." The film was critically acclaimed, and Streep earned another Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
In 1998, Streep played an Irishwoman opposite Michael Gambon and Catherine McCormack in Pat O'Connor's Dancing at Lughnasa, which was entered into the Venice Film Festival of 1998. Janet Maslin of The New York Times remarked that "Meryl Streep has made many a grand acting gesture in her career, but the way she simply peers out a window in Dancing at Lughnasa ranks with the best. Everything the viewer need know about Kate Mundy, the woman she plays here, is written on that prim, lonely face and its flabbergasted gaze". Later that year, Streep played a cancer sufferer caught in a difficult family situation, playing the mother of Renée Zellweger and wife of William Hurt in One True Thing. The film was well received by critics. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, "After 'One True Thing', critics who persist in the fiction that Streep is a cold and technical actress will need to get their heads examined. She is so instinctive and natural – so thoroughly in the moment and operating on flights of inspiration – that she's able to give us a woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable." Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan noted that Streep's role "is one of the least self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career, but that she "adds a level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving."
In 1999, Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari, a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to the inner-city kids of East Harlem, in the music drama Music of the Heart. A departure from director Wes Craven's previous work on films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, Streep replaced singer Madonna who left the project before filming began due to creative differences with Craven. Required to perform on the violin, Streep went through two months of intense training, five to six hours a day. Streep received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that "Meryl Streep is known for her mastery of accents; she may be the most versatile speaker in the movies. Here you might think she has no accent, unless you've heard her real speaking voice; then you realize that Guaspari's speaking style is no less a particular achievement than Streep's other accents. This is not Streep's voice, but someone else's – with a certain flat quality, as if later education and refinement came after a somewhat unsophisticated childhood."
2000s
2000–05
Streep entered the 2000s with an uncredited voice cameo in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a science fiction film about a childlike android, played by Haley Joel Osment. The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2001 in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations and Kofi Annan.
In 2002, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The same year, she began work on Spike Jonze's comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike, the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. A. O. Scott considered Streep's portrayal of Orlean to have been "played with impish composure", noting the contrast in her "wittily realized" character with love interest Chris Cooper's "lank-haired, toothless charisma" as the autodidact arrested for poaching rare orchids. Also in 2002, Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress the following year.
The following year, Streep had a cameo as herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You (2003) and reunited with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America, the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan Era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the mini-series, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance. In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the board of directors of the American Film Institute. She appeared in Jonathan Demme's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate, co-starring Denzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate. The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey, based on the first three novels in Snicket's book series. The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics, and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Inspired by her love of Giverny in France and Claude Monet, Streep did the narration for the film Monet's Palate, with Alice Waters, Steve Wynn, Daniel Boulud and Helen Rappel Bordman.
Streep was next cast in the 2005 comedy film Prime, directed by Ben Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally. Roger Ebert noted how Streep had "that ability to cut through the solemnity of a scene with a zinger that reveals how all human effort is".
2006–09
In August and September 2006, Streep starred onstage at The Public Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America), with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change); veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play. Also in 2006, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin, portrayed the last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion. A comedic ensemble piece featuring Lindsay Lohan, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson, the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film grossed more than US$26 million, the majority of which came from domestic markets.
Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly, fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway). Though the overall film received mixed reviews, her portrayal, of what Ebert calls the "poised and imperious Miranda", drew rave reviews from critics and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. Upon its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success yet, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide.
In 2007, Streep was cast in four films. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter, a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007. The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release. Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood. Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts and immediately signed on to the project. Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful, and received mixed reviews.
Also in 2007, Streep had a short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai's drama film Evening, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s. The film was released to a lukewarm reaction from critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast." Streep's last film of 2007 was Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. Like Evening, critics felt that the talent of the cast was wasted and that it suffered from slow pacing, although one critic announced that Streep positively stood out, being "natural, unforced, quietly powerful", in comparison to Redford's forced performance.
In 2008, Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia!, a film adaptation of the musical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth, Streep played a single mother and a former girl-group singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on an idyllic Greek island. An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million, also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films for now. Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe commenting "the greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star."
Streep's other film of 2008 was Doubt featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings charges of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success, but was hailed by many critics as one of the best of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for Shanley's script. Ebert, who awarded the film the full four stars, highlighted Streep's caricature of a nun, who "hates all inroads of the modern world", while Kelly Vance of The East Bay Express remarked: "It's thrilling to see a pro like Streep step into an already wildly exaggerated role and then ramp it up a few notches just for the sheer hell of it. Grim, red-eyed, deathly pale Sister Aloysius may be the scariest nun of all time."
In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier in Devil Wears Prada.) The first major motion picture based on a blog, Julie and Julia contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was "quite possibly the biggest performance of her career while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth the story of a late bloomer". The same year, Streep starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both Julie & Julia and It's Complicated; she won the award for Julie & Julia and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox.
2010s
Streep's first film of the 2010s was Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady (2011), a British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher, which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement. Streep, who sat through a session at the House of Commons to observe British MPs in action in preparation for her role, called her casting "a daunting and exciting challenge." While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance got rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as well as her third win at the 84th Academy Awards. Former advisers, friends and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as inaccurate and biased. The following year, after Thatcher's death, Streep issued a formal statement describing Thatcher's "hard-nosed fiscal measures" and "hands-off approach to financial regulation," while praising her "personal strength and grit."
In 2012, Streep reunited with Prada director David Frankel on the set of the comedy-drama film Hope Springs, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell. Streep and Jones play a middle-aged couple, who attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising the "mesmerizing performances [...] which offer filmgoers some grown-up laughs – and a thoughtful look at mature relationships".
In 2013, Streep starred alongside Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, and others in the black comedy drama August: Osage County about a dysfunctional family that reunites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based on Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of the family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering from oral cancer and an addiction to narcotics, and was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award. At the National Board of Review Awards in 2013, Streep labeled Walt Disney as "anti-semitic" and a "gender bigot." Former actors, employees and animators who knew Disney during his lifetime rebuffed the comments as misinformed and selective. The Walt Disney Family Museum issued a statement rebuking Streep's allegations indirectly, citing, among others, Disney's contributions to Jewish charities and his published letters stating that women "have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men." However, Disney's grandniece, Abigail Disney, wholeheartedly agreed with Streep's statements, stating that he was an "anti-Semite," and "racist" who was also an exemplary filmmaker whose work "made billions of people happy."
Streep's first film of 2014 was the motion picture adaptation of the young adult novel The Giver. Set in 2048, the social science fiction film tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where a young boy is chosen to learn the real world. Streep, who plays the community's leader, was aware of the book before being offered the role by co-star and producer Jeff Bridges. Upon its release, The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. The same year, she also had a small role in the period drama film The Homesman, Set in the 1850s midwest, the film stars Hilary Swank and Jones as an unusual pair, who helps three women driven to madness by the frontier to get back East. Streep appears not until the end of the film, playing a preacher's wife, who takes the women into care. The Homesman premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics.
Her final film of 2014 was the Disney film adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall. A fantasy genre crossover inspired by the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple, who sets out to end a curse placed on them by a vengeful witch, played by Streep. Though the film was dismissed by some critics such as Mark Kermode as "irritating naffness", Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2015, Streep starred in Ricki and the Flash, playing a grocery store checkout worker by day who is a rock musician at night, and who has one last chance to reconnect with her estranged family. The film was directed by Jonathan Demme, and was written by Diablo Cody. Streep's next role is Emmeline Pankhurst, a supporting role, in the film Suffragette, which started shooting during late February 2014.
In July 2014, it was confirmed that Streep has agreed to play Maria Callas in Master Class and that she would have reunited with former director Mike Nichols for this HBO film, though after the death of Nichols in November, the status of this project is unknown. In October 2014, it was confirmed that Streep had agreed to star in a biopic of the opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins for director Stephen Frears, which is currently titled Florence Foster Jenkins.
Acting style and legacy
Such is Streep's contemporary position in world cinema that Vanity Fair has commented that "it's hard to imagine that there was a time before Meryl Streep was the greatest-living actress". Emma Brockes of The Guardian notes that despite Streep being "one of the most famous actresses in the world", it is "strangely hard to pin an image on Streep", in a career where she has "laboured to establish herself as an actor whose roots lie in ordinary life". Despite her success, Streep has always been modest about her own acting and achievements in cinema. She has stated that she has no particular method when it comes to acting, learning from the days of her early studies that she can't be articulate. She said in 1987, "I have a smattering of things I've learned from different teachers, but nothing I can put into a valise and open it up and say 'Now which one would you like'? Nothing I can count on and that makes it more dangerous. But then the danger makes it more exciting." She has stated that her ideal director is one which gives her complete artistic control, and allowing a degree of improvization and her to learn from her own mistakes.
Karina Longworth notes how "external" Streep's performances are, "chameleonic" in her impersonation of characters, "subsuming herself into them, rather than personifying them". In her early roles such as Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer she was compared to both Diane Keaton and Jill Clayburgh, in that her characters were unsympathetic, which Streep has attributed to the tendency to be drawn to playing women who are difficult to like and are devoid of a mutual emotional understanding with others. Streep has stated that many consider her to be a technical actor, but she professed that it comes down to her love of reading the initial script, adding, "I come ready and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable".
Mike Nichols, who directed Streep in Silkwood, Heartburn and Postcards from the Edge, praised Streep's ability to transform herself into her characters, remarking that "in every role she becomes a totally new human being. As she becomes the person she is portraying, the other performers begin to react to her as if she were that person". He said that directing her is "so much like falling in love that it has the characteristics of a time which you remember as magical but which is shrouded in mystery". He also noted that Streep's acting ability had a profound impact on her co-stars and that "one could improve by 1000% purely by watching her."
Longworth believes that in nearly every film, Streep has "sly infused" a feminist point of view in her portrayals. However, film critic Molly Haskell has stated, "None of her heroines are feminist, strictly speaking. Yet they uncannily embody various crosscurrents of experience in the last twenty years, as women have redefined themselves against the background of the women's movement".
Streep is well known for her ability to imitate a wide range of accents, from Danish in Out of Africa (1985) to English received pronunciation in Plenty (1985), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and The Iron Lady (2011), Italian in The Bridges of Madison County (1995), a Minnesota accent in A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Irish-American in Ironweed, and a heavy Bronx accent in Doubt.
Streep has stated that she grew up listening to artists such as Barbra Streisand, The Beatles and Bob Dylan, and she learned a lot about how to use her voice, her instrument, by listening to Barbra Streisand's albums. In the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, in which she portrays a New Zealand transplant to Australia, Streep perfected a hybrid of Australian & New Zealand English. Her performance received the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, as well as Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.
For her role in the film Sophie's Choice (1982), Streep spoke both English and German with a Polish accent, as well as Polish itself. In The Iron Lady, she reproduced the vocal style of Margaret Thatcher from the time before Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation, and delivery. Streep has commented that using accents as part of her acting is a technique she views as an obvious requirement in her portrayal of a character.
When questioned in Belfast as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied in a perfect Belfast accent: "I listen."
Other work
After Streep appeared in Mamma Mia!, her rendition of the song "Mamma Mia" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at No. 8 in October 2008. At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack". In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack. Throughout her career, Streep has narrated numerous audio books, including three by children's book author William Steig: Brae Irene, Spinky Sulks, and The One and Only Shrek!.
Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has donated a significant amount of money (including her fee for The Iron Lady, which was $1 million) and hosted numerous events. On October 4, 2012, Streep donated $1 million to The Public Theater in honor of both its late founder, Joseph Papp, and her friend, the author Nora Ephron. She also supports Gucci's "Chime For Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. Streep, when asked in a 2015 interview by Time Out magazine if she was a feminist, answered, "I am a humanist, I am for nice easy balance."
In 2014, Streep established two scholarships for students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell – the Meryl Streep Endowed Scholarship for English majors, and the Joan Hertzberg Endowed Scholarship (named for Streep's former classmate at Vassar College) for math majors. In April 2015, it was announced that Streep had funded a screenwriters lab for female screenwriters over forty years old, called the Writers Lab, to be run by New York Women in Film & Television and the collective IRIS. As of the announcement, the Writers Lab is the only initiative in the world for female screenwriters over forty years old.
In 2015, Streep signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation. Also in 2015, Streep sent each member of the U.S. Congress a letter supporting the Equal Rights Amendment. Each of her letters was sent with a copy of the book Equal Means Equal: Why the Time for the ERA is Now by Jessica Neuwirth, president of the ERA Coalition.
In October 2015, Streep was announced as the President of the Jury for the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016.
Personal life
Author Karina Longworth notes that despite her "high level of stardom" for decades, Streep has managed to maintain a relatively normal personal life. Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death from lung cancer in March 1978. Al Pacino remarked that "I've hardly ever seen a person so devoted to someone who is falling away like John was. To see her in that act of love for this man was overwhelming." Streep said of his death, "I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it".
Streep married sculptor Don Gummer six months after Cazale's death. They have four children: musician Henry (born 1979), actresses Mamie (born 1983) and Grace (born 1986), and model Louisa (born 1991). In August 1985 the family moved into a $1.8 million private estate in Connecticut, with an extensive art studio to facilitate her husband's work, and lived there until they bought a $3 million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, in 1990. They eventually moved back to Connecticut.
When asked if religion plays a part in her life in 2009, Streep replied: "I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram." In an interview in December 2008, she also alluded to her lack of religious belief when she said: "So I've always been really, deeply interested, because I think I can understand the solace that's available in the whole construct of religion. But I really don't believe in the power of prayer, or things would have been avoided that have happened, that are awful. So it's a horrible position as an intelligent, emotional, yearning human being to sit outside of the available comfort there. But I just can't go there."
When asked from where she draws consolation in the face of aging and death, Streep responded: "Consolation? I'm not sure I have it. I have a belief, I guess, in the power of the aggregate human attempt – the best of ourselves. In love and hope and optimism – you know, the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why we are the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?"
Filmography
* See: Meryl Streep on screen and stage
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Meryl Streep
List of Academy Award records
List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
Notes
References
Sources
Includes discussion of Streep's performance in Robert Kalfin's production of Happy End at the Chelsea Theater and on Broadway
External links
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2016-01 | 2008_Sichuan_earthquake-697100364 | 2008_Sichuan_earthquake | 2008 Sichuan earthquake
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan earthquake, measured at 8.0 Ms and 7.9 Mw, and occurred at 02:28:01 PM China Standard Time at epicenter (06:28:01 UTC) on May 12 in Sichuan province, killed 69,197 people and left 18,222 missing.
It is also known as the Wenchuan earthquake (), after the location of the earthquake's epicenter, Wenchuan County, Sichuan. The epicenter was west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital, with a focal depth of . The earthquake was also felt in nearby countries and as far away as both Beijing and Shanghai— and away—where office buildings swayed with the tremor. Strong aftershocks, some exceeding magnitude 6, continued to hit the area even months after the main quake, causing new casualties and damage.
Official figures (as of July 21, 2008 12:00 CST) stated that 69,197 were confirmed dead, including 68,636 in Sichuan province, and 374,176 injured, with 18,222 listed as missing.<ref
name="data">, and </ref> The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless, though the number could be as high as 11 million. Approximately 15 million people lived in the affected area. It was the deadliest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000 people, and the strongest in the country since the 1950 Chayu earthquake, which registered at 8.5 on the Richter magnitude scale. It is the 21st deadliest earthquake of all time. On November 6, 2008, the central government announced that it would spend 1 trillion RMB (about US $146.5 billion) over the next three years to rebuild areas ravaged by the earthquake, as part of the Chinese economic stimulus program.
Earthquake's results
The earthquake had a magnitude of 8.0 Ms and 7.9 Mw. The epicenter was in Wenchuan County, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, 80 km west/northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, with its main tremor occurring at 14:28:01.42 China Standard Time (06:28:01.42 UTC), on May 12, 2008 lasting for around 2 minutes, in the quake almost 80% of buildings were destroyed.
According to a study by the China Earthquake Administration (CEA), the earthquake occurred along the Longmenshan fault, a thrust structure along the border of the Indo-Australian Plate and Eurasian Plate. Seismic activities concentrated on its mid-fracture (known as Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture). The rupture lasted close to 120 sec, with the majority of energy released in the first 80 sec. Starting from Wenchuan, the rupture propagated at an average speed of 3.1 kilometers per second 49° toward north east, rupturing a total of about 300 km. Maximum displacement amounted to 9 meters. The focus was deeper than 10 km.
In a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study, preliminary rupture models of the earthquake indicated displacement of up to 9 meters along a fault approximately 240 km long by 20 km deep. The earthquake generated deformations of the surface greater than 3 meters and increased the stress (and probability of occurrence of future events) at the northeastern and southwestern ends of the fault. On May 20, USGS seismologist Tom Parsons warned that there is "high risk" of a major M>7 aftershock over the next weeks or months.
Japanese seismologist Yuji Yagi at the University of Tsukuba said that the earthquake occurred in two stages: "The 155-mile Longmenshan Fault tore in two sections, the first one ripping about seven yards, followed by a second one that sheared four yards." His data also showed that the earthquake lasted about two minutes and released 30 times the energy of the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 in Japan, which killed over 6,000 people. He pointed out that the shallowness of the epicenter and the density of population greatly increased the severity of the earthquake. Teruyuki Kato, a seismologist at the University of Tokyo, said that the seismic waves of the quake traveled a long distance without losing their power because of the firmness of the terrain in central China. According to reports from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, the earthquake tremors lasted for "about two or three minutes".
Extent of the tremors
Places ordered by distance from epicenter (or time of propagation) :
(Mainland): All provincial-level divisions except Xinjiang, Jilin and Heilongjiang were physically affected by the quake.
: Tremors were felt approximately three minutes after the quake, continuing for about half a minute. This was also the most distant earthquake known ever to be felt in Hong Kong. The intensity reached MM III in Hong Kong.
: Tremors were felt approximately three minutes after the quake.
: Tremors were felt approximately five minutes after the earthquake in Northern parts of Vietnam. The intensity was MM III in Hanoi.
: In parts of Thailand tremors were felt six minutes after the quake. Office buildings in Bangkok swayed for the next several minutes.
: It took about eight minutes for the quake to reach Taiwan, where the tremors continued for one to two minutes; no damage or injuries were reported. The intensity was MM III in Taipei.
: Tremors were felt approximately eight minutes after the earthquake in parts of Mongolia.
: Tremors were felt eight and a half minutes after the quake in all parts of Bangladesh.
: Tremors were felt approximately eight and a half minutes after the quake.
: Tremors were felt approximately nine minutes after the earthquake in parts of India.
: In parts of Northern Pakistan tremors were felt ten minutes after the quake.
: Tremors were felt in Tuva, no casualties reported.
Aftershocks
Between 64 and 104 major aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.0 to 6.1, were recorded within 72 hours of the main quake. According to Chinese official counts, "by 12:00 CST, November 6, 2008 there had been 42,719 total aftershocks, of which 246 ranged from 4.0 MS to 4.9 MS, 34 from 5.0 MS to 5.9 MS, and 8 from 6.0 Ms to 6.4 MS; the strongest aftershock measured 6.4 MS." The latest aftershock exceeding M6 occurred on August 5, 2008.
(The Ms 6.1 earthquake on August 30, 2008 in southern Sichuan was not part of this series because it was caused by a different fault. See 2008 Panzhihua earthquake for details.)
Intensities and damage area
The map of earthquake intensity published by CEA after surveying 500,000 km2 of the affected area shows a maximum liedu of XI on the China Seismic Intensity Scale (CSIS), described as "very destructive" on the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS) from which CSIS drew reference. (USGS, using the Modified Mercalli intensity scale (CC), also placed maximum intensity at XI, "very disastrous".) Two south-west-north-east stripes of liedu XI are centered around Yingxiu, Wenchuan (the town closest to the epicenter of the main quake) and Beichuan (the town repeatedly struck by strong aftershocks including one registering MS 6.1 on Aug 1, 2008), both in Sichuan Province, occupying a total of 2,419 km2. The Yingxiu liedu-XI zone is about 66 km long and 20 km wide along Wenchuan–Dujiangyan–Pengzhou; the Beichuan liedu-XI zone is about 82 km long and 15 km wide along An County–Beichuan–Pingwu. The area with liedu X (comparable to X on EMS, "destructive" and X on MM, "disastrous") spans 3,144 km2. The area affected by earthquakes exceeding liedu VI totals 440,442 km2, occupying an oval 936 km long and 596 km wide, spanning three provinces and one autonomous region.
Tectonics
The extent of the earthquake and after shock-affected areas lies north-east, along the Longmen Shan fault.
The Longmen Shan Fault System is situated in the eastern border of the Tibetan Plateau and contains several faults. This earthquake ruptured at least two imbricate structures in Longmen Shan Fault System, i.e. the Beichuan Fault and the Guanxian–Anxian Fault. In the epicentral area, the average slip in Beichuan Fault was about vertical, horizontal-parallel to the fault, and horizontal-perpendicular to the fault. In the area about northeast of the epicenter, the surface slip on Beichuan Fault was almost purely dextral strike-slip up to about , while the average slip in Guanxian–Anxian Fault was about vertical and horizontal.
According to CEA:
"The energy source of the Wenchuan earthquake and Longmenshan's southeast push came from the strike of the Indian Plate onto the Eurasian Plate and its northward push. The inter-plate relative motion caused large scale structural deformation inside the Asian continent, resulting in a thinning crust of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the uplift of its landscape and an eastward extrude. Near the Sichuan Basin, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's east-northward movement meets with strong resistance from the South China Block, causing a high degree of stress accumulation in the Longmenshan thrust formation. This finally caused a sudden dislocation in the Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture, leading to the violent earthquake of Ms 8.0."
According to the United States Geological Survey:
The earthquake occurred as the result of motion on a northeast striking reverse fault or thrust fault on the northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake’s epicenter and focal-mechanism are consistent with it having occurred as the result of movement on the Longmenshan fault or a tectonically related fault. The earthquake reflects tectonic stresses resulting from the convergence of crustal material slowly moving from the high Tibetan Plateau, to the west, against strong crust underlying the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China.
On a continental scale, the seismicity of central and eastern Asia is a result of northward convergence of the Indian Plate against the Eurasian Plate with a velocity of about 50 mm/y. The convergence of the two plates is broadly accommodated by the uplift of the Asian highlands and by the motion of crustal material to the east away from the uplifted Tibetan Plateau. The northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin has previously experienced destructive earthquakes. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake of August 25, 1933 killed more than 9,300 people.
According to the British Geological Survey:
The earthquake occurred 92 km northwest of the city of Chengdu in eastern Sichuan province and over 1500 km from Beijing, where it was also strongly felt. Earthquakes of this size have the potential to cause extensive damage and loss of life.
The epicenter was in the mountains of the Eastern Margin of Qing-Tibet Plateau at the northwest margin of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake occurred as a result of motion on a northeast striking thrust fault that runs along the margin of the basin.
The seismicity of central and eastern Asia is caused by the northward movement of the India plate at a rate of 5 cm/year and its collision with Eurasia, resulting in the uplift of the Himalaya and Tibetan plateaux and associated earthquake activity. This deformation also results in the extrusion of crustal material from the high Tibetan Plateaux in the west towards the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China. China frequently suffers large and deadly earthquakes. In August 1933, the magnitude 7.5 Diexi earthquake, about 90 km northeast of today's earthquake, destroyed the town of Diexi and surrounding villages, and caused many landslides, some of which dammed the rivers.
Immediate aftermath
Office buildings in Shanghai's financial district, including the Jin Mao Tower and the Hong Kong New World Tower, were evacuated. A receptionist at the Tibet Hotel in Chengdu said things were "calm" after the hotel evacuated its guests. Meanwhile, workers at a Ford plant in Sichuan were evacuated for about 10 minutes. Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport was shut down, and the control tower and regional radar control evacuated. One SilkAir flight was diverted and landed in Kunming as a result. Cathay Pacific delayed both legs of its quadruple daily Hong Kong to London route due to this disruption in air traffic services. Chengdu Shuangliu Airport reopened later on the evening of May 12, offering limited service as the airport began to be used as a staging area for relief operations.
Reporters in Chengdu said they saw cracks on walls of some residential buildings in the downtown areas, but no buildings collapsed. Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the building housing the media offices for the organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics. None of the Olympic venues were damaged. Meanwhile, a cargo train carrying 13 petrol tanks derailed in Hui County, Gansu, and caught on fire after the rail was distorted.
All of the highways into Wenchuan, and others throughout the province, were damaged, resulting in delayed arrival of the rescue troops. In Beichuan County, 80% of the buildings collapsed according to Xinhua News. In the city of Shifang, the collapse of two chemical plants led to leakage of some 80 tons of liquid ammonia, with hundreds of people reported buried. In the city of Dujiangyan, south-east of the epicenter, a whole school collapsed with 900 students buried and fewer than 60 survived. The Juyuan Middle School, where many teenagers were buried, was excavated by civilians and cranes. Dujiangyan is home of the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, an ancient water diversion project which is still in use and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The project's famous Fish Mouth was cracked but not severely damaged otherwise.
Both the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange suspended trading of companies based in southwestern China. Copper rose over speculations that production in southwestern China may be affected, and oil prices dropped over speculations that demand from China would fall.
Immediately after the earthquake event, mobile and terrestrial telecommunications were cut to the affected and surrounding area, with all internet capabilities cut to the Sichuan area too. Elements of telecommunications were restored by the government piece by piece over the next number of months as the situation in the Sichuan province gradually improved. Eventually, a handful of major news and media websites were made accessible online in the region, albeit with dramatically pared back webpages.
China Mobile had more than 2,300 base stations suspended due to power disruption or severe telecommunication traffic congestion. Half of the wireless communications were lost in the Sichuan province. China Unicom's service in Wenchuan and four nearby counties was cut off, with more than 700 towers suspended.
Initially, officials were unable to contact the Wolong National Nature Reserve, home to around 280 giant pandas. However, the Foreign Ministry later said that a group of 31 British tourists visiting the Wolong Panda Reserve in the quake-hit area returned safe and uninjured to Chengdu. Nonetheless, the well-being of an even greater number of pandas in the neighbouring panda reserves remained unknown. Five security guards at the reserve were killed by the earthquake. Six pandas escaped after their enclosures were damaged. By May 20, two pandas at the reserve were found to be injured, while the search continued for another two adult pandas that went missing after the quake. By May 28, 2008, one panda was still missing. The missing panda was later found dead under the rubble of an enclosure. Nine-year-old Mao Mao, a mother of five at the breeding center, was discovered on Monday, her body crushed by a wall in her enclosure. Panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and buried her outside the breeding centre.
The Zipingpu Hydropower Plant () located 20 km east of the epicenter was damaged. A recent inspection indicated that the damage was less severe than initially feared, and it remains structurally stable and safe. The Tulong reservoir upstream is in danger of collapse. About 2,000 troops have been allocated to Zipingpu, trying to release the pressure through spillway. In total, 391 dams, most of them small, were reported damaged by the quake.
Casualties
According to Chinese state officials, the quake caused 69,180 known deaths including 68,636 in Sichuan province; 18,498 people are listed as missing, and 374,176 injured, but these figures may further increase as more reports come in. This estimate includes 158 earthquake relief workers who were killed in landslides as they tried to repair roads.
One rescue team reported only 2,300 survivors from the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan County, out of a total population of about 9,000. 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in Beichuan County, Sichuan alone; in the same location, 10,000 people were injured and 80% of the buildings were destroyed. The old county seat of Beichuan was abandoned and preserved as part of the Beichuan Earthquake Museum. Eight schools were toppled in Dujiangyan.
A 56-year-old was killed in Dujiangyan during a rescue attempt on the Lingyanshan Ropeway, where due to the earthquake 11 tourists from Taiwan had been trapped inside cable cars since May 13. A 4-year-old boy named Zhu Shaowei () was also killed in Mianzhu City when a house collapsed on him and another was reported missing.
Experts point out that the earthquake hit an area that has been largely neglected and untouched by China's economic rise. Health care is poor in inland areas such as Sichuan, highlighting the widening gap between prosperous urban dwellers and struggling rural people. Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang told reporters in Beijing that the "public health care system in China is insufficient." The Vice Minister of Health also suggested that the government would pick up the costs of care to earthquake victims, many of whom have little or no insurance: "The government should be responsible for providing medical treatment to them," he said.
In terms of school casualties, thousands of school children died due to shoddy construction. In Mianyang City, seven schools collapsed, burying at least 1,700 people. At least 7,000 school buildings throughout the province collapsed. Another 700 students were buried in a school in Hanwang. At least 600 students and staff died at Juyuan Elementary School. Up to 1,300 children and teachers died at Beichuan Middle School.
Details of school casualties had been under non-governmental investigation since December 2008 by volunteers including artist and architect Ai Weiwei, who had been constantly posting updates on his blog since March 2009. The official tally of students killed in the earthquake was not released until May 7, 2009, almost a year after the earthquake. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the earthquake killed 5,335 students and left another 546 children disabled. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Chinese government declared that parents who had lost their only children would get free treatment from fertility clinics to reverse vasectomies and tubal ligations conducted by family planning authorities.
Property damage
The earthquake left at least 5 million people without housing, although the number could be as high as 11 million. Millions of livestock and a significant amount of agriculture were also destroyed, including 12.5 million animals, mainly birds. In the Sichuan province a million pigs died out of 60 million total. Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide reported official estimates of insurers' losses at US$1 billion from the earthquake; estimated total damages exceed US$20 billion. It values Chengdu, at the time having an urban population of 4.5 million people, at around US$115 billion, with only a small portion covered by insurance.
Reginald DesRoches, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, pointed out that the massive damage of properties and houses in the earthquake area was because China did not create an adequate seismic design code until after the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake. DesRoches said: "If the buildings were older and built prior to that 1976 earthquake, chances are they weren't built for adequate earthquake forces."
In the days following the disaster, an international reconnaissance team of engineers was dispatched to the region to make a detailed preliminary survey of damaged buildings. Their findings show a variety of reasons why many constructions failed to withstand the earthquake.
News reports indicate that the poorer, rural villages were hardest hit. Swaminathan Krishnan, assistant professor of civil engineering and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology said: "the earthquake occurred in the rural part of China. Presumably, many of the buildings were just built; they were not designed, so to speak." Swaminathan Krishnan further added: "There are very strong building codes in China, which take care of earthquake issues and seismic design issues. But many of these buildings presumably were quite old and probably were not built with any regulations overseeing them."
Even with the five largest cities in Sichuan suffering only minor damage from the quake, some estimates of the economic loss run higher than US$75 billion, making the earthquake one of the costliest natural disasters in Chinese history.
Later casualties
Strong aftershocks continued to strike even months after the main quake. On May 25, an aftershock of 6.0 Mw (6.4 Ms according to CEA) hit northeast of the original earthquake's epicenter, in Qingchuan County, Sichuan, causing eight deaths, 1000 injuries, and destroying thousands of buildings. On May 27, two aftershocks, one 5.2 Mw in Qingchuan County and one 5.7 Mw in Ningqiang County, Shaanxi, led to the collapse of more than 420,000 homes and injured 63 people. The same area suffered two more aftershocks of 5.6 and 6.0 Ms (5.8 and 5.5 Mw, respectively, according to USGS) on July 23, resulting in 1 death, 6 serious injuries, collapse of hundreds of homes and damaging kilometers of highways.
Pingwu County and Beichuan County, Sichuan, also northeast of Wenchuan and close to the epicenter of a 7.2 Ms earthquake in 1976, suffered a 6.1 Ms aftershock (5.7 Mw according to USGS) on August 1; it caused 2 deaths, 345 injuries, collapse of 707 homes, damages to over 1,000 homes, and blocked of country roads. As late as August 5, yet another aftershock of 6.1 Ms (6.2 Mw according to USGS) hit Qingchuan, Sichuan, causing 1 death, 32 injuries, telecommunication interruptions, and widespread hill slides blocking roads in the area including a national highway.
Government data
Executive vice governor Wei Hong confirmed on November 21, 2008 that more than 90,000 people in total were dead or missing in the earthquake. He stated that 200,000 homes had been rebuilt, and 685,000 were under reconstruction, but 1.94 million households were still without permanent shelter. 1,300 schools had been reconstructed, with initial relocation of 25 townships, including Beichuan and Wenchuan, two of the most devastated areas. The government spent $441 billion on relief and reconstruction efforts.
Rescue efforts
General Secretary and President Hu Jintao announced that the disaster response would be rapid. Just 90 minutes after the earthquake, Premier Wen Jiabao, who has an academic background in geomechanics, flew to the earthquake area to oversee the rescue work. Soon afterward, the Ministry of Health said that it had sent ten emergency medical teams to Wenchuan County. On the same day, the Chengdu Military Region Command dispatched 50,000 troops and armed police to help with disaster relief work in Wenchuan County. However, due to the rough terrain and close proximity of the quake's epicenter, the soldiers found it very difficult to get help to the rural regions of the province.
The National Disaster Relief Commission initiated a "Level II emergency contingency plan", which covers the most serious class of natural disasters. The plan rose to Level I at 22:15 CST, May 12.
An earthquake emergency relief team of 184 people (consisting of 12 people from the State Seismological Bureau, 150 from the Beijing Military Area Command, and 22 from the Armed Police General Hospital) left Beijing from Nanyuan Airport late May 12 in two military transport planes to travel to Wenchuan County.
Many rescue teams, including that of the Taipei Fire Department from Taiwan, were reported ready to join the rescue effort in Sichuan as early as Wednesday. However, the Red Cross Society of China said that (on May 13) "it was inconvenient currently due to the traffic problem to the hardest hit areas closest to the epicenter." The Red Cross Society of China also stated that the disaster areas need tents, medical supplies, drinking water and food; however it recommended donating cash instead of other items, as it had not been possible to reach roads that were completely damaged or places that were blocked off by landslides. Landslides continuously threatened the progress of a search and rescue group of 80 men, each carrying about 40 kg of relief supplies, from a motorized infantry brigade under commander Yang Wenyao, as they tried to reach the ethnically Tibetan village of Sier at a height of 4000 m above sea level in Pingwu county. The extreme terrain conditions precluded the use of helicopter evacuation, and over 300 of the Tibetan villagers were stranded in their demolished village for five days without food and water before the rescue group finally arrived to help the injured and stranded villagers down the mountain.
Persistent heavy rain and landslides in Wenchuan County and the nearby area badly affected rescue efforts. At the start of rescue operations on May 12, 20 helicopters were deployed for the delivery of food, water, and emergency aid, and also the evacuation of the injured and reconnaissance of quake-stricken areas. By 17:37 CST on May 13, a total of over 15,600 troops and militia reservists from the Chengdu Military Region had joined the rescue force in the heavily affected areas. A commander reported from Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan, that around 3,000 survivors were found, while the status of the other inhabitants (around 9,000) remained unclear. The 1,300 rescuers reached the epicenter, and 300 pioneer troops reached the seat of Wenchuan at about 23:30 CST. By 12:17 CST, May 14, 2008, communication in the seat of Wenchuan was partly revived. On the afternoon of May 14, 15 Special Operations Troops, along with relief supplies and communications gear, parachuted into inaccessible Mao County, northeast of Wenchuan.
By May 15, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the deployment of an additional 90 helicopters, of which 60 were to be provided by the PLAAF, and 30 were to be provided by the civil aviation industry, bringing the total of number of aircraft deployed in relief operations by the air force, army, and civil aviation to over 150, resulting in the largest non-combat airlifting operation in People's Liberation Army history.
Beijing accepted the aid of the Tzu Chi Foundation from Taiwan late on May 13. Tzu Chi was the first force from outside the People's Republic of China to join the rescue effort. China stated it would gratefully accept international help to cope with the quake.
A direct chartered cargo flight was made by China Airlines from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport sending some 100 tons of relief supplies donated by the Tzu Chi Foundation and the Red Cross Society of Taiwan to the affected areas. Approval from mainland Chinese authorities was sought, and the chartered flight departed Taipei at 17:00 CST, May 15 and arrived in Chengdu by 20:30 CST. A rescue team from the Red Cross in Taiwan was also scheduled to depart Taipei on a Mandarin Airlines direct chartered flight to Chengdu at 15:00 CST on May 16.
Francis Marcus of the International Federation of the Red Cross praised the Chinese rescue effort as "swift and very efficient" in Beijing on Tuesday. But he added the scale of the disaster was such that "we can't expect that the government can do everything and handle every aspect of the needs". The Economist noted that China reacted to the disaster "rapidly and with uncharacteristic openness", contrasting it with Burma's secretive response to Cyclone Nargis, which devastated that country 10 days before the earthquake.
On May 16, rescue groups from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Russia and Taiwan arrived to join the rescue effort. The United States shared some of its satellite images of the quake-stricken areas with Chinese authorities. During the weekend, the US sent into China two U.S. Air Force C-17's carrying supplies, which included tents and generators. Xinhua reported 135,000 Chinese troops and medics were involved in the rescue effort across 58 counties and cities.
The Internet was extensively used for passing information to aid rescue and recovery efforts. For example, the official news agency Xinhua set up an online rescue request center in order to find the blind spots of disaster recovery. After knowing that rescue helicopters had trouble landing into the epicenter area in Wenchuan, a student proposed a landing spot online and it was chosen as the first touchdown place for the helicopters. Volunteers also set up several websites to help store contact information for victims and evacuees. On May 31, a rescue helicopter carrying earthquake survivors and crew members crashed in fog and turbulence in Wenchuan county. No-one survived.
Rescue efforts performed by the Chinese government were praised by western media, especially in comparison with Myanmar's blockage of foreign aid during Cyclone Nargis, as well as China's previous performance during the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. China's openness during the media coverage of the Sichuan earthquake led a professor at the Peking University to say, “This is the first time [that] the Chinese media has lived up to international standards”. Los Angeles Times praised China's media coverage of the quake of being "democratic".
Rescue efforts also came from Jet Li's One Foundation which saw the martial arts actor Wu Jing assisting in the efforts.
The "quake lakes"
As a result of the magnitude 7.9 earthquake and the many strong aftershocks, many rivers became blocked by large landslides, which resulted in the formation of "quake lakes" behind the blockages; these massive amounts of water were pooling up at a very high rate behind the natural landslide dams and it was feared that the blockages would eventually crumble under the weight of the ever-increasing water mass, potentially endangering the lives of millions of people living downstream. As of May 27, 2008, 34 lakes had formed due to earthquake debris blocking and damming rivers, and it was estimated that 28 of them were still of potential danger to the local people. Entire villages had to be evacuated because of the resultant flooding.
The most precarious of these quake-lakes was the one located in the extremely difficult terrain at Mount Tangjia in Beichuan County, Sichuan, accessible only by foot or air; an Mi-26T heavy lift helicopter belonging to the China Flying Dragon Special Aviation Company was used to bring heavy earthmoving tractors to the affected location. This operation was coupled with the work done by PLAAF Mi-17 helicopters bringing in PLA engineering corps, explosive specialists and other personnel to join 1,200 soldiers who arrived on site by foot. Five tons of fuel to operate the machinery was airlifted to the site, where a sluice was constructed to allow the safe discharge of the bottlenecked water. Downstream, more than 200,000 people were evacuated from Mianyang by June 1 in anticipation of the dam bursting.
Domestic reactions
The State Council declared a three-day period of national mourning for the quake victims starting from May 19, 2008; the PRC's National Flag and Regional Flags of Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions flown at half mast. It was the first time that a national mourning period had been declared for something other than the death of a state leader, and many have called it the biggest display of mourning since the death of Mao Zedong. At 14:28 CST on May 19, 2008, a week after the earthquake, the Chinese public held a moment of silence. People stood silent for three minutes while air defense, police and fire sirens, and the horns of vehicles, vessels and trains sounded. Cars and trucks on Beijing's roads also came to a halt. People spontaneously burst into cheering "Zhongguo jiayou!" (Let's go, China!) and "Sichuan jiayou" (Let's go, Sichuan!) afterwards.
The Ningbo Organizing Committee of the Beijing Olympic torch relay announced that the relay, scheduled to take place in Ningbo during national morning, would be suspended for the duration of the mourning period. The route of the torch through the country was scaled down, and there was a minute of silence when the next leg started in city of Ruijin, Jiangxi on the Wednesday after the quake.
Many websites converted their home page to black and white; Sina.com and Sohu, major internet portals, limited their homepages to news items and removed all advertisements. Chinese video sharing websites Youku and Tudou displayed a black background and placed multiple videos showing earthquake footage and news reports. The Chinese version of MSN, cn.msn.com, also displayed banner ads about the earthquake and the relief efforts. Other entertainment websites, including various gaming sites, such as the Chinese servers for World of Warcraft, had shut down altogether, or had corresponding links to earthquake donations. After the moments of silence, in Tiananmen Square, crowds spontaneously burst out cheering various slogans, including "Long Live China". Casinos in Macau closed down.
All Mainland Chinese television stations (along with some stations in Hong Kong and expatriate communities) cancelled all regularly-scheduled programming, displayed their logo in grayscale, and replaced their cancelled programmes with live earthquake footage from CCTV-1 for multiple days after the quake. Even pay television channels (such as Channel V) had their programmes suspended.
On the evening of May 18, CCTV-1 hosted a special four-hour program called The Giving of Love (), hosted by regulars from the CCTV New Year's Gala and round-the-clock coverage anchor Bai Yansong. It was attended by a wide range of entertainment, literary, business and political figures from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Donations of the evening totalled 1.5 billion Chinese Yuan (~US$208 million). Of the donations, CCTV gave the biggest corporate contribution at ¥50 million. Almost at the same time in Taiwan, a similarly themed programme was on air hosted by the sitting president Ma Ying-jeou.
In June, Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan, who donated $1.57 million to the victims, made a music video alongside other artists entitled "Promise"; the song was composed by Andy Lau. The Artistes 512 Fund Raising Campaign, an 8-hour fundraising marathon, was held on June 1 in Hong Kong; it was attended by some 200 Sinosphere musicians and celebrities. In Singapore, MediaCorp Channel 8 hosted a 'live' programme 让爱川流不息 to raise funds for the victims.
Collapse of schoolhouses
Although the Chinese government was initially praised for its response to the quake (especially in comparison to Myanmar's ruling military junta's blockade of aid during Cyclone Nargis), it then saw an erosion in confidence over the school construction scandal.
The central government estimates that over 7,000 inadequately engineered schoolrooms collapsed in the earthquake. Chinese citizens have since invented a catch phrase: "tofu-dregs schoolhouses" (), to mock both the quality and the quantity of these inferior constructions that killed so many school children. Due to the one-child policy, many families lost their only child when schools in the region collapsed during the earthquake. Consequently, Sichuan provincial and local officials have lifted the restriction for families whose only child was either killed or severely injured in the disaster. So-called "illegal children" under 18 years of age may be registered as legal replacements for their dead siblings; if the dead child was illegal, no further outstanding fines would apply. Reimbursement would not, however, be offered for fines that were already levied.
On May 29, 2008, government officials began inspecting the ruins of thousands of schools that collapsed, searching for clues about why they crumbled. Thousands of parents around the province have accused local officials and builders of cutting corners in school construction, citing that after the quake other nearby buildings were little damaged. In the aftermath of the quake, many local governments promised to formally investigate the school collapses, but as of July 17, 2008 across Sichuan, parents of children lost in collapsed schools complained they had yet to receive any reports. Local officials urged them not to protest but the parents demonstrated and demanded an investigation. Furthermore, censors discouraged stories of poorly built schools from being published in the media and there was an incident where police drove the protestors away.
In the China Digital Times an article reports a close analysis by an alleged Chinese construction engineer known online as “Book Blade” (), who stated:
"...because of our nation’s particular brand of education, our children are fed 20 years of Marxist philosophy with Chinese characteristics—a philosophy that has nothing to say about saving lives...School construction is the worst. First, there’s not enough capital. Schools in poor areas have small budgets and, unlike schools in the cities, they can’t collect huge fees, so they’re pressed for money. With construction, add in exploitation by government officials, education officials, school managers, etc. and you can imagine what’s left over for the actual building of schools. When earthquake prevention standards are raised, government departments, major businesses, etc. will all appraise and reinforce their buildings. But these schools with their 70s-era buildings, no-one pays attention to them. Because of this, the older school buildings suffer from inadequate protection while the new buildings have been shoddily constructed."
On Children's Day, June 1, 2008, many parents went to the rubble of schools to mourn for their children. The surviving children, who were mostly living in relief centres, performed ceremonies marking the special day, but also acknowledging the earthquake.
Ye Zhiping, the principal of Sangzao Middle School in Sangzao, one of the largest in An County, has been credited with proactive action that spared the lives of all 2,323 pupils in attendance when the earthquake happened. During a three-year period that ended in 2007, he oversaw a major overhaul of his school. During that time he obtained more than 400,000 yuan (US$60,000) from the county education department, money used to widen and strengthen concrete pillars and the balcony railing of all four storeys of his school, as well as secure its concrete floors.
The AP reported that "The state-controlled media has largely ignored the issue, apparently under the propaganda bureau's instructions. Parents and volunteers who have questioned authorities have been detained and threatened."
However, Reuters reported in June that, to date, Chinese prosecutors have joined an official inquiry into ten collapsed schools during May's devastating earthquake to gain first-hand material of construction quality at the collapsed schools, launch preliminary inquiries and prepare for possible investigations into professional crime. It was also reported that safety checks were to be carried out at schools across China after last month's earthquake.
The New York Times reported that "government officials in Beijing and Sichuan have said they are investigating the collapses. In an acknowledgment of the weakness of building codes in the countryside, the National Development and Reform Commission said on May 27 that it had drafted an amendment to improve construction standards for primary and middle schools in rural areas. Experts are reviewing the draft, the commission said." To limit protests, officials pushed parents to sign a document, which forbade them from holding protests, in exchange of money, but some who refused to sign were threatened. The payment amounts varied from school to school but were approximately the same. In Hanwang, parents were offered a package valued at 8,800 USD in cash and a per-parent pension of nearly 5,600 USD. Furthermore, officials used other methods of silencing: riot police officers broke up protests by parents; the authorities set up cordons around the schools; and officials ordered the Chinese news media to stop reporting on school collapses.
Besides parents, Liu Shaokun (), a Sichuan school teacher, was detained on June 25, 2008 for "disseminating rumors and destroying social order" about the Sichuan earthquake. Liu’s family was later told that he was being investigated on suspicion of the crime of inciting subversion. Liu had travelled to the Shifang, taken photos of collapsed school buildings, and put them online. He had also expressed his anger at “the shoddy tofu-dregs buildings” () in a media interview. He was ordered to serve one year of re-education through labor (RTL). According to the organization Human Rights in China, Liu has been released to serve his RTL sentence outside of the labor camp.
On May 15, 2008 Geoffery York of the Globeandmail.com reported that the shoddily constructed buildings are commonly called "tofu buildings" because builders cut corners by replacing steel rods with thin iron wires for concrete re-inforcement; using inferior grade cement, if any at all; and using fewer bricks than they should. One local was quoted in the article as saying that "the supervising agencies did not check to see if it met the national standards."
In January 2010, Hong Kong-based English newspaper The Standard reported that writer Tan Zuoren attempted to document shoddy construction that may have led to massive casualties in schools, was sentenced to in prison ostensibly for his writing an article in 2007 in support of the pro-democracy movement in 1989.
Foreign and domestic aid
Because of the magnitude of the quake, and the media attention on China, foreign nations and organizations immediately responded to the disaster by offering condolences and assistance. On May 14, UNICEF reported that China formally requested the support of the international community to respond to the needs of affected families.
Mainland China
By May 14, the Ministry of Civil Affairs stated that 10.7 billion yuan (approximately US$1.5 billion) had been donated by the Chinese public. Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, one of the country's most popular sports icons, gave $214,000 and $71,000 to the Red Cross Society of China. The association has also collected a total of $26 million in donations so far. Other multinational firms located in China have also announced large amounts of donations.
The Red Cross Society of China flew 557 tents and 2,500 quilts valued at 788,000 yuan (US$113,000) to Wenchuan County. The Amity Foundation already began relief work in the region and has earmarked US$143,000 for disaster relief. The Sichuan Ministry of Civil Affairs said that they have provided 30,000 tents for those left homeless.
Central State-owned enterprises have accumulatively donated more than $48.6 million. China National Petroleum Corp and Sinopec donated 10 million yuan each to the disaster area.
Following the earthquake, donations were made by people from all over mainland China, with booths set up in schools, at banks, and around gas stations. People also donated blood, resulting in according to Xinhua long line-ups in most major Chinese cities. Many donated through text messaging on mobile phones to accounts set up by China Unicom and China Mobile By May 16, the Chinese government had allocated a total of $772 million for earthquake relief so far, up sharply from $159 million from May 14.
On May 16 China stated it had also received $457 million in donated money and goods for rescue efforts so far, including $83 million from 19 countries and four international organizations. Saudi Arabia was the largest aid donor to China, providing close to €40,000,000 in financial assistance, and an additional €8,000,000 worth of relief materials.
First anniversary
On May 12, 2009, China marked the first anniversary of the quake with a moment of silence as people across the nation remembered the dead. The government also opened access to the sealed ruins of the Beichuan county seat for three days, after which it will be frozen in time as a state earthquake relic museum, to remind people of the terrible disaster. There were also several concerts across the country to raise money for the survivors of the quake.
However questions still remain, as some of the corrupt government officials have still not been brought to justice, while the many families who lost their only child, are still seeking compensation and justice to what had happened. According to the Times, many parents were warned by the government not to stage a protest under the threat of arrest.
Completion of works
In 2008, State Council established a counterpart support plan (《汶川地震灾后恢复重建对口支援方案》). The plan is to arrange 19 eastern and central province and municipalitie to help 18 counties, on "one province to one affected county" basis. The plan spanned 3 years, and cost no less than one percent of the province or municipality's budget.
In 2012, vice governor Wei Hong announced that the restoration and reconstruction are completed:
Wei said that 99.5 percent of the budget, or 865.8 billion yuan (137.5 billion U.S. dollars), has been invested in post-quake reconstruction efforts, and 99 percent of 29,692 related projects have been completed. . . . Local governments have successfully helped more than 12 million people in rural and urban areas repair their houses, and have relocated 200,000 farmers who lost their farmlands, the vice governor added.
Precursors and postmortems
The earthquake was the worst to strike the Sichuan area in over 30 years. Following the quake, experts and the general public sought information on whether or not the earthquake could have been predicted in advance, and whether or not studying statistics related to the quake could result in better prediction of earthquakes in the future. Earthquake prediction is not yet established science; there was no consensus within the scientific community that earthquake "prediction" is possible.
In 2002, Chinese geologist Chen Xuezhong published a Seismic Risk Analysis study in which he came to the conclusion that beginning with 2003, attention should be paid to the possibility of an earthquake with a magnitude of over 7.0 occurring in Sichuan region. He based his study on statistical correlation. That Sichuan is a seismically active area has been discussed for years prior to the quake, though few studies point to a specific date and time.
In a press conference held by the State Council Information Office the day after the earthquake, geologist Zhang Xiaodong, deputy director of CEA's Seismic Monitoring Network Center, restated that earthquake prediction was a global issue, in the sense that no proven methods exist, and that no prediction notification was received before the earthquake. Seismologist Gary Gibson of Monash University in Australia told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that he also did not see anything that could be regarded as having 'predicted' the earthquake's occurrence.
The earthquake also provided opportunities for researchers to retrofit data in order to model future earthquake predictions. Using data from the Intermagnet Lanzhou geomagnetic observatory, geologists Lazo Pekevski from the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje in Macedonia and Strachimir Mavrodiev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences attempted to establish a "time prediction method" through collecting statistics on geomagnetism with tidal gravitational potential. Using this method, they were said to have predicted the time of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake with an accuracy of ±1 day. The same study, however, acknowledges the limitation of earthquake prediction models, and does not mention that the location of the quake could be accurately predicted.
An article in Science suggested that the construction and filling of the Zipingpu Dam may have triggered the earthquake. The chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau said that the sudden shift of a huge quantity of water into the region could have relaxed the tension between the two sides of the fault, allowing them to move apart, and could have increased the direct pressure on it, causing a violent rupture. The effect was "25 times more" than a year's worth of natural stress from tectonic movement. The government had disregarded warnings about so many large-scale dam projects in a seismically active area. Researchers have been denied access to seismological and geological data to examine the cause of the quake further.
Malaysia-based Yazhou Zhoukan conducted an interview with former researcher at the China Seismological Bureau Geng Qingguo (耿庆国), in which Geng claimed that a confidential written report was sent to the State Seismological Bureau on April 30, 2008, warning about the possible occurrence of a significant earthquake in Ngawa Prefecture region of Sichuan around May 8, with a range of 10 days before or after the quake. Geng, while acknowledging that earthquake prediction was broadly considered problematic by the scientific community, believed that "the bigger the earthquake, the easier it is to predict." Geng had long attempted to establish a correlation between the occurrence of droughts and earthquakes; Premier Zhou Enlai reportedly took an interest in Geng's work. Geng's drought-earthquake correlation theory was first released in 1972, and said to have successfully predicted the 1975 Haicheng and 1976 Tangshan earthquakes. The same Yazhou Zhoukan article pointed out the inherent difficulties associated with predicting earthquakes. In response, an official with the Seismological Bureau stated that "earthquake prediction is widely acknowledged around the world to be difficult from a scientific standpoint." The official also denied that the Seismological Bureau had received reports predicting the earthquake.
See also
List of deadly earthquakes since 1900
List of earthquakes in China
List of earthquakes in Sichuan
List of natural disasters by death toll
Lists of earthquakes
Natural disasters in China
References
External links
MIT Report: Earthquake near Wenchuan, West Sichuan, China
Web site about the people and the reconstruction since the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China
Lake Formation in the Aftermath of Magnitude 7.9 Earthquake (images included)
Earthquake Details and Facts
Sichuan Earthquake Pictures Archive
Compilation of BBC Videos Related to the Earthquake
CNN – Chinese Earthquake Entire Video Archive
"China Quake" documentary produced by Natural History New Zealand
China Quake Victims’ Parents Sue – China Digital Times
Sichuan earthquake
Category:Earthquakes in China
Earthquakes
Sichuan earthquake 2008
Category:Articles containing video clips
Sichuan earthquake
Sichuan earthquake |
2016-01 | Just_Dance_2014-697215559 | Just_Dance_2014 | Just Dance 2014
Just Dance 2014 is a dance video game developed by Ubisoft Paris, in collaboration with Ubisoft Milan, Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Bucharest, Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Montpellier. The fifth main installment in the franchise, it was officially announced at Ubisoft's E3 2014 press event, and released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U on 9 October 2013, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as launch titles on 15 November and 22 November 2013 respectively. A sequel, Just Dance 2015 was released in October 2014.
The game introduced several new features to the franchise, including expanded second screen support for Wii U and Xbox platforms, the ability to record and share video clips of gameplay on supported platforms, and online multiplayer through the "World Dance Floor" mode.
Gameplay
As in previous instalments, players must mimic the routine of an on-screen dancer to a chosen song, scoring points based on their accuracy.
Selected songs now feature "On Stage" modes—routines in which one player dances in a lead role while others players dance backup routines. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions also include routines that can be played by up to six players at once. The "AutoDance" feature allows users to record footage of their gameplay, which can then be uploaded to the Just Dance website or shared on social networks. If a microphone is available, players can also earn bonus "Mojo" points for singing along with the song.
Online multiplayer was added by means of a ghost data system, as well a new mode known as "World Dance Floor"—in which players compete against others simultaneously on the same song in a massively multiplayer setting. Players can join in at any time, compare their performance against other players during and after each song, and increase their level by playing more often. Occasionally, players can vote to decide on the next song.
Additional second screen features are available on the Wii U and Xbox versions of the game using a Wii U GamePad or Xbox SmartGlass; users can manage playlists, and manipulate gameplay and routines in the "Party Master" mode. The GamePad's camera can also be used to record AutoDance footage and serve as a microphone for karaoke.
Soundtrack
There are a total of 50 songs in the main soundtrack.
Downloadable content
Additional songs and routines for Just Dance 2014 were released as downloadable content. Some DLC songs were re-issues of songs released as DLC for previous editions.
The game offers downloadable content songs for the player to download. One of them is free of charge.
(PAL) means that it is only a DLC for PAL versions
(JD4) means that it is a song in the original tracklist of Just Dance 4
(JD4DLC) means it is also a DLC for Just Dance 4
(FDLC) means that it is a free DLC
(X) means that the song has been removed from the game, and unknown if it will return.
Reception
IGN praised Just Dance 2014s continued focus on being a casual party game in comparison to the more sophisticated nature of Dance Central, acknowledging its "accessible, silly, and endearingly creative" routines, the "On Stage" routines providing "a stage for particularly ostentatious dancers to shine" that "[brims] with sexual tension, an essential element of any classic party game from Truth or Dare to Twister", and increasing production values over previous installments, but also noting that its soundtrack was skewed more towards recent music. It was also noted that the World Dance Floor mode could help players who cannot decide on a song due to the game's large soundtrack. In conclusion, giving the game a 7.9 out of 10, IGN explained that "Just Dance 2014 exerts no pressure, and demands no skill. It just invites you to have fun with it, whoever you are and whatever music you like. It’s wildly silly, creative and colourful, relying on daft, characterful choreography and to evoke a party atmosphere that puts everyone at ease."
References
Category:2013 video games
Category:Dance video games
Category:Exergames
Category:Just Dance (video game series)
Category:Kinect games
Category:Music video games
Category:PlayStation 3 games
Category:PlayStation 4 games
Category:PlayStation Move-compatible games
Category:Ubisoft games
Category:Video games developed in Italy
Category:Wii games
Category:Wii U games
Category:Wii U eShop games
Category:Xbox 360 games
Category:Xbox One games |
2016-01 | NXT_WWE_brand-697725476 | NXT_WWE_brand | NXT (WWE brand)
WWE NXT is the professional wrestling developmental branch for WWE, based in Winter Park, Florida. It was founded by Triple H (Paul Levesque). From its inception in August 2012 to June 2013, it was a distinct but affiliated developmental territory for WWE under the name NXT Wrestling. In June 2013, the NXT Wrestling website was shut down and NXT content was moved to WWE.com. From February 2014, NXT started a series of live special events broadcast on the WWE Network, comparable to main roster pay-per-view shows.
Despite its status as a developmental branch, NXT has been praised for its high quality of wrestling, and captivating storylines. NXT has received praise for the opportunities they afford female wrestlers as opposed to on the main roster, which has led to a change on how women's wrestling is portrayed in WWE.
History
In August 2012, WWE ceased operating Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), its developmental promotion in Tampa, Florida, deactivated FCW titles, and began running all of its developmental events and operations at Full Sail University under the "NXT Wrestling" banner. WWE had been using the NXT name for a television program featuring rookies from FCW competing to become WWE main roster members, though the reality television aspects of the show had been dropped earlier in 2012; WWE NXT now serves as the primary television program for the promotion.
On February 27, 2014, NXT held its first live two hour special event called NXT Arrival, which was also the first live in-ring program broadcast on the WWE Network. Eventually, WWE scheduled more live two-hour special events.
In 2015, NXT promoted its first live events outside of Florida, with an event that was held in March in Columbus, Ohio.
In late February and March 2015, several former NXT trainees previously working within WWE developmental system alleged misconduct by head trainer Bill DeMott, with Judas Devlin and Brandon Traven publicizing complaints which they claimed they had submitted to WWE management about DeMott back in March 2013 when they were still employed with WWE. Meanwhile, other ex-trainees like Briley Pierce, Derrick Bateman, and independent wrestler Terra Calaway also made allegations in 2015, while previous allegations made in 2013 by Chad Baxter and Chase Donovan were also noted. They accused DeMott of making trainees perform dangerous drills, physically assaulting and bullying trainees, using homophobic and racial slurs amongst other derogatory terms, and condoning sexual harassment. WWE released statements regarding some of the claims that came to light in 2013 and 2015 saying that investigations were done and no wrongdoing was found. On March 6, 2015, DeMott denied the allegations but resigned from WWE "to avoid any embarrassment or damage" to the company.
Championships and accomplishments
Current championships
Other accomplishment(s)
Roster
Male wrestlers
Female wrestlers
Backstage personnel
Referees
On-air personalities
Authority figures
Commentators
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! style="background:#e3e3e3; width:15%;"|Commentators
! style="background:#e3e3e3; width:15%;"|Dates
|-
|Jim Ross and Byron Saxton
| —
|-
|Byron Saxton, William Regal and Jim Ross
| —
|-
|Jim Ross and William Regal
| —
|-
|Tony Luftman and William Regal
| —
|-
|Tony Dawson, William Regal, Tom Phillips and Brad Maddox
| —
|-
|Tony Dawson, William Regal, Tom Phillips and Alex Riley
| —
|-
|Tom Phillips, William Regal, Byron Saxton, Alex Riley, Jason Albert and Renee Young
| —
|-
|Tom Phillips, William Regal, Byron Saxton, Rich Brennan, Alex Riley, Jason Albert and Renee Young
| —
|-
|Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton, Renee Young, Rich Brennan, Alex Riley and Jason Albert
| —
|-
|Rich Brennan, Alex Riley, Jason Albert, Renee Young
| —
|-
|Rich Brennan, Alex Riley, Jason Albert, Renee Young and Corey Graves
| —
|-
|Rich Brennan, Tom Phillips, Alex Riley, Corey Graves and Jason Albert
| —
|-
|Rich Brennan, Tom Phillips, Corey Graves and Jason Albert
| —
|-
|Rich Brennan and Corey Graves
| — —
|-
|Rich Brennan, Corey Graves and Byron Saxton
| — — present
|}
Notes
Jim Ross largely only called the main event.
The pairings of Dawson and Regal and Phillips and Maddox commentate on alternate shows. Riley replaced Maddox in August 2013 after Maddox became General Manager of WWE Raw. Scott Stanford serves as narrator.
Tony Luftman and Tony Dawson were the same commentator.
Ring announcers
Television showWWE NXT is a professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that airs on the WWE Network in the United States. The show (which premiered ) features wrestlers from NXT and WWE. The show currently serves as the flagship program for the eponymous WWE NXT developmental system.
From 2010–2012, WWE aired a previous version of WWE NXT' which consisted of pairing "Rookies" with WWE main roster members (known as "Pros"), with the pairs competing in challenges until there was one sole winner. The winners of the show were Wade Barrett (Season 1), Kaval (Season 2), Kaitlyn (Season 3) and Johnny Curtis (Season 4). After season 5, the show was replaced with a homonymous television show featuring the developmental NXT roster.
ProductionNXT was taped in large venues before the WWE Smackdown tapings and used the universal WWE HD set from 2010–2012. When WWE revamped the show, they moved the tapings to Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida, with the venue known as Full Sail Live. WWE started taping NXT in Florida on May 17, 2012. Tickets are available free for Full Sail students; general admission for non-students is $10. NXT aired on Syfy from 2010-2011. In 2011, when SmackDown moved to Syfy, NXT moved to WWE.COM, and after Season 5, NXT stopped broadcasting in the US until September 2012 when WWE reached a deal with Hulu Plus, on which new episodes of NXT began airing September 26, 2012.
NXT began airing on the WWE Network on February 27, 2014 with a live event called NXT Arrival.
International broadcastersNXT'' is also televised on a number of channels in many different countries.
NXT TakeOver Specials
Scheduled upcoming events
NXT TV Episodes away from Full Sail University
To date, only four TV episodes have been recorded away from Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida.
See also
WWE NXT (TV series)
Florida Championship Wrestling, the developmental territory that preceded WWE NXT
WWE Performance Center
WWE Tough Enough
WWE, owner of WWE NXT
References
External links
NXT
NXT
Category:American web series
Category:2007 establishments in Florida
Category:American professional wrestling promotions |
2016-01 | Deftones-697456083 | Deftones | Deftones
Deftones are an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California. The band, which was founded in 1988, consists of Chino Moreno (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Stephen Carpenter (lead guitar), Frank Delgado (keyboards and turntables), Abe Cunningham (drums and percussion) and Sergio Vega (bass). The group's original bassist was Chi Cheng, whose career with the band ended when he was left comatose from a 2008 car accident, which ultimately led to his death in 2013. Deftones have released seven albums, with three platinum (Adrenaline, Around the Fur, White Pony) and one gold certification (for Deftones).
History
Early years (1988–1993)
When Stephen Carpenter was 15 years old, he was hit by a car while skateboarding. Confined to a wheelchair for several months, he began teaching himself guitar by playing along to bands such as Anthrax, Stormtroopers of Death and Metallica. The driver supposedly paid Carpenter a cash settlement that allowed the band to purchase equipment, but Cunningham commented in an interview that the story was simply "a myth about how our band was started."
Carpenter, Moreno and Cunningham were friends from their childhood. All three went to McClatchy High School in Sacramento and remained friends through the city's skateboarding scene. When Moreno found out that Carpenter played guitar, he set up a jam session with Cunningham, who played drums, and the three began playing regularly in Carpenter's garage around 1988. After playing with several bassists, the band acquired Cheng and recorded a four-track demo soon afterwards. Within two years, the band began playing club shows and later expanded their gigging territory to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where they played shows alongside bands such as Korn. While closing for another band in L.A., after the majority of the audience had left, the band impressed a Maverick Records representative. They were signed to the label after performing three of their songs for Freddy DeMann and Guy Oseary.
The name "Deftones" was created by Carpenter, who wanted to pick "something that would just stand out but you know, not be all cheese-ball at the same time." Carpenter combined the hip hop slang term "def," which was used by artists such as LL Cool J and Public Enemy, with the suffix "-tones," which was popular among 1950s bands (e.g., Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, The Quin-Tones, The Monotones, The Cleftones, and The Harptones). Carpenter said the name is intentionally vague to reflect the band's tendency to not focus on just one style of music.
Adrenaline (1994–1996)
The band's debut album, Adrenaline, was recorded at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle, Washington and released on October 3, 1995. It was produced by Deftones and Terry Date, who would go on to produce the band's next three albums. While they were initially unsuccessful, the band built a dedicated fan base through extensive touring, word-of-mouth and Internet promotion; Adrenaline also went on to sell over 220,000 copies. The band contributed the non-album track "Teething" to the soundtrack for the 1996 film The Crow: City of Angels and were also seen performing the song live during one of the film's scenes. The track "Engine No. 9" has since been covered by Korn and Suicide Silence and appeared in the film Law Abiding Citizen.
The album spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, reaching a peak position of 23. When asked what he attributed the album's success to, Cheng responded, "One word: perseverance. We've been together for almost eight years, on the road for two, and we do it with honesty and integrity – and the kids can tell." The album was certified gold by the RIAA on July 7, 1999 in recognition of 500,000 units sold.
Regarding the recording of the album, Cunningham said, "At the time we did the first record – which I really like and think is good – you can tell the band was really young. We'd been playing most of those songs for quite a while, and we were just so happy to be making a record that we didn't really think a whole lot about making the songs better." Moreno felt that Adrenaline was recorded "really fast" and performed all his vocals live with the band in the room using a hand-held Shure SM58 microphone. AllMusic's review of Adrenaline praised the album's musical control, precision, overall groove, and Cunningham's "surprisingly sophisticated drumming". It was also noted that "there is a bit of sameness in Chino Moreno's whispered vocal melodies, which drags the record down a bit."
Adrenaline was eventually certified platinum on September 23, 2008 by the RIAA, in recognition of 1 million units sold.
Around the Fur (1997–1999)
Deftones' second album, Around the Fur, was recorded at Studio Litho in Seattle, Washington and produced by Date. Released on October 28, 1997, the album was dedicated to Dana Wells, the late stepson of the singer Max Cavalera of Sepultura, Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy. Cavalera also collaborated on "Headup", a tribute to Wells. Although not yet a member of the band, Delgado was credited as "audio" on five of the album's tracks and Cunningham's wife, Annalynn, provided guest vocals on "MX".
"When we went in to make this record, we really didn't have a set idea of what we wanted to come out with," said Moreno in a 1998 interview with Chart magazine. However, he felt that the album "fell into place" once the band had settled into the studio. The band expanded its sound, spending more time with Date and giving more thought to the album's production. Cunningham varied his drum sound and experimented by using different types of snare drum on almost every track. The album was praised for its loud-soft dynamics, the flow of the tracks, Moreno's unusual vocals, and the strong rhythm-section performance of Cheng and Cunningham. Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review noted that "while they don't have catchy riffs or a fully developed sound, Around the Fur suggests they're about to come into their own."
The album was highly anticipated, and propelled the band to fame in the alternative metal scene on the strength of radio and MTV airplay for the singles "My Own Summer (Shove It)" and "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)". Around the Fur sold 43,000 copies in its first week of release, and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 29 (its peak position), remaining on the charts for 17 weeks. The band went back to touring, making appearances at the Warped Tour (in the United States, New Zealand and Australia), the Pinkpop Festival, the Roskilde Festival, and Ozzfest as well as releasing a live EP on June 22, 1999. Around the Fur went on to reach RIAA gold status on June 24, 1999, and platinum status on June 7, 2011. "My Own Summer (Shove It)" appeared on The Matrix: Music from the Motion Picture, released March 30, 1999.
White Pony (2000–2002)
On June 20, 2000, the band released their third album, White Pony, again produced by Date and Deftones. It was recorded at the Plant Studios in Sausalito, California and at Larrabee Sound Studios, West Hollywood, California. The album debuted at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard chart with sales of 178,000 copies. Delgado, now a full-time band member, added new elements to the band's music. The melancholy "Teenager", for example, was a radical departure in style and mood, a "love song," according to Moreno, which incorporated elements of glitch and trip hop, with programming duties carried out by DJ Crook, a friend of Moreno and his bandmate in his side-project. "Passenger" was a collaboration with singer Maynard James Keenan of Tool, the refrain in "Knife Prty" featured vocals by Rodleen Getsic, and Scott Weiland did some backing vocals on "RX Queen". Moreno also started contributing additional guitar on several tracks.
An interview with the band in Alternative Press explained the recording process of White Pony. After a break from touring, the band spent four months in the studio writing and recording it, the longest amount of time they had dedicated to an album thus far. Moreno explained that the majority of this time was spent trying to write songs, and that the writing of "Change (In the House of Flies)" was the turning point where the band began working as a group. Despite being pressured to release the album sooner, the band decided to take their time. Cheng explained, "We didn't feel like we had anything to lose, so we made the record we wanted to make." Moreno did not have a common theme in mind lyrically, but made a conscious decision to bring an element of fantasy into his lyrics, explaining, "I basically didn't sing about myself on this record. I made up a lot of story lines and some dialogue, even. I took myself completely out of it and wrote about other things."
Reviews were generally positive, commenting on Moreno's increasing sophistication as a lyricist and the group's experimentalism. Allmusic's review commented on White Pony; the reviewer wrote that "Deftones went soft, but in an impressive way, to twist around its signature punk thrash sound."
The album was originally released as an 11-track edition beginning with "Feiticeira" and ending with "Pink Maggit" and featuring gray cover art. A limited edition print of 50,000 black and red jewel case versions of White Pony were also released at the same time with a bonus 12th track titled "The Boy's Republic". Later, the band released "Back to School (Mini Maggit)", a rap-influenced interpretation of "Pink Maggit". "Back to School (Mini Maggit)" was track 11 on the leaked pre-release version of White Pony in April 2000 but was not included on the original (official) issue of the album in June 2000. The leaked version of White Pony also included the slower version of "Pink Maggit" that appeared on the first official White Pony CDs. That song was listed as a bonus track (track 12) on the leaked pre-release version. The song was released as a single and included as the new opening track of a re-released White Pony on October 3, 2000. The new release still had "Pink Maggit" as the final track and featured altered white cover art. Not entirely happy with re-releasing the album, the band negotiated to have "Back to School" made available as a free download for anyone who had already bought the original album. Chino noted that "Everybody's already downloaded our record before it came out anyway, otherwise I'd be kind of feelin' like, 'Man, why [are] we putting [out] all these different versions of the record?' [...] that's the best way we can actually get this song out to the people who already purchased this record, for free basically. And if they wanna buy the record again, it's cool."
White Pony achieved platinum status on July 17, 2002, selling over 1.3 million copies in the US, and earning the band a 2001 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for the song "Elite".
Deftones (2003–2005)
Deftones began work on their fourth album under the working title Lovers. Regarding the album's direction, Cheng commented, "We've proven that we can musically go in any direction we want, and we want to get kind of heavy on this one." Moreno underwent vocal training as a precaution after severely damaging his vocal cords on the band's 2001 summer tour. The band converted their rehearsal space in Sacramento into a fully equipped studio and recorded most of the album there at negligible cost. The band brought in Date to assist with production and also received input on musical arrangement from Greg Wells on several of the album's tracks. The band later added more material at Studio X in Seattle, WA and at Larrabee Sound Studios. Overall, the album took 12 months and cost roughly $2.5 million to complete. The band was fined by Maverick for missing deadlines.
In January 2003, Deftones left the studio to perform several one-off shows in Australia and New Zealand as part of the annual Big Day Out Festival. Shortly after, the band returned to the studio to finish their fourth album. The self-titled Deftones was released on May 20, 2003. It entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2 and sold 167,000 copies in its first week. The album remained in the Billboard Top 100 for nine weeks, supported by the first single, "Minerva". The band shot a video for their second single, "Hexagram", with fans watching the band play the song in an indoor skatepark in Simi Valley, California. The band made a video for the track "Bloody Cape", but it was never released for television play. The video was only made available on the band's official website for one day. It was later issued on their B-Sides and Rarities DVD.
Reviews were mainly positive, praising the band for the heavy album's progression and originality in the midst of declining creativity in contemporary metal. Moreno was quoted as saying, "It's all on record. We told motherfuckers not to lump us in with nu metal because when those bands go down we aren't going to be with them." In reviewing Deftones, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "Hexagram", the album's opener, "hits hard — harder than they ever have, revealing how mushy Staind is, or how toothless Linkin Park is." He also went on to say, however, that the album "sticks a little too close to familiar territory." A.V. Club (The Onion) similarly called the album "less rewarding than its predecessor, though its peaks rival any in the genre."
The band released a compilation album titled B-Sides & Rarities on October 4, 2005. The CD includes various B-sides and covers from throughout their career, while the DVD contains behind-the-scenes footage and the band's complete videography up to that point.
Saturday Night Wrist (2006–2007)
Deftones released their fifth album, Saturday Night Wrist, on October 31, 2006. It debuted at No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard chart with sales of just over 76,000, a significant decrease in the first-week sales of their two previous releases.
Rather than work with Date, their producer for many years, Deftones decided to record with Bob Ezrin. Cunningham said that while the group enjoyed working with Date, "at this point, we just needed to change things up [...] And this is definitely a different style. Working with him [Ezrin] is just putting us fucking upside down. He's cracking the whip."
After recording all the instrumental parts for the record, Chino Moreno decided to record his vocals separately. Moreno thus finished recording the album with former Far guitarist Shaun Lopez as producer. According to interviews with members of Deftones, the tensions involved with the recording of Saturday Night Wrist nearly led to the demise of the band. Collaborations on the record include Annie Hardy from Giant Drag on the song "Pink Cellphone" and Serj Tankian from System of a Down on the track "Mein".
The album's first single, "Hole in the Earth", was first played on radio on October 16, 2006. It was also featured as a downloadable song for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Guitar Hero 3. "Mein" was the album's second single, which aired in the spring of 2007.
As of September 2010, Saturday Night Wrist had sold approximately 325,000 copies (US) and a little over 600,000 worldwide, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Deftones spent the majority of 2006 and 2007 touring around the world in support of the album, performing in North America, Europe, South America, Japan and Australia. The band also performed on such tours as Taste of Chaos, Family Values Tour, and the Soundwave Festival.
Eros sessions and Cheng's car accident (2008–2009)
In the fall of 2007, Deftones started writing songs for what was planned to be their sixth studio album, Eros. Moreno described the album as unorthodox and aggressive. Recording started on April 14, 2008. The album was initially set to be released early in 2009, but was delayed.
On November 4, 2008, Cheng was seriously injured in a car accident in Santa Clara, California. As a result of the injuries sustained in the crash, he remained in a minimally conscious state. Following the accident, Cheng's bandmates and his mother, Jeanne, began using the Deftones blog to post updates on Cheng's condition. On December 9, 2008, it was announced that Cheng had been moved into the care of an unnamed hospital that "specializes in the care and management of traumatic and non-trauma related brain injuries."
In late January 2009, the band released a new statement, stating that "our fallen comrade has not yet made significant progress," and that a friend of the band, Sergio Vega (formerly of Quicksand), would be taking over as bassist in Cheng's absence, as he had done temporarily in 1998. On April 5, the band played their first show without Cheng since 1998 at the Bamboozle Left festival in Irvine, California.
On June 23, 2009, Deftones announced on their official website that Eros would be delayed indefinitely, saying, "As we neared completion on Eros, we realized that this record doesn't best encompass and represent who we are currently as people and as musicians. And although those songs will see the light of day at some point, we collectively made the decision that we needed to take a new approach, and with Chi's condition heavy on our minds while doing so. We needed to return to the studio to do what we felt was right artistically." They also said, "The decision to hold off on releasing Eros has no connection with Chi's condition or anything associated. This was, and is, purely a creative decision by the band to write, record, and deliver an amazing product."
Korn members Brian "Head" Welch and Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, along with members of Sevendust, Slipknot, and other rock bands, recorded and released "A Song for Chi", with proceeds benefitting Cheng and his family. To aid in the fundraising for the Cheng family, the band announced two 2009 benefit shows in Los Angeles.
A website – One Love for Chi – was launched by a Deftones fan about four months after Cheng's accident. The site served as a platform for updates and information on Cheng's condition, as well as serving as an auction site for items donated by friends of the band. All proceeds raised by the website were donated to his family so they could provide him the best possible medical care. Items auctioned on the site included rare and autographed pieces from Sevendust, Alice in Chains, Nikki Sixx, Chris Cornell and others.
Diamond Eyes (2010–2011)
Deftones released their sixth album, Diamond Eyes, on May 4, 2010. Its release was pushed forward from the initially reported May 18 release date, most likely due to the entire album having been leaked onto the Internet in March 2010. On February 23, 2010, the album's first single, "Rocket Skates", was made available for free download at www.gunsrazorsknives.com. The album was produced by Nick Raskulinecz.
On March 15, Deftones debuted their first radio-ready single, "Diamond Eyes". Both "Diamond Eyes" and "Rocket Skates" received positive reviews from fans and critics, with many making comparisons of the two singles' style and sound to that of material from the Around the Fur album.
Teaming up with bands Mastodon and Alice in Chains, Deftones went on tour in the fall of 2010 in the United States and Canada. The tour was called Blackdiamondskye, a portmanteau of the three bands' latest albums (Black Gives Way to Blue, Diamond Eyes, and Crack the Skye). The tour included a limited edition series of silk-screened art prints promoting each show individually, created by the poster artist Jermaine Rogers. Rogers has created a majority of the Deftones concert poster/print artwork since the late 1990s.
On April 16, 2011, in honor of Record Store Day, the band released an LP titled Covers, containing several cover songs that the band had recorded over the years, including "Drive" (originally by The Cars), "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" (originally by The Cure), and "No Ordinary Love" (originally by Sade). On October 25, Deftones released The Vinyl Collection 1995—2011 in a limited edition of 1,000 copies.
Koi No Yokan and Cheng's death (2012–2013)
On March 29, 2012, Carpenter revealed that the band were working on a new record in an interview posted on ESP Guitars's YouTube channel. It was reported that Raskulinecz would return to produce their as-yet-unnamed seventh studio album.
It was also reported that the band would be recording several B-sides for the album, including an Elvis Presley cover and possibly an Earth, Wind, and Fire cover. It was later announced that there would be no bonus tracks. On July 28, Deftones performed a brand-new song titled "Rosemary" and also debuted another track titled "Roller Derby" (later titled "Poltergeist"). Koi No Yokan was announced on August 30, 2012, and released on November 12, 2012, by Reprise Records. The Song "Tempest" appeared in the film Furious 7.
On April 13, 2013, despite making a partial recovery and returning home, Cheng died in a hospital in his hometown of Sacramento, after his heart suddenly stopped, nearly four-and-a-half years after the 2008 accident. Moreno announced in May that the album Eros, shelved in 2008 after Cheng's accident, was now more likely to be released following his death.
Eighth studio album (2014–present)
In March 2014, while Moreno was touring with his side project Crosses, in support of their self-titled debut album, the rest of Deftones began writing a follow up to Koi No Yokan. Deftones also previously reported that they intended to record a new album either in late 2014 or early 2015.
On April 13, 2014, the first anniversary of Cheng's death, Deftones released a track from Eros titled "Smile", the first officially released material from the long-shelved album. The video was removed by Warner Bros. Records two days later due to copyright infringement, despite the track having been uploaded by Moreno. Other videos have since surfaced on YouTube.
In late February 2015, just after the band had finished the new album's drum tracks, Moreno told Rolling Stone that he expected to be done tracking the album by the end of March, that Deftones had written 16 songs during the album's sessions and that it would probably be released in September or October. He described the album as "a little more of a heady record" than the previous album. The album was then tentatively scheduled to be released on September 25, 2015. On May 15, 2015, Moreno was interviewed by Kerrang! about the new album, which he described by saying, "The songs have a lot of different moods." He further explained that it was not a "happy record," but also "not a completely angry record".
On August 21, 2015, it was revealed by Moreno in an interview that the new album's release had been pushed back to late November, as final mixes as well as the title, cover and liner notes were still being completed. It was also revealed that Vega utilized a six-string bass when recording the new material, helping to push the band into new sonic territory. On October 26, 2015, Cunningham clarified that the band are still working on mixes, album art and song titles, and the new album will be coming out in the first part of 2016.
Musical style and influences
Although initially rooted in heavy metal, Deftones have always claimed diverse influences from groups of various genres, with their musical style diversifying over their career. Their sound has been described as alternative metal, art rock, experimental rock, nu metal, post-punk, , dream pop, drone, ambient or atmospheric music, progressive rock and progressive metal, post-rock, metalgaze or post-metal, stoner rock, trip hop and glitch hop, psychedelic rock, rap metal, space rock, and dark pop.
Originally, the band were associated with the "nu metal" movement. However, following the release of their third album, White Pony, they were acknowledged by many critics to have moved beyond that label.
The music critic Johnny Loftus wrote, "Rock critics usually reserve a special place for Deftones above or at least away from the rest of the turn-of-the-century metal movement [....] Deftones have always seemed more curious, more willing to incorporate traditionally revered sounds like D.C. hardcore and dream pop into their Northern California alt-metal."
Moreno's lyrics were described by Time as "suggesting emotions rather than announcing them." Moreno himself described his lyrics as ambiguous and sometimes impersonal, saying: "I like to be ambiguous when writing to a certain extent, and throwing something so brash [as Chi's accident] against that and playing with it. And also making it sound dimensional. Giving the feeling off that it is raw and it is emotional, but it's not just connected with our personal story. It's not merely about our career and our lives, it's bigger than that. When I hear the music, I get inspired to paint the lyrical pictures you describe, but I'm not always talking about myself." The band's legacy has been compared to alternative rock group Radiohead, with some dubbing Deftones "The Radiohead of metal".
Side projects
Deftones members have worked on several side projects, such as Carpenter's cinematic electronic metal group Sol Invicto, which he founded with producer Richie Londres. Carpenter has also worked with a group called Kush, featuring members of Fear Factory and Cypress Hill. Other side projects include Moreno's Team Sleep and Crosses and Cunningham's Phallucy. Delgado is a member of a DJ group called Decibel Devils, with DJ Crook of Team Sleep, DJ Julez and Matt D. Moreno has also made a number of guest appearances on songs by numerous other bands, such as "Bender" by Sevendust, "Paralytic" by Dead Poetic, "Vengeance Is Mine" by Droid, "Caviar" by Dance Gavin Dance, "Surrender Your Sons" by Norma Jean and "Reprogrammed to Hate" by Whitechapel. Moreno and Carpenter also appeared on the song "If I Could" on Tech N9ne's 2011 album All 6's and 7's. In 2000, Cheng released a CD composed of his own spoken word poetry, called The Bamboo Parachute.
In April 2012, it was announced that Moreno had joined Jeff Caxide, Aaron Harris and Clifford Meyer, all former members of the recently disbanded sludge/post-metal group Isis, under the name Palms. Their first album was released in June 2013.
Band members
Current members
Chino Moreno – lead vocals (1988–present), rhythm guitar (1999–present)
Stephen Carpenter – lead guitar (1988–present)
Abe Cunningham – drums (1988–present)
Frank Delgado – keyboards, sampling, turntables (1999–present)
Sergio Vega – bass, backing vocals (2009–present)
Former members
Dominic Garcia – bass (1988); drums (1988)
John Taylor – drums (1988)
Chi Cheng – bass, backing vocals (1988–2008; died 2013)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Adrenaline (1995)
Around the Fur (1997)
White Pony (2000)
Deftones (2003)
Saturday Night Wrist (2006)
Diamond Eyes (2010)
Koi No Yokan (2012)
Awards
|-
| || "Elite" || Best Metal Performance (Grammy Awards) ||
|-
| 2013 || Koi No Yokan || Album of the Year (Revolver Golden Gods Awards) ||
|-
References
External links
Deftones Lyrics
Category:American alternative metal musical groups
Category:American experimental rock groups
Category:American nu metal musical groups
Category:American post-metal musical groups
Category:Grammy Award winners
Category:Heavy metal musical groups from California
Category:Kerrang! Awards winners
Category:Maverick Records artists
Category:Musical groups established in 1988
Category:Musical groups from Sacramento, California
Category:Musical quintets
Category:Reprise Records artists
Category:Rock music groups from California |
2016-01 | California_Gold_Rush-174793299 | California_Gold_Rush | California Gold Rush
REDIRECT California Gold Rush |
2016-01 | Biodiversity-695677708 | Biodiversity | Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety of different types of life found on the Earth and the variations within species. It is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation (number of species) within an area, biome, or planet. Terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is richest in the tropics. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, where sea surface temperature is highest and in the mid-latitudinal band in all oceans. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, but will be likely to slow in the future.
The number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is an essential component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines and other resources to mankind. The richness of biodiversity depends on the climatic conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 70,000 species of plants are known till date. All species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc.
Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions. More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. The total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037, and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon).
The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old. The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago, during the Eoarchean Era after a geological crust started to solidify following the earlier molten Hadean Eon. There are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a biogenic substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, "remains of biotic life" were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth ... then it could be common in the universe."
Since life began on Earth, five major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity. The Phanerozoic eon (the last 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity via the Cambrian explosion—a period during which the majority of multicellular phyla first appeared. The next 400 million years included repeated, massive biodiversity losses classified as mass extinction events. In the Carboniferous, rainforest collapse led to a great loss of plant and animal life. The Permian–Triassic extinction event, 251 million years ago, was the worst; vertebrate recovery took 30 million years. The most recent, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago and has often attracted more attention than others because it resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The period since the emergence of humans has displayed an ongoing biodiversity reduction and an accompanying loss of genetic diversity. Named the Holocene extinction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly habitat destruction. Conversely, biodiversity impacts human health in a number of ways, both positively and negatively.
The United Nations designated 2011–2020 as the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity.
Etymology
The term biological diversity was used first by wildlife scientist and conservationist Raymond F. Dasmann in the year 1968 lay book A Different Kind of Country advocating conservation. The term was widely adopted only after more than a decade, when in the 1980s it came into common usage in science and environmental policy. Thomas Lovejoy, in the foreword to the book Conservation Biology, introduced the term to the scientific community. Until then the term "natural diversity" was common, introduced by The Science Division of The Nature Conservancy in an important 1975 study, "The Preservation of Natural Diversity." By the early 1980s TNC's Science program and its head, Robert E. Jenkins, Lovejoy and other leading conservation scientists at the time in America advocated the use of the term "biological diversity".
The term's contracted form biodiversity may have been coined by W.G. Rosen in 1985 while planning the 1986 National Forum on Biological Diversity organized by the National Research Council (NRC). It first appeared in a publication in 1988 when sociobiologist E. O. Wilson used it as the title of the proceedings of that forum.
Since this period the term has achieved widespread use among biologists, environmentalists, political leaders, and concerned citizens.
A similar term in the United States is "natural heritage." It pre-dates the others and is more accepted by the wider audience interested in conservation. Broader than biodiversity, it includes geology and landforms.
Definitions
"Biodiversity" is most commonly used to replace the more clearly defined and long established terms, species diversity and species richness. Biologists most often define biodiversity as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region". An advantage of this definition is that it seems to describe most circumstances and presents a unified view of the traditional types of biological variety previously identified:
taxonomic diversity (usually measured at the species diversity level)
ecological diversity often viewed from the perspective of ecosystem diversity
morphological diversity which stems from genetic diversity
In 2003 Professor Anthony Campbell at Cardiff University, UK and the Darwin Centre, Pembrokeshire, defined a fourth level: Molecular Diversity.
This multilevel construct is consistent with Dasmann and Lovejoy. An explicit definition consistent with this interpretation was first given in a paper by Bruce A. Wilcox commissioned by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) for the 1982 World National Parks Conference. Wilcox's definition was "Biological diversity is the variety of life forms...at all levels of biological systems (i.e., molecular, organismic, population, species and ecosystem)...".
The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit defined "biological diversity" as "the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, 'inter alia', terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". This definition is used in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
One textbook's definition is "variation of life at all levels of biological organization".
Genetically biodiversity can be defined as the diversity of alleles, genes, and organisms. They study processes such as mutation and gene transfer that drive evolution.
Measuring diversity at one level in a group of organisms may not precisely correspond to diversity at other levels. However, tetrapod (terrestrial vertebrates) taxonomic and ecological diversity shows a very close correlation.
Distribution
Biodiversity is not evenly distributed, rather it varies greatly across the globe as well as within regions. Among other factors, the diversity of all living things (biota) depends on temperature, precipitation, altitude, soils, geography and the presence of other species. The study of the spatial distribution of organisms, species, and ecosystems, is the science of biogeography.
Diversity consistently measures higher in the tropics and in other localized regions such as the Cape Floristic Region and lower in polar regions generally. Rain forests that have had wet climates for a long time, such as Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, have particularly high biodiversity.
Terrestrial biodiversity is up to 25 times greater than ocean biodiversity. Although a recent discovered method put the total number of species on Earth at 8.7 million of which 2.1 million were estimated to live in the ocean, however this estimate seems to under-represent diversity of microorganisms.
Latitudinal gradients
Generally, there is an increase in biodiversity from the poles to the tropics. Thus localities at lower latitudes have more species than localities at higher latitudes. This is often referred to as the latitudinal gradient in species diversity. Several ecological mechanisms may contribute to the gradient, but the ultimate factor behind many of them is the greater mean temperature at the equator compared to that of the poles.
Even though terrestrial biodiversity declines from the equator to the poles, some studies claim that this characteristic is unverified in aquatic ecosystems, especially in marine ecosystems. The latitudinal distribution of parasites does not follow this rule.
Hotspots
A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high level of endemic species that is under threat from humans. The term hotspot was introduced in 1988 by Norman Myers. While hotspots are spread all over the world, the majority are forest areas and most are located in the tropics.
Brazil's Atlantic Forest is considered one such hotspot, containing roughly 20,000 plant species, 1,350 vertebrates, and millions of insects, about half of which occur nowhere else. The island of Madagascar and India are also particularly notable. Colombia is characterized by high biodiversity, with the highest rate of species by area unit worldwide and it has the largest number of endemisms (species that are not found naturally anywhere else) of any country. About 10% of the species of the Earth can be found in Colombia, including over 1,900 species of bird, more than in Europe and North America combined, Colombia has 10% of the world’s mammals species, 14% of the amphibian species and 18% of the bird species of the world. Madagascar dry deciduous forests and lowland rainforests, possess a high ratio of endemism. Since the island separated from mainland Africa 66 million years ago, many species and ecosystems have evolved independently. Indonesia's 17,000 islands cover contain 10% of the world's flowering plants, 12% of mammals and 17% of reptiles, amphibians and birds—along with nearly 240 million people. Many regions of high biodiversity and/or endemism arise from specialized habitats which require unusual adaptations, for example alpine environments in high mountains, or Northern European peat bogs.
Accurately measuring differences in biodiversity can be difficult. Selection bias amongst researchers may contribute to biased empirical research for modern estimates of biodiversity. In 1768 Rev. Gilbert White succinctly observed of his Selborne, Hampshire "all nature is so full, that that district produces the most variety which is the most examined."
Evolution and history
Biodiversity is the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution. The origin of life has not been definitely established by science, however some evidence suggests that life may already have been well-established only a few hundred million years after the formation of the Earth. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of archaea, bacteria, protozoans and similar single-celled organisms.
The history of biodiversity during the Phanerozoic (the last 540 million years), starts with rapid growth during the Cambrian explosion—a period during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first appeared. Over the next 400 million years or so, invertebrate diversity showed little overall trend, and vertebrate diversity shows an overall exponential trend. This dramatic rise in diversity was marked by periodic, massive losses of diversity classified as mass extinction events. A significant loss occurred when rainforests collapsed in the carboniferous. The worst was the Permian-Triassic extinction event, 251 million years ago. Vertebrates took 30 million years to recover from this event.
The fossil record suggests that the last few million years featured the greatest biodiversity in history. However, not all scientists support this view, since there is uncertainty as to how strongly the fossil record is biased by the greater availability and preservation of recent geologic sections. Some scientists believe that corrected for sampling artifacts, modern biodiversity may not be much different from biodiversity 300 million years ago., whereas others consider the fossil record reasonably reflective of the diversification of life. Estimates of the present global macroscopic species diversity vary from 2 million to 100 million, with a best estimate of somewhere near 9 million, the vast majority arthropods. Diversity appears to increase continually in the absence of natural selection.
Evolutionary diversification
The existence of a "global carrying capacity", limiting the amount of life that can live at once, is debated, as is the question of whether such a limit would also cap the number of species. While records of life in the sea shows a logistic pattern of growth, life on land (insects, plants and tetrapods)shows an exponential rise in diversity. As one author states, "Tetrapods have not yet invaded 64 per cent of potentially habitable modes, and it could be that without human influence the ecological and taxonomic diversity of tetrapods would continue to increase in an exponential fashion until most or all of the available ecospace is filled."
On the other hand, changes through the Phanerozoic correlate much better with the hyperbolic model (widely used in population biology, demography and macrosociology, as well as fossil biodiversity) than with exponential and logistic models. The latter models imply that changes in diversity are guided by a first-order positive feedback (more ancestors, more descendants) and/or a negative feedback arising from resource limitation. Hyperbolic model implies a second-order positive feedback. The hyperbolic pattern of the world population growth arises from a second-order positive feedback between the population size and the rate of technological growth. The hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by a feedback between diversity and community structure complexity. The similarity between the curves of biodiversity and human population probably comes from the fact that both are derived from the interference of the hyperbolic trend with cyclical and stochastic dynamics.
Most biologists agree however that the period since human emergence is part of a new mass extinction, named the Holocene extinction event, caused primarily by the impact humans are having on the environment. It has been argued that the present rate of extinction is sufficient to eliminate most species on the planet Earth within 100 years.
New species are regularly discovered (on average between 5–10,000 new species each year, most of them insects) and many, though discovered, are not yet classified (estimates are that nearly 90% of all arthropods are not yet classified). Most of the terrestrial diversity is found in tropical forests and in general, land has more species than the ocean; some 8.7 million species may exists on Earth, of which some 2.1 million live in the ocean
Biodiversity and ecosystem services
The balance of evidence
"Ecosystem services are the suite of benefits that ecosystems provide to humanity."
These services come in three flavors:
Provisioning services which involve the production of renewable resources (e.g.: food, wood, fresh water)
Regulating services which are those that lessen environmental change (e.g.: climate regulation, pest/disease control)
Cultural services represent human value and enjoyment (e.g.: landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance)
There have been many claims about biodiversity’s effect on these ecosystem services, especially provisioning and regulating services. After an exhaustive survey through peer-reviewed literature to evaluate 36 different claims about biodiversity's effect on ecosystem services, 14 of those claims have been validated, 6 demonstrate mixed support or are unsupported, 3 are incorrect and 13 lack enough evidence to draw definitive conclusions.
Services enhanced by biodiversity
Provisioning services
Greater species diversity of plants increases fodder yield (synthesis of 271 experimental studies).
Greater genetic diversity of plants (i.e.: diversity within a single species) increases overall crop yield (synthesis of 575 experimental studies). Although another review of 100 experimental studies reports mixed evidence.
Greater species diversity of trees increases overall wood production (Synthesis of 53 experimental studies). However, there is not enough data to draw a conclusion about the effect of tree trait diversity on wood production.
Regulating services
Greater species diversity of fish increases the stability of fisheries yield (Synthesis of 8 observational studies)
Greater species diversity of natural pest enemies decreases herbivorous pest populations (Data from two separate reviews; Synthesis of 266 experimental and observational studies; Synthesis of 18 observational studies. Although another review of 38 experimental studies found mixed support for this claim, suggesting that in cases where mutual intraguild predation occurs, a single predatory species is often more effective
Greater species diversity of plants decreases disease prevalence on plants (Synthesis of 107 experimental studies)
Greater species diversity of plants increases resistance to plant invasion (Data from two separate reviews; Synthesis of 105 experimental studies; Synthesis of 15 experimental studies)
Greater species diversity of plants increases carbon sequestration, but note that this finding only relates to actual uptake of carbon dioxide and not long term storage, see below; Synthesis of 479 experimental studies)
Greater species diversity of plants increases soil nutrient remineralization (Synthesis of 103 experimental studies)
Greater species diversity of plants increases soil organic matter (Synthesis of 85 experimental studies)
Services with mixed evidence
Provisioning services
None to date
Regulating services
Greater species diversity of plants may or may not decrease herbivorous pest populations. Data from two separate reviews suggest that greater diversity decreases pest populations (Synthesis of 40 observational studies; Synthesis of 100 experimental studies). One review found mixed evidence (Synthesis of 287 experimental studies), while another found contrary evidence (Synthesis of 100 experimental studies)
Greater species diversity of animals may or may not decrease disease prevalence on those animals (Synthesis of 45 experimental and observational studies), although a 2013 study offers more support showing that biodiversity may in fact enhance disease resistance within animal communities, at least in amphibian frog ponds. Many more studies must be published in support of diversity to sway the balance of evidence will be such that we can draw a general rule on this service.
Greater species and trait diversity of plants may or may not increase long term carbon storage (Synthesis of 33 observational studies)
Greater pollinator diversity may or may not increase pollination (Synthesis of 7 observational studies), but a publication from March 2013 suggests that increased native pollinator diversity enhances pollen deposition (although not necessarily fruit set as the authors would have you believe, for details explore their lengthy supplementary material).
Services for which biodiversity is a hindrance
Provisioning services
Greater species diversity of plants reduces primary production (Synthesis of 7 experimental studies)
Regulating services
Greater genetic and species diversity of a number of organisms reduces freshwater purification (Synthesis of 8 experimental studies, although an attempt by the authors to investigate the effect of detritivore diversity on freshwater purification was unsuccessful due to a lack of available evidence (only 1 observational study was found
Services for which there is insufficient data to draw conclusions
Provisioning services
Effect of species diversity of plants on biofuel yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 3 studies)
Effect of species diversity of fish on fishery yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 4 experimental studies and 1 observational study)
Regulating services
Effect of species diversity on the stability of biofuel yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators did not find any studies)
Effect of species diversity of plants on the stability of fodder yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 2 studies)
Effect of species diversity of plants on the stability of crop yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 1 study)
Effect of genetic diversity of plants on the stability of crop yield (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 2 studies)
Effect of diversity on the stability of wood production (In a survey of the literature, the investigators could not find any studies)
Effect of species diversity of multiple taxa on erosion control (In a survey of the literature, the investigators could not find any studies – they did however find studies on the effect of species diversity and root biomass)
Effect of diversity on flood regulation (In a survey of the literature, the investigators could not find any studies)
Effect of species and trait diversity of plants on soil moisture (In a survey of the literature, the investigators only found 2 studies)
Other sources have reported somewhat conflicting results, and in 1997 Robert Costanza and colleagues reported the estimated global value of ecosystem services (not captured in traditional markets) at an average of $33 trillion annually.
Since the stone age, species loss has accelerated above the average basal rate, driven by human activity. Estimates of species losses are at a rate 100-10,000 times as fast as is typical in the fossil record.
Biodiversity also affords many non-material benefits including spiritual and aesthetic values, knowledge systems and education.
Biodiversity and agriculture
Agricultural diversity can be divided into two categories: intraspecific diversity, which includes the genetic variety within a single species, like the potato (Solanum tuberosum) that is composed of many different forms and types (e.g.: in the U.S. we might compare russet potatoes with new potatoes or purple potatoes, all different, but all part of the same species, S. tuberosum).
The other category of agricultural diversity is called interspecific diversity and refers to the number and types of different species. Thinking about this diversity we might note that many small vegetable farmers grow many different crops like potatoes, and also carrots, peppers, lettuce etc.
Agricultural diversity can also be divided by whether it is ‘planned’ diversity or ‘associated’ diversity. This is a functional classification that we impose and not an intrinsic feature of life or diversity. Planned diversity includes the crops which a farmer has encouraged, planted or raised (e.g.: crops, covers, symbionts and livestock, among others), which can be contrasted with the associated diversity that arrives among the crops, uninvited (e.g.: herbivores, weed species and pathogens, among others).
The control of associated biodiversity is one of the great agricultural challenges that farmers face. On monoculture farms, the approach is generally to eradicate associated diversity using a suite of biologically destructive pesticides, mechanized tools and transgenic engineering techniques, then to rotate crops. Although some polyculture farmers use the same techniques, they also employ integrated pest management strategies as well as strategies that are more labor-intensive, but generally less dependent on capital, biotechnology and energy.
Interspecific crop diversity is, in part, responsible for offering variety in what we eat. Intraspecific diversity, the variety of alleles within a single species, also offers us choice in our diets. If a crop fails in a monoculture, we rely on agricultural diversity to replant the land with something new. If a wheat crop is destroyed by a pest we may plant a hardier variety of wheat the next year, relying on intraspecific diversity. We may forgo wheat production in that area and plant a different species altogether, relying on interspecific diversity. Even an agricultural society which primarily grows monocultures, relies on biodiversity at some point.
The Irish potato blight of 1846 was a major factor in the deaths of one million people and the emigration of about two million. It was the result of planting only two potato varieties, both vulnerable to the blight, Phytophthora infestans, which arrived in 1845
When rice grassy stunt virus struck rice fields from Indonesia to India in the 1970s, 6,273 varieties were tested for resistance. Only one was resistant, an Indian variety, and known to science only since 1966. This variety formed a hybrid with other varieties and is now widely grown.
Coffee rust attacked coffee plantations in Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Central America in 1970. A resistant variety was found in Ethiopia. The diseases are themselves a form of biodiversity.
Monoculture was a contributing factor to several agricultural disasters, including the European wine industry collapse in the late 19th century, and the US southern corn leaf blight epidemic of 1970.
Although about 80 percent of humans' food supply comes from just 20 kinds of plants, humans use at least 40,000 species. Many people depend on these species for food, shelter, and clothing. Earth's surviving biodiversity provides resources for increasing the range of food and other products suitable for human use, although the present extinction rate shrinks that potential.
Biodiversity and human health
Biodiversity's relevance to human health is becoming an international political issue, as scientific evidence builds on the global health implications of biodiversity loss. This issue is closely linked with the issue of climate change, as many of the anticipated health risks of climate change are associated with changes in biodiversity (e.g. changes in populations and distribution of disease vectors, scarcity of fresh water, impacts on agricultural biodiversity and food resources etc.) This is because the species most likely to disappear are those that buffer against infectious disease transmission, while surviving species tend to be the ones that increase disease transmission, such as that of West Nile Virus, Lyme disease and Hantavirus, according to a study done co-authored by Felicia Keesing, an ecologist at Bard College, and Drew Harvell, associate director for Environment of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) at Cornell University.
The growing demand and lack of drinkable water on the planet presents an additional challenge to the future of human health. Partly, the problem lies in the success of water suppliers to increase supplies, and failure of groups promoting preservation of water resources. While the distribution of clean water increases, in some parts of the world it remains unequal. According to 2008 World Population Data Sheet, only 62% of least developed countries are able to access clean water.
Some of the health issues influenced by biodiversity include dietary health and nutrition security, infectious disease, medical science and medicinal resources, social and psychological health. Biodiversity is also known to have an important role in reducing disaster risk, and in post-disaster relief and recovery efforts.
Biodiversity provides critical support for drug discovery and the availability of medicinal resources. A significant proportion of drugs are derived, directly or indirectly, from biological sources: at least 50% of the pharmaceutical compounds on the US market are derived from plants, animals, and micro-organisms, while about 80% of the world population depends on medicines from nature (used in either modern or traditional medical practice) for primary healthcare. Only a tiny fraction of wild species has been investigated for medical potential. Biodiversity has been critical to advances throughout the field of bionics. Evidence from market analysis and biodiversity science indicates that the decline in output from the pharmaceutical sector since the mid-1980s can be attributed to a move away from natural product exploration ("bioprospecting") in favor of genomics and synthetic chemistry, indeed claims about the value of undiscovered pharmaceuticals may not provide enough incentive for companies in free markets to search for them because of the high cost of development; meanwhile, natural products have a long history of supporting significant economic and health innovation. Marine ecosystems are particularly important, although inappropriate bioprospecting can increase biodiversity loss, as well as violating the laws of the communities and states from which the resources are taken.
Biodiversity, business and industry
Many industrial materials derive directly from biological sources. These include building materials, fibers, dyes, rubber and oil. Biodiversity is also important to the security of resources such as water, timber, paper, fiber, and food. As a result, biodiversity loss is a significant risk factor in business development and a threat to long term economic sustainability.
Biodiversity, leisure, cultural and aesthetic value
Biodiversity enriches leisure activities such as hiking, birdwatching or natural history study. Biodiversity inspires musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and other artists. Many cultures view themselves as an integral part of the natural world which requires them to respect other living organisms.
Popular activities such as gardening, fishkeeping and specimen collecting strongly depend on biodiversity. The number of species involved in such pursuits is in the tens of thousands, though the majority do not enter commerce.
The relationships between the original natural areas of these often exotic animals and plants and commercial collectors, suppliers, breeders, propagators and those who promote their understanding and enjoyment are complex and poorly understood. The general public responds well to exposure to rare and unusual organisms, reflecting their inherent value.
Philosophically it could be argued that biodiversity has intrinsic aesthetic and spiritual value to mankind in and of itself. This idea can be used as a counterweight to the notion that tropical forests and other ecological realms are only worthy of conservation because of the services they provide.
Biodiversity and ecological services
Biodiversity supports many ecosystem services:
"There is now unequivocal evidence that biodiversity loss reduces the efficiency by which ecological communities capture biologically essential resources, produce biomass, decompose and recycle biologically essential nutrients... There is mounting evidence that biodiversity increases the stability of ecosystem functions through time... Diverse communities are more productive because they contain key species that have a large influence on productivity, and differences in functional traits among organisms increase total resource capture... The impacts of diversity loss on ecological processes might be sufficiently large to rival the impacts of many other global drivers of environmental change... Maintaining multiple ecosystem processes at multiple places and times requires higher levels of biodiversity than does a single process at a single place and time."
It plays a part in regulating the chemistry of our atmosphere and water supply. Biodiversity is directly involved in water purification, recycling nutrients and providing fertile soils. Experiments with controlled environments have shown that humans cannot easily build ecosystems to support human needs; for example insect pollination cannot be mimicked, and that activity alone represented between $2.1-14.6 billions in 2003.
Number of species
According to Mora and colleagues, the total number of terrestrial species is estimated to be around 8.7 million while the number of oceanic species is much lower, estimated at 2.2 million. The authors note that these estimates are strongest for eukaryotic organisms and likely represent the lower bound of prokaryote diversity. Other estimates include:
220,000 vascular plants, estimated using the species-area relation method
0.7-1 million marine species
10–30 million insects; (of some 0.9 million we know today)
5–10 million bacteria;
1.5-3 million fungi, estimates based on data from the tropics, long-term non-tropical sites, and molecular studies that have revealed cryptic speciation. Some 0.075 million species of fungi had been documented by 2001)
1 million mites
The number of microbial species is not reliably known, but the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition dramatically increased the estimates of genetic diversity by identifying an enormous number of new genes from near-surface plankton samples at various marine locations, initially over the 2004-2006 period. The findings may eventually cause a significant change in the way science defines species and other taxonomic categories.
Since the rate of extinction has increased, many extant species may become extinct before they are described.
Species loss rates
During the last century, decreases in biodiversity have been increasingly observed. In 2007, German Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel cited estimates that up to 30% of all species will be extinct by 2050. Of these, about one eighth of known plant species are threatened with extinction. Estimates reach as high as 140,000 species per year (based on Species-area theory). This figure indicates unsustainable ecological practices, because few species emerge each year. Almost all scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction rates. As of 2012, some studies suggest that 25% of all mammal species could be extinct in 20 years.
In absolute terms, the planet has lost 52% of its biodiversity since 1970 according to a 2014 study by the World Wildlife Fund. The Living Planet Report 2014 claims that "the number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish across the globe is, on average, about half the size it was 40 years ago". Of that number, 39% accounts for the terrestrial wildlife gone, 39% for the marine wildlife gone, and 76% for the freshwater wildlife gone. Biodiversity took the biggest hit in Latin America, plummeting 83 percent. High-income countries showed a 10% increase in biodiversity, which was canceled out by a loss in low-income countries. This is despite the fact that high-income countries use five times the ecological resources of low-income countries, which was explained as a result of process whereby wealthy nations are outsourcing resource depletion to poorer nations, which are suffering the greatest ecosystem losses.
Threats
In 2006 many species were formally classified as rare or endangered or threatened; moreover, scientists have estimated that millions more species are at risk which have not been formally recognized. About 40 percent of the 40,177 species assessed using the IUCN Red List criteria are now listed as threatened with extinction—a total of 16,119.
Jared Diamond describes an "Evil Quartet" of habitat destruction, overkill, introduced species, and secondary extinctions. Edward O. Wilson prefers the acronym HIPPO, standing for Habitat destruction, Invasive species, Pollution, human over-Population, and Over-harvesting. The most authoritative classification in use today is IUCN's Classification of Direct Threats which has been adopted by major international conservation organizations such as the US Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, and BirdLife International.
Habitat destruction
Habitat destruction has played a key role in extinctions, especially related to tropical forest destruction. Factors contributing to habitat loss are: overconsumption, overpopulation, land use change, deforestation, pollution (air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination) and global warming or climate change.
Habitat size and numbers of species are systematically related. Physically larger species and those living at lower latitudes or in forests or oceans are more sensitive to reduction in habitat area. Conversion to "trivial" standardized ecosystems (e.g., monoculture following deforestation) effectively destroys habitat for the more diverse species that preceded the conversion. In some countries lack of property rights or lax law/regulatory enforcement necessarily leads to biodiversity loss (degradation costs having to be supported by the community).
A 2007 study conducted by the National Science Foundation found that biodiversity and genetic diversity are codependent—that diversity among species requires diversity within a species, and vice versa. "If any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community becomes dominated by a single species."
At present, the most threatened ecosystems are found in fresh water, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, which was confirmed by the "Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment", organised by the biodiversity platform, and the French Institut de recherche pour le développement (MNHNP).
Co-extinctions are a form of habitat destruction. Co-extinction occurs when the extinction or decline in one accompanies the other, such as in plants and beetles.
Introduced and invasive species
Barriers such as large rivers, seas, oceans, mountains and deserts encourage diversity by enabling independent evolution on either side of the barrier, via the process of allopatric speciation. The term invasive species is applied to species that breach the natural barriers that would normally keep them constrained. Without barriers, such species occupy new territory, often supplanting native species by occupying their niches, or by using resources that would normally sustain native species.
The number of species invasions has been on the rise at least since the beginning of the 1900s. Species are increasingly being moved by humans (on purpose and accidentally). In some cases the invaders are causing drastic changes and damage to their new habitats (e.g.: zebra mussels and the emerald ash borer in the Great Lakes region and the lion fish along the North American Atlantic coast). Some evidence suggests that invasive species are competitive in their new habitats because they are subject to less pathogen disturbance. Others report confounding evidence that occasionally suggest that species-rich communities harbor many native and exotic species simultaneously while some say that diverse ecosystems are more resilient and resist invasive plants and animals. An important question is, "do invasive species cause extinctions?" Many studies cite effects of invasive species on natives, but not extinctions. Invasive species seem to increase local (i.e.: alpha diversity) diversity, which decreases turnover of diversity (i.e.: beta diversity). Overall gamma diversity may be lowered because species are going extinct because of other causes, but even some of the most insidious invaders (e.g.: Dutch elm disease, emerald ash borer, chestnut blight in North America) have not caused their host species to become extinct. Extirpation, population decline, and homogenization of regional biodiversity are much more common. Human activities have frequently been the cause of invasive species circumventing their barriers, by introducing them for food and other purposes. Human activities therefore allow species to migrate to new areas (and thus become invasive) occurred on time scales much shorter than historically have been required for a species to extend its range.
Not all introduced species are invasive, nor all invasive species deliberately introduced. In cases such as the zebra mussel, invasion of US waterways was unintentional. In other cases, such as mongooses in Hawaii, the introduction is deliberate but ineffective (nocturnal rats were not vulnerable to the diurnal mongoose). In other cases, such as oil palms in Indonesia and Malaysia, the introduction produces substantial economic benefits, but the benefits are accompanied by costly unintended consequences.
Finally, an introduced species may unintentionally injure a species that depends on the species it replaces. In Belgium, Prunus spinosa from Eastern Europe leafs much sooner than its West European counterparts, disrupting the feeding habits of the Thecla betulae butterfly (which feeds on the leaves). Introducing new species often leaves endemic and other local species unable to compete with the exotic species and unable to survive. The exotic organisms may be predators, parasites, or may simply outcompete indigenous species for nutrients, water and light.
At present, several countries have already imported so many exotic species, particularly agricultural and ornamental plants, that their own indigenous fauna/flora may be outnumbered.
Genetic pollution
Endemic species can be threatened with extinction through the process of genetic pollution, i.e. uncontrolled hybridization, introgression and genetic swamping. Genetic pollution leads to homogenization or replacement of local genomes as a result of either a numerical and/or fitness advantage of an introduced species.
Hybridization and introgression are side-effects of introduction and invasion. These phenomena can be especially detrimental to rare species that come into contact with more abundant ones. The abundant species can interbreed with the rare species, swamping its gene pool. This problem is not always apparent from morphological (outward appearance) observations alone. Some degree of gene flow is normal adaptation, and not all gene and genotype constellations can be preserved. However, hybridization with or without introgression may, nevertheless, threaten a rare species' existence.
Overexploitation
Overexploitation occurs when a resource is consumed at an unsustainable rate. This occurs on land in the form of overhunting, excessive logging, poor soil conservation in agriculture and the illegal wildlife trade.
About 25% of world fisheries are now overfished to the point where their current biomass is less than the level that maximizes their sustainable yield.
The overkill hypothesis, a pattern of large animal extinctions connected with human migration patterns, can be used explain why megafaunal extinctions can occur within a relatively short time period.
Hybridization, genetic pollution/erosion and food security
In agriculture and animal husbandry, the Green Revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield. Often hybridized breeds originated in developed countries and were further hybridized with local varieties in the developing world to create high yield strains resistant to local climate and diseases. Local governments and industry have been pushing hybridization. Formerly huge gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds have collapsed causing widespread genetic erosion and genetic pollution. This has resulted in loss of genetic diversity and biodiversity as a whole.
(GM organisms) have genetic material altered by genetic engineering procedures such as recombinant DNA technology. GM crops have become a common source for genetic pollution, not only of wild varieties but also of domesticated varieties derived from classical hybridization.
Genetic erosion coupled with genetic pollution may be destroying unique genotypes, thereby creating a hidden crisis which could result in a severe threat to our food security. Diverse genetic material could cease to exist which would impact our ability to further hybridize food crops and livestock against more resistant diseases and climatic changes.
Climate change
Global warming is also considered to be a major potential threat to global biodiversity in the future. For example, coral reefs - which are biodiversity hotspots - will be lost within the century if global warming continues at the current trend.
Climate change has seen many claims about potential to affect biodiversity but evidence supporting the statement is tenuous. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide certainly affects plant morphology and is acidifying oceans, and temperature affects species ranges, phenology, and weather, but the major impacts that have been predicted are still just potential impacts. We have not documented major extinctions yet, even as climate change drastically alters the biology of many species.
In 2004, an international collaborative study on four continents estimated that 10 percent of species would become extinct by 2050 because of global warming. "We need to limit climate change or we wind up with a lot of species in trouble, possibly extinct," said Dr. Lee Hannah, a co-author of the paper and chief climate change biologist at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International.
A recent study predicts that up to 35% of the world terrestrial carnivores and ungulates will be at higher risk of extinction by 2050 because of the joint effects of predicted climate and land-use change under business-as-usual human development scenarios.
Human overpopulation
From 1950 to 2011, world population increased from 2.5 billion to 7 billion and is forecast to reach a plateau of more than 9 billion during the 21st century. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, told a parliamentary inquiry: "It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor." At least until the middle of the 21st century, worldwide losses of pristine biodiverse land will probably depend much on the worldwide human birth rate.
According to a 2014 study by the World Wildlife Fund, the global human population already exceeds planet's biocapacity - it would take the equivalent of 1.5 Earths of biocapacity to meet our current demands. The report further points that if everyone on the planet had the Footprint of the average resident of Qatar, we would need 4.8 Earths, and if we lived the lifestyle of a typical resident of the USA, we would need 3.9 Earths.
The Holocene extinction
Rates of decline in biodiversity in this sixth mass extinction match or exceed rates of loss in the five previous mass extinction events in the fossil record. Loss of biodiversity results in the loss of natural capital that supplies ecosystem goods and services. From the perspective of the method known as Natural Economy the economic value of 17 ecosystem services for Earth's biosphere (calculated in 1997) has an estimated value of US$33 trillion (3.3x1013) per year.
Conservation
Conservation biology matured in the mid-20th century as ecologists, naturalists, and other scientists began to research and address issues pertaining to global biodiversity declines.
The conservation ethic advocates management of natural resources for the purpose of sustaining biodiversity in species, ecosystems, the evolutionary process, and human culture and society.
Conservation biology is reforming around strategic plans to protect biodiversity. Preserving global biodiversity is a priority in strategic conservation plans that are designed to engage public policy and concerns affecting local, regional and global scales of communities, ecosystems, and cultures. Action plans identify ways of sustaining human well-being, employing natural capital, market capital, and ecosystem services.
In the EU Directive 1999/22/EC zoos are described as having a role in the preservation of the biodiversity of wildlife animals by conducting research or participation in breeding programs.
Protection and restoration techniques
Removal of exotic species will allow the species that they have negatively impacted to recover their ecological niches. Exotic species that have become pests can be identified taxonomically (e.g., with Digital Automated Identification SYstem (DAISY), using the barcode of life). Removal is practical only given large groups of individuals due to the economic cost.
As sustainable populations of the remaining native species in an area become assured, "missing" species that are candidates for reintroduction can be identified using databases such as the Encyclopedia of Life and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Biodiversity banking places a monetary value on biodiversity. One example is the Australian Native Vegetation Management Framework.
Gene banks are collections of specimens and genetic material. Some banks intend to reintroduce banked species to the ecosystem (e.g., via tree nurseries).
Reduction of and better targeting of pesticides allows more species to survive in agricultural and urbanized areas.
Location-specific approaches may be less useful for protecting migratory species. One approach is to create wildlife corridors that correspond to the animals' movements. National and other boundaries can complicate corridor creation.
Protected areas
Protected areas is meant for affording protection to wild animals and their habitat which also includes forest reserves and biosphere reserves. Protected areas have been set up all over the world with the specific aim of protecting and conserving plants and animals. About 3.3 percent of the total geographical areas of the country is accorded the status of protected area.
National Parks
National park and nature reserve is the area selected by governments or private organizations for special protection against damage or degradation with the objective of biodiversity and landscape conservation. National parks are usually owned and managed by national or state governments. A limit is placed on the number of visitors permitted to enter certain fragile areas. Designated trails or roads are created. The visitors are allowed to enter only for study, cultural and recreation purposes. Forestry operations, grazing of animals and hunting of animals are prohibited. Exploitation of habitat or wildlife is banned.
Wildlife sanctuary
Wildlife sanctuary aims only at conservation of species and have the following features:
1. The boundaries of the sanctuaries are not limited by state legislation.
2. The killing, hunting or capturing of any species is prohibited except by or under the control of the highest authority in the department which is responsible for the management of the sanctuary.
3. Private ownership may be allowed.
4. Forestry and other usages can also be permitted.
Forest Reserves
The forests play a vital role in harbouring more than 45,000 floral and 81,000 faunal species of which 5150 floral and 1837 faunal species are endemic. Plant and animal species confined to a specific geographical area are called endemic species. In reserved forests, rights to activities like hunting and grazing are sometimes given to communities living on the fringes of the forest, who sustain their livelihood partially or wholly from forest resources or products. The unclassed forests covers 6.4 percent of the total forest area and they are marked by the following characteristics:
1. They are large inaccessible forests.
2. Many of these are unoccupied.
3. They are ecologically and economically less important.
Steps to conserve the forest cover
1. An extensive reforestation/afforestation program should be followed.
2. Alternative environment-friendly sources of fuel energy such as biogas other than wood should be used.
3. Loss of biodiversity due to forest fire is a major problem, immediate steps to prevent forest fire need to be taken.
4. Overgrazing by cattle can damage a forest seriously. Therefore, certain steps should be taken to prevent overgrazing by cattle.
5. Hunting and poaching should be banned.
Zoological Park
In zoological parks or zoos, live animals are kept for public recreation, education and conservation purposes. Modern zoos offer veterinary facilities, provide opportunities for threatened species to breed in captivity and usually build environments that stimulate the native habitats of the animals in their care. Zoos play a major role in creating awareness among common people about the need to conserve nature.
Botanical Garden
Botanical garden is a garden in which plants are grown and displayed primarily for scientific and educational purposes. It consists of a collection of living plants, grown outdoors or under glass in greenhouses and conservatories. In addition, it includes a collection of dried plants or herbarium and such facilities as lecture rooms, laboratories, libraries, museums and experimental or research plantings.
Resource allocation
Focusing on limited areas of higher potential biodiversity promises greater immediate return on investment than spreading resources evenly or focusing on areas of little diversity but greater interest in biodiversity.
A second strategy focuses on areas that retain most of their original diversity, which typically require little or no restoration. These are typically non-urbanized, non-agricultural areas. Tropical areas often fit both criteria, given their natively high diversity and relative lack of development.
Legal status
International
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) and Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety;
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES);
Ramsar Convention (Wetlands);
Bonn Convention on Migratory Species;
World Heritage Convention (indirectly by protecting biodiversity habitats)
Regional Conventions such as the Apia Convention
Bilateral agreements such as the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement.
Global agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, give "sovereign national rights over biological resources" (not property). The agreements commit countries to "conserve biodiversity", "develop resources for sustainability" and "share the benefits" resulting from their use. Biodiverse countries that allow bioprospecting or collection of natural products, expect a share of the benefits rather than allowing the individual or institution that discovers/exploits the resource to capture them privately. Bioprospecting can become a type of biopiracy when such principles are not respected.
Sovereignty principles can rely upon what is better known as Access and Benefit Sharing Agreements (ABAs). The Convention on Biodiversity implies informed consent between the source country and the collector, to establish which resource will be used and for what, and to settle on a fair agreement on benefit sharing.
National level laws
Biodiversity is taken into account in some political and judicial decisions:
The relationship between law and ecosystems is very ancient and has consequences for biodiversity. It is related to private and public property rights. It can define protection for threatened ecosystems, but also some rights and duties (for example, fishing and hunting rights).
Law regarding species is more recent. It defines species that must be protected because they may be threatened by extinction. The U.S. Endangered Species Act is an example of an attempt to address the "law and species" issue.
Laws regarding gene pools are only about a century old. Domestication and plant breeding methods are not new, but advances in genetic engineering have led to tighter laws covering distribution of genetically modified organisms, gene patents and process patents. Governments struggle to decide whether to focus on for example, genes, genomes, or organisms and species.
Uniform approval for use of biodiversity as a legal standard has not been achieved, however. Bosselman argues that biodiversity should not be used as a legal standard, claiming that the remaining areas of scientific uncertainty cause unacceptable administrative waste and increase litigation without promoting preservation goals.
India passed the Biological Diversity Act in 2002 for the conservation of biological diversity in India. The Act also provides mechanisms for equitable sharing of benefits from the use of traditional biological resources and knowledge.
Analytical limits
Taxonomic and size relationships
Less than 1% of all species that have been described have been studied beyond simply noting their existence. The vast majority of Earth's species are microbial. Contemporary biodiversity physics is "firmly fixated on the visible [macroscopic] world". For example, microbial life is metabolically and environmentally more diverse than multicellular life (see e.g., extremophile). "On the tree of life, based on analyses of small-subunit ribosomal RNA, visible life consists of barely noticeable twigs. The inverse relationship of size and population recurs higher on the evolutionary ladder—"to a first approximation, all multicellular species on Earth are insects". Insect extinction rates are high—supporting the Holocene extinction hypothesis.
See also
Ecological indicator
Global biodiversity
Index of biodiversity articles
Measurement of biodiversity
Megadiverse countries
Deforestation and climate change
References
Further reading
Leveque, C. & J. Mounolou (2003) Biodiversity. New York: John Wiley. ISBN 0-470-84957-6
Margulis, L., Dolan, Delisle, K., Lyons, C. Diversity of Life: The Illustrated Guide to the Five Kingdoms. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. ISBN 0-7637-0862-3
Novacek, M. J. (ed.) (2001) The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts. New York: American Museum of Natural History Books. ISBN 1-56584-570-6
D+C-Interview with Achim Steiner, UNEP: "Our generation's responsibility
External links
NatureServe: This site serves as a portal for accessing several types of publicly available biodiversity data
Biodiversity Factsheet by the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems
Color-coded images of vertebrate biodiversity hotspots
Documents
Biodiversity Synthesis Report (PDF) by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005)
Conservation International hotspot map
Tools
GLOBIO, an ongoing programme to map the past, current and future impacts of human activities on biodiversity
World Map of Biodiversity an interactive map from the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (BISON), provides a United States gateway for serving, searching, mapping, and downloading integrated species occurrence records from multiple data sources
Resources
Biodiversity Heritage Library – Open access digital library of taxonomic literature
Mapping of biodiversity
Encyclopedia of Life – Documenting all species of life on earth
Category:Conservation biology
Category:Population genetics
Category:Species
Category:Ecology |
2016-01 | Little_Richard-697373559 | Little_Richard | Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), known by his stage name Little Richard, is an American recording artist, songwriter and musician.
An influential figure in popular music and culture for more than six decades, Little Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his dynamic music and charismatic showmanship laid the foundation for rock and roll. His music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. Little Richard influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip-hop; his music impacted the rhythm and blues era for future generations to come, and his performances and headline-making thrust his career right into the mix of American popular music.
Little Richard has been honored by many institutions, including inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" (1955) was included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2010, claiming the "unique vocalizing over the irresistible beat announced a new era in music." In 2015, the National Museum of African American History and Culture honored Little Richard for his pivotal role in the formation of popular music genres and in helping to shatter the color line on the music charts changing American culture forever.
Early life
Little Richard was born Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Georgia, on December 5, 1932, the third-eldest of 12. His parents were Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub, the Tip In Inn. His mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church. Initially, Little Richard's first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo" but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. He was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by family due to his small and skinny frame as a child. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, Little Richard began singing in church at a young age. Possibly due to complications at birth, Little Richard had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait; he was mocked for its allegedly effeminate appearance.
Little Richard's family was highly religious, joining various A.M.E., Baptist and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. Little Richard enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most due to their charismatic worship and live music. He later recalled that people in his neighborhood during segregation sang gospel songs throughout the day to keep a positive outlook because "there was so much poverty, so much prejudice in those days". Little Richard had observed that people sang "to feel their connection with God" and to wash their trials and burdens away. Gifted with a loud singing voice, Little Richard recalled that he was "always changing the key upwards" and that they once stopped him from singing in church for "screaming and hollering" so loud, earning him the nickname "War Hawk".
Little Richard's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams. May, who as a singing evangelist was known as "the Thunderbolt of the Middle West" due to his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired the boy to become a preacher. Little Richard attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. His musical talent, however, was recognized there when he learned to play the alto saxophone. His mother recalled how Richard was "always musical" and that when he was young, he would always "beat on the steps of the house, and on tin cans and pots and pans, or whatever", while singing. She also recalled that Richard was so quick at learning to play the saxophone that he was allowed to play with the school's marching band immediately. While in high school, Little Richard obtained a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. Little Richard sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day, such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and his favorite singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Music career
Beginnings
On October 27, 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe heard 14-year-old Little Richard singing two of her gospel recordings before her concert at Macon City Auditorium. Tharpe was so impressed that she invited him to sing onstage during the concert. Clint Brantley recalled that Little Richard approached him before the show, announcing that Tharpe was allowing him to open the show. Brantley, as the promoter, told him he could not. However, when the curtain lifted, Little Richard began to sing and surprised Brantley with his vocal ability. The crowd cheered and Tharpe paid him for his performance. Little Richard was hooked on performing for a living after that. He began singing with traveling shows that came through town and was losing interest in school. He would sing to draw people to the local town prophet and spiritualist, Doctor Nubilio, who wore a turban, a colorful cape and carried a black stick and something that people came to see which Nubilio called "the devil's child" – a dried-up body of a baby with claw feet like a bird and horns on its head. Nubilio told Little Richard that he was "gonna be famous" but that he would have to "go where the grass is greener." Due to problems at home and school and associations in the community, Little Richard left and joined Dr. Hudson's Medicine Show in 1948, performing "Caldonia". Little Richard recalled the song was the first secular R&B song he learned due to his family's strict rules against playing R&B music, which they considered "devil music." Little Richard soon joined his first musical band, Buster Brown's Orchestra. While performing with the band, he began using the name Little Richard. After his tenure with the band ended in 1950, Little Richard began performing for various vaudeville groups including Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, the King Brothers Circus and Broadway Follies, earning a reputation as a drag performer. About this time, Little Richard began listening more to R&B and frequented Atlanta clubs, where he witnessed Roy Brown and Billy Wright. Heavily influenced by Wright's flamboyant persona and showmanship, Little Richard began performing as a solo artist as part of the chitlin' circuit. Little Richard gained notoriety for high-energy onstage antics during live performances. He eventually befriended Wright during an Atlanta performance in 1950.
In 1951, Wright put Little Richard in contact with his manager, Zenas Sears, a local deejay. Sears recorded Little Richard at his station backed by Wright's band. The recordings led to a contract that year with RCA Victor. Little Richard recorded a total of eight sides for RCA, including the blues ballad, "Every Hour," which became his first single and a hit in Georgia. The release of "Every Hour" improved his relationship with his father, who began regularly performing the song at his nightclub. After its release, Little Richard fronted Perry Welch and His Orchestra, playing at clubs and army bases for $100 a week. Little Richard learned how to play boogie-woogie piano from teenage musician Esquerita around this time. Little Richard left RCA Victor in February 1952 after his records failed to catch on. That same month, his father was killed after a confrontation outside his club. Little Richard, struggling with poverty, settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines and hired Clint Brantley as his manager. He formed a band called the Tempo Toppers that year and began to perform as part of blues package tours in clubs across the south, such as New Orleans' Club Tijuana and Houston's Club Matinee. With the Tempo Toppers, Little Richard signed with Don Robey's Peacock Records in February 1953, recording eight sides, including four with Johnny Otis and his band that were unreleased at the time. Little Richard had a contentious relationship with Robey and soon found himself disenchanted with the record business and with his group, leaving Peacock and disbanding the Tempo Toppers. That same year, Little Richard formed a hard-driving R&B band, the Upsetters, which included drummer Charles Connor and saxophonist Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith, which toured under Brantley's management. The Upsetters began to tour successfully, even without a bass player on songs, forcing drummer Connor to thump "real hard" on his bass drum in order to get a "bass fiddle effect."
Under the suggestion of Lloyd Price, Little Richard sent a two-song demo for Price's label, Specialty Records, in February 1955. Time passed before Little Richard got a call to record for the label. Art Rupe, owner of Specialty Records, loaned Little Richard money to buy out his Peacock contract and Rupe set him up to work with producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell. Upon hearing the demo, Blackwell felt Little Richard was Specialty's answer to Ray Charles. Little Richard told Blackwell he preferred the sound of Fats Domino. As a result, Little Richard began recording at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios in New Orleans that September, recording there with several of Domino's session musicians including drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonist Lee Allen. Initial cuts failed to produce anything to inspire huge sales and Little Richard and his producer took a break at a club called the Dew Drop Inn. While there, Little Richard performed a risqué song he had improvised from his days on the club circuit called "Tutti Frutti". The song's a cappella introduction was based on a drum rhythm Little Richard had devised. Blackwell felt the song had hit potential and hired songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie to replace some of Little Richard's sexual lyrics with less controversial words. Recorded in three takes in September 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was released as a single in November.
Initial success and conversion
"Tutti Frutti" became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and overseas in the United Kingdom. It reached No. 17 on the Billboard Top 100 in America and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies. Little Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), became his first to reach No. 1 on the R&B chart and the first to reach the top ten of the pop charts in both America and Britain. Like "Tutti Frutti", it sold over a million copies. Following his success, Little Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas. Little Richard began performing on package tours across the United States, often appearing last, where he would steal the show. Art Rupe described the differences between Little Richard and a similar hitmaker of the early rock and roll period by stating that, while "the similarities between Little Richard and Fats Domino for recording purposes were close", Little Richard would sometimes stand up at the piano while he was recording and that onstage, where Domino was "plodding, very slow", Little Richard was "very dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild. So the band took on the ambience of the vocalist." During a period of racial tension in the United States, Little Richard attracted mixed-race audiences at a time when public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. H.B. Barnum later explained that Little Richard "opened the door. He brought the races together". Prior to Little Richard, audiences in musical shows were either "all black or all white and no one else could come in." Little Richard's success enabled audiences of both races to enter the building, albeit still segregated (e.g. blacks on the balcony and whites on the main floor). By the end of Little Richard's performances, however, the audiences would come together to dance. Despite broadcasts on TV from local supremacist groups such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warning how rock and roll "brings the races together", Little Richard's popularity was helping to shatter the myth that black performers could not successfully perform at "white-only venues", especially in the South where racism was most overt.
Little Richard's show, according to Barnum, was the first rock and roll show to use spotlights and flicker lights, which had been a show business tradition, accentuating Little Richard's innovative use of colorful capes, blouse shirts, makeup and suits studded with multi-colored precious stones and sequins. Little Richard's onstage antics often included running on and off the stage, lifting his leg while playing his piano, and jumping up and down onstage and atop the piano, bringing audiences into a frenzy. Fans reacted in similar and sometimes extreme ways. During Little Richard's show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956, several fans had to be restrained from jumping off the balcony. Cops stopped the show twice to prevent fans who had rushed the stage from ripping souvenirs off of Little Richard. During the same show, a woman threw a pair of her undergarments onstage at Little Richard, leading other female fans to repeat the action.
Little Richard had nine hits in the US in 1956 and five in Britain, with recordings such as "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up" "Ready Teddy", "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Lucille". Most of Little Richard's earlier hits inspired covers by the likes of Pat Boone, Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. Described as having "electrifying movie-star looks", Little Richard accepted brief roles in movies such as Don't Knock the Rock, Mister Rock and Roll and The Girl Can't Help It. His success continued in 1957 with international hits such as "Jenny, Jenny" and "Keep A-Knockin'". Little Richard scored further hit singles such as "Good Golly Miss Molly", eventually scoring 18 hit singles in less than three years.
In May 1957, Little Richard released his first album, Here's Little Richard, which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, then a rare feat for a rock and roll artist. Little Richard's success made him a millionaire and in late 1956, he settled in Los Angeles, purchasing a mansion in a wealthy section of the city, where he lived next door to boxer Joe Louis. He had engaged in a serious romance with Audrey Robinson, then a teenage college student and later a stripper under the stage name Lee Angel. In October 1957, Little Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. During the middle of the tour, he shocked the public by announcing his decision to follow a life in the ministry. Little Richard later explained that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney that he had seen the plane's red hot engines and felt angels were holding it up. During the Sydney performance, Little Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him and was deeply shaken. He took the event, later revealed as the launching of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, as a sign from God to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle and enter the ministry. Returning to the states ten days early, Little Richard later learned that his original return flight had crashed into the Pacific Ocean solidifying his belief he was doing as God wanted. After a performance at the Apollo Theater and a recording session with Specialty later that month, Little Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology. Fueling his decision to leave the music business was Little Richard's feeling that he hadn't received proper remuneration from Specialty. Upon ending his contract with Specialty in 1959, Little Richard reluctantly agreed to relinquish any royalties for his material. In 1958, he formed the Little Richard Evangelistic Team, traveling across the country to preach. A month after his conversion, while speaking at an evangelical convention in November 1957, Little Richard met Ernestine Campbell, a secretary from Washington, D.C. He married her on July 11, 1959.
Around this time, Little Richard began recording gospel and had some chart success with songs such as "He's Not Just a Soldier" and "Crying in the Chapel". Another gospel single, "He Got What He Wanted", reached the top 40 in the UK. Childhood heroine Mahalia Jackson acknowledged his gospel efforts after hearing him sing at Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Los Angeles. After working with Little Richard on the Mercury album King of the Gospel Singers, Quincy Jones remarked in 1984 that his performance in the studio impressed him more than any other artist with whom he had worked.
Return to secular music
In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there. Arden booked him as the headline artist with Sam Cooke second on the bill. Little Richard performed gospel material at the first show without Cooke opening, owing to the delay of the latter's arrival, and received a tepid reaction. After Cooke opened the second show with vigorous applause from the crowd, Little Richard and his organist Billy Preston warmed up in darkness before launching into "Long Tall Sally", resulting in hysterical responses. Little Richard's shows received similar responses wherever he performed, including a show at Mansfield's Granada Theatre, which closed early due to fans rushing the stage. Wanting to capitalize on Little Richard's headline-grabbing performances, Beatles manager Brian Epstein asked Little Richard and Arden to allow his newly recorded band to open for Little Richard on some tour dates to which they agreed, first opening at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. The following month, the Beatles opened for Little Richard at the Star Club in Hamburg. During this time, Little Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs and taught Paul McCartney his trademark vocalizations. Back in the U.S., Little Richard recorded six rock and roll songs with the Upsetters for Little Star Records, under the name "World Famous Upsetters", allowing him to keep his options open in the ministry.
Little Richard returned to the UK the following fall, with the Rolling Stones as openers. At the end of that tour, he starred in his own special, The Little Richard Spectacular, for Granada Television. The special became a ratings success and led to two rebroadcasts following over 60,000 fan letters. Footage of the special was shown around the world, highlighting the frenzy associated with rock and roll. In 1964, Little Richard returned briefly to Specialty and recorded five songs, including the charted single, "Bama Lama Bama Loo", which reached the top 20 in the UK but only made 82 in the US. Later that year, he signed with Vee-Jay Records and issued the album Little Richard Is Back. The album failed to catch on domestically, despite a televised performance of the single "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" on Shindig! that drew wild responses from audience members. By September 1964, Jimi Hendrix had joined the Upsetters band, as a full member. In December, Jimi and some '50s band members joined Richard in New York for a session of remakes. The most successful collaboration between Little Richard and Hendrix came in the following year, also in New York, when Hendrix, Billy Preston, and Little Richard recorded the soul ballad "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", which became a number 12 R&B hit. Little Richard and Hendrix clashed over tardiness, wardrobe and Hendrix's stage antics and as a result, in July 1965, Little Richard's brother Robert fired him. That same year, Little Richard attempted to set up his own record label but only cut two unreleased tracks. Instead he signed with Modern Records, which resulted in a very agreeable string of rock and soul singles but yielded just one chart-maker, "Do You Feel It?". He left that label in early 1966 for Okeh Records. Okeh paired Little Richard musically with his friend from the mid-1950s, Larry Williams, who produced two albums for him in 1966 and 1967; the first being a studio album, The Explosive Little Richard, which generated the modest hit singles, "Poor Dog" and "Commandments of Love", and the second, Little Richard's Greatest Hits: Recorded Live!, which returned him to the pop album charts for the first time in ten years, as well hitting number 28 on the Hot R&B LPs chart. Williams also acted as the music director for Little Richard's live performances at the Okeh Club in Los Angeles amid the Okeh period, during which time the demand for Little Richard's appearances increased greatly. Leaving Okeh in late 1967, Little Richard briefly recorded with Brunswick but left shortly after his final session.
Little Richard struggled when he returned to secular music in the 1960s. He often complained to producers in the 1960s that he felt unappreciated as producers pushed him towards a horn-oriented Motown sound and felt he wasn't treated with appropriate respect. Little Richard often performed in dingy clubs and lounges with little support from his label. Little Richard adapted a wilder flamboyant and androgynous image that, while a hit with club audiences, was a problem for labels attempting to promote him to conservative R&B buyers. Angered by his decision to "backslide" from his ministry, clergymen in the South forced radio disk jockeys to ignore Little Richard's work. His insistence on performing in front of mixed audiences prevented him from receiving radio time in the areas of Los Angeles affected by the Watts riots. Despite recording and public relations struggles, according to his Songwriters Hall of Fame biography, he had sold over 32 million records worldwide by 1968. Focusing on live performances rather than recordings at the end of the 1960s, Little Richard found success with performances in casinos and resorts in Las Vegas, New York City and Los Angeles. Little Richard returned to the national spotlight in 1969 as a performer at the Atlantic City Pop Festival, where he stole the show from top performers such as Janis Joplin; he did the same to headliner John Lennon at the Toronto Pop Festival. These successes brought Little Richard to talk shows such as the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the Dick Cavett Show, making him a major celebrity again.
Following this, Little Richard signed with Reprise Records in 1970, releasing the album, The Rill Thing, which included the charted singles "Freedom Blues" and "Greenwood, Mississippi". Little Richard's follow-ups for Reprise failed to produce similar success and Little Richard spent much of the decade performing as a guest instrumentalist on sessions with rockers such as Delaney and Bonnie, Joey Covington and Joe Walsh. The sessions for Canned Heat's "Rockin' with the King" (1972) and Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Take It Like a Man" (1976) resulted in chart successes. Little Richard and three of his brothers formed a management company, Bud Hole Incorporated, around this time. In 1973, Richard made a spectacular contribution to the critically acclaimed documentary, "Let The Good Times Roll", and occupied a full album side in a two-disc soundtrack album from the film, which charted. Leaving Reprise, that same year, he charted for independent labels including a Green Mountain Records single, "In the Middle of the Night", which proceeds went to charity following a string of tornadoes that damaged 12 states. Three years later, the Mainstream Records single "Call My Name" was distributed by Motown but barely charted in 1976. That same year, Little Richard re-recorded 18 of his classic hits in Nashville for K-Tel Records, with a single featuring new versions of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up" reaching the UK singles chart. Following over ten years of drug and alcohol abuse and a string of recent personal tragedies, Little Richard quit rock and roll music again in 1977 and returned to evangelism, releasing one gospel album, God's Beautiful City, in 1979.
Comeback
In 1984, Little Richard filed a $112 million lawsuit against Specialty Records, Art Rupe and his publishing company Venice Music and ATV Music for not paying him royalties after he left the label in 1959. The suit would be settled out of court in 1986. According to some reports, Michael Jackson gave Little Richard monetary compensation from his work when he co-owned the Beatles and Little Richard's songs with Sony-ATV. In 1985, Charles White released Little Richard's authorized biography, Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard, which returned Little Richard to the spotlight due to the book's subject matter. Little Richard returned to show business in what Rolling Stone would refer to as a "formidable comeback" following the book's release.
Reconciling his roles as evangelist and rock and roll musician for the first time, Little Richard stated that the genre could be used for good or evil. After accepting a role in the film Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Little Richard and Billy Preston penned the faith-based rock and roll song, "Great Gosh A'Mighty" for its soundtrack. Little Richard won critical acclaim for his film role and the song found success on the American and British charts. The hit led to the release of the album Lifetime Friend (1986) on Warner Bros. Records, with songs deemed "messages in rhythm" that included a gospel rap track. In addition to a version of "Great Gosh A'Mighty", cut in England, the album featured two UK charted singles, "Somebody's Comin'" and "Operator". Little Richard spent much of the rest of the decade guesting on TV shows and appearing in films, winning new fans with what was referred to as his "unique comedic timing". In 1989, Little Richard provided rhythmic preaching and background vocals on the extended live version of the U2/B.B. King hit "When Love Comes To Town". That same year, Little Richard returned to singing his classic hits following a performance of "Lucille" at a Cher-hosted AIDS benefit concert.
In 1990, Little Richard contributed a spoken-word rap on Living Colour's hit song, "Elvis Is Dead", from their album Time's Up. The following year, he was one of the featured performers on the hit single and video "Voices That Care" that was produced to help boost the morale of U.S. troops involved in Operation Desert Storm. He also recorded a rock and roll version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" that year that led to a deal with Disney Records, resulting in the release of a hit 1992 children's album, Shake It All About. Throughout the 1990s, Little Richard performed around the world and appeared on TV, film, and tracks with other artists, including Jon Bon Jovi, Elton John and Solomon Burke. In 1992, yet another album of remakes was released, this time with Richard and Japanese guitar hero, Takanaka. Included in the band were swamp guitarist Travis Wammack and his drummer son Monkee, members of Richard's then current touring band.
Later years
In 2000, Little Richard's life was dramatized for the biographical film Little Richard, which focused on his early years including his heyday, religious conversion and return to secular music in the early 1960s. Little Richard was played by actor Leon, who earned a NAACP Image Award nomination for his role as the musician. In 2002, Little Richard contributed to the Johnny Cash tribute album, Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash. In 2006, Little Richard was featured in a popular advertisement for the GEICO brand. Then, a 2005 recording of his duet vocals with Jerry Lee Lewis appeared on a cover of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" for Lewis's 2006 album, Last Man Standing. The same year, Little Richard signed on as a guest judge for the TV series Celebrity Duets. In 2008, Little Richard and Lewis performed alongside John Fogerty at the Grammy Awards of that year in a tribute to the two artists considered to be cornerstones of rock and roll by NARAS. That same year, Little Richard appeared on radio host Don Imus' benefit album for sick children, The Imus Ranch Record. In June 2010, Little Richard recorded a gospel track for an upcoming tribute album to songwriting legend Dottie Rambo.
Towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Rolling Stone reported that Little Richard remained "one of the most recognized and quotable celebrities in the world." Throughout the decade, he kept up a stringent touring schedule, performing primarily in the States and Europe. However, sciatic nerve pain in his left leg and then replacement of the involved hip began affecting the frequency of his performances by 2010. Despite his health issues, Little Richard continued to receive critical acclaim for his performances, with Rolling Stone reporting after a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. in June 2012 that Little Richard was "still full of fire, still a master showman, his voice still loaded with deep gospel and raunchy power." Following the D.C. concert, Little Richard performed a full 90-minute show at the Pensacola Interstate Fair in Pensacola in October 2012 and headlined at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in March 2013.
In 2014, actor Brandon Mychal Smith won critical acclaim for his portrayal of Little Richard in the James Brown bio-pic "Get on Up." Mick Jagger co-produced the motion picture.
In June 2015, Little Richard appeared clad in sparkly boots and brightly colored jacket before a paying audience at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville to receive an award and raise funds for the National Museum of African American Art and Culture. It was reported that he charmed the crowd by reminiscing about his early days working in Nashville nightclubs.
Personal life
Relationships and family
In 1956, Little Richard began a romantic relationship with Audrey Robinson, a 16-year-old college student, originally from Savannah, Georgia. According to Little Richard, he would invite other men to have sex with her in groups and once invited Buddy Holly to have sex with her; Robinson denied those claims. The relationship ended after Little Richard's religious conversion in 1957. Robinson later became a stripper using the name Lee Angel. According to Robinson, Little Richard wanted to continue to see her but she felt uncomfortable seeing a preacher as a stripper. Described in GQ'''s UK edition as a "lifelong soulmate", Robinson and Little Richard are occasionally in each other's company.
Little Richard met his only wife, Ernestine Campbell, at an evangelical rally in October 1957. They began dating that year and wed in July 1959. According to Campbell, she and Little Richard initially enjoyed a happy marriage with "normal" sexual relations. Campbell claimed when the marriage ended in divorce in 1963, it was due to Little Richard's celebrity status, noting that it had made life difficult for her. Little Richard claimed the marriage fell apart due to him being a neglectful husband. While married, in 1962, Little Richard adopted a one-year-old boy, Danny Jones, from a late church associate. Little Richard and his son remain close, with Jones often acting as one of his bodyguards.
Sexual orientation
Little Richard's sexual orientation has long been a topic of debate. Little Richard claimed that as a child he felt feminine and played with girls, which was the source of jokes at his expense. Caught wearing his mother's makeup and wardrobe at times, he was brutally punished by his father. Little Richard began having sexual encounters with both sexes by his early teens. Allegedly because of his effeminate mannerisms, Little Richard's father kicked him out of their family home at 15. Little Richard first became involved in voyeurism in his early twenties, when a female friend of his would drive him around and pick up men who would allow him to watch them have sex in the backseat of cars. Little Richard was once arrested after a gas station attendant in Macon reported sexual activity in a car featuring Little Richard and a couple. Cited on a lewd conduct charge, Little Richard spent three days in jail and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.
During the early 1950s, Little Richard had appeared as a drag performer in various vaudeville groups. By the time he entered the chitlin' circuit, he began using makeup regularly, influenced by Billy Wright, who recommended him his brand of makeup, Pancake 31. Later, as he began experiencing success in the mid-1950s, Little Richard made members of his band use makeup as a means to gain entry into white clubs during performances. Little Richard later told a columnist, "I wore the make-up so that white men wouldn't think I was after the white girls. It made things easier for me, plus it was colorful too". Little Richard received female attention during his mid-1950s heyday stating that female fans would give him naked photos of themselves and their phone numbers. In 2000, Little Richard stated: "I had girlfriends and a stack of women who followed me and traveled with me. I figure if being called a sissy would make me famous, let them say what they want to".
While attending Oakwood College, Little Richard recalled a male student showed himself to him. After the incident was reported to the student's father, Little Richard withdrew from the college. In 1962, Little Richard was again arrested after he was caught spying on men urinating at a men's toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. Little Richard returned to participating in sexual orgies after his return to secular music in the 1960s. He differed in depictions of his sexuality. In 1984, while he noted that he felt homosexuality was "unnatural" and "contagious", he would tell Charles White that he was "omnisexual" after he was asked about his sex life. In 1995, Little Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay. In 2007, Mojo magazine described Little Richard as a "bisexual alien".
Drug and alcohol use
Little Richard allegedly was a heavy drinker and cigarette smoker during the mid-1960s. By 1972, he was using cocaine, developing an addiction to the drug. He later lamented during that period, "they should have called me Little Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of that stuff!" He got addicted to heroin and PCP around that same period. Of his drug experiences, he said "I lost my reasoning". He said of his cocaine addiction that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Little Richard admitted that his addiction to cocaine and heroin was costing him as much as $1,000 a day. In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill Little Richard for failing to pay his drug debt. Little Richard later mentioned that this was the most fearful moment of his life because Williams's own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable. Little Richard did, however, also acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends" and when reminiscing of the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking "I knew he loved me – I hoped he did". Within that same year, Little Richard had several devastating personal experiences, including his brother Tony's death of a heart attack, the accidental shooting of his nephew that he loved like a son, and the murder of two close personal friends – one a valet at "the heroin man's house". The combination of these experiences convinced Little Richard to give up drugs and alcohol, along with rock and roll, and return to the ministry.
Religion
Little Richard's family had deep evangelical (Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)) Christian roots, including two uncles and a grandfather who were preachers. Little Richard also took part in Macon's Pentecostal churches, which were his favorites mainly due to their music, charismatic praise, dancing in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. At age 10, influenced by Pentecostalism, Little Richard would go around saying he was a faith healer, singing gospel music to people who were feeling sick and touching them. He later recalled that they would often indicate that they felt better after he prayed for them and would sometimes give him money. Little Richard had aspirations of being a preacher due to the influence of singing evangelist Brother Joe May.
After he was born again in 1957, Little Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, a mostly black Seventh-day Adventist college, to study theology. Little Richard returned to secular music in the early 1960s. He was eventually ordained a minister in 1970, and again resumed evangelical activities in 1977. Little Richard represented Memorial Bibles International and sold their Black Heritage Bible, which highlighted the Book's many black characters. As a preacher, Little Richard evangelized in small churches and packed auditoriums of 20,000 or more. His preaching focused on uniting the races and bringing lost souls to repentance through God's love. In 1984, Little Richard's mother, Leva Mae, died following a period of illness. Only a few months prior to her death, Little Richard promised her that he would remain a Christian.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Little Richard officiated at celebrity weddings. In 2006, Little Richard wedded twenty couples who won a contest in one ceremony. The musician used his experience and knowledge as a minister and elder statesman of rock and roll to preach at funerals of musical friends such as Wilson Pickett and Ike Turner. At a benefit concert in 2009 to raise funds to help rebuild children's playgrounds destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Little Richard asked guest of honor Fats Domino to pray with him and others. His assistants handed out inspirational booklets at the concert—a common practice at Little Richard's shows. He somberly told a Howard Theatre, Washington, D.C. audience in June 2012, "I know this is not Church, but get close to the Lord. The world is getting close to the end. Get close to the Lord." In 2013, Little Richard elaborated on his spiritual philosophies, stating "God talked to me the other night. He said He's getting ready to come. The world's getting ready to end and He's coming, wrapped in flames of fire with a rainbow around his throne." Rolling Stone reported his apocalyptic prophesies generated snickers from some audience members as well as cheers of support. Little Richard responded by stating: "When I talk to you about [Jesus], I'm not playing. I'm almost 81 years old. Without God, I wouldn't be here."
Health problems
In October 1985, Little Richard returned to the United States from England, where he had finished recording his album Lifetime Friend, to film a guest spot on the show, Miami Vice. Following the taping, he accidentally crashed his sports car into a telephone pole in West Hollywood, California. He suffered a broken right leg, broken ribs and head and facial injuries. His recovery from the accident took several months. His accident prevented him from being able to attend the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in January 1986 where he was one of several inductees. He instead supplied a recorded message.
In 2007, Little Richard was having problems walking due to sciatica in his left leg, requiring him to use crutches. In November 2009, he entered a hospital to have replacement surgery on his left hip. Despite returning to performance the following year, Little Richard's problems with his hip continued and he has since been brought onstage by wheelchair. He has told fans that his surgery has his hip "breaking inside" and refuses to have further work on it. On September 30, 2013, he revealed to Cee Lo Green at a Recording Academy fundraiser that he had suffered a heart attack at his home the week prior and stated he used aspirin and had his son turn the air conditioner on, which his doctor confirmed had saved his life. Little Richard stated, "Jesus had something for me. He brought me through".
Legacy
Music
Little Richard's music and performance style had a pivotal impact on the shape of the sound and style of popular music genres of the 20th century. As a rock and roll pioneer, Little Richard embodied its spirit more flamboyantly than any other performer. Little Richard's raspy shouting style gave the genre one of its most identifiable and influential vocal sounds and his fusion of boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B and gospel music blazed its rhythmic trail.
Combining elements of boogie, gospel, and blues, Little Richard introduced several of rock music's most characteristic musical features, including its loud volume and vocal style emphasizing power, and its distinctive beat and rhythm. He departed from boogie-woogie's shuffle rhythm and introduced a new distinctive rock beat, where the beat division is even at all tempos. He reinforced the new rock rhythm with a two-handed approach, playing patterns with his right hand, with the rhythm typically popping out in the piano's high register. His new rhythm, which he introduced with "Tutti Frutti" (1955), became the basis for the standard rock beat, which was later consolidated by Chuck Berry. "Lucille" (1957) foreshadowed the rhythmic feel of 1960s classic rock in several ways, including its heavy bassline, slower tempo, strong rock beat played by the entire band, and verse–chorus form similar to blues.
Little Richard was blessed with a phenomenal voice able to generate croons, wails, and screams unprecedented in popular music. He was cited by two of soul music's pioneers, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, as contributing to that genre's early development. Redding stated that most of his music was patterned after Little Richard's and that he had "done a lot for [him] and [his] soul brothers in the music business." Cooke said in 1962 that Little Richard had done "so much for our music". Cooke had a top 40 hit with his cover of "Send Me Some Loving" in 1963.
James Brown said that Little Richard and the Upsetters, including drummer Charles "Chuck" Connor, were "the first to put the funk in rhythm", with a biographer stating that their music "spark[ed] the musical transition from fifties rock and roll to sixties funk".
Little Richard's hits of the mid-1950s, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Keep A-Knockin'" and "Good Golly Miss Molly", were generally characterized by playful lyrics with sexually suggestive connotations. AllMusic writer Richie Unterberger stated that Little Richard "merged the fire of gospel with New Orleans R&B, pounding the piano and wailing with gleeful abandon", and that while "other R&B greats of the early '50s had been moving in a similar direction, none of them matched the sheer electricity of Richard's vocals. With his high speed deliveries, ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed force of personality in his singing, he was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock and roll." Due to his innovative music and style, he's often widely acknowledged as the "architect of rock and roll".
Ray Charles introduced him at a concert in 1988 as "a man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today." Rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley called Little Richard "one of a kind" and "a show business genius" that "influenced so many in the music business". Little Richard's contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, all recorded covers of Little Richard's works. Taken by Little Richard's music and style, and personally covering four of Little Richard's tunes on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Little Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him and that he was "the greatest". Pat Boone noted in 1984, "no one person has been more imitated than Little Richard". As they wrote about Little Richard for their Man of the Year – Legend category in 2010, GQ magazine stated that Little Richard "is, without question, the boldest and most influential of the founding fathers of rock'n'roll". R&B pioneer Johnny Otis stated that "Little Richard is twice as valid artistically and important historically as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones put together."
Society
In addition to his musical style, Little Richard was cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing blacks and whites together despite attempts to sustain segregation. As H.B. Barnum explained in Quasar of Rock, Little Richard "opened the door. He brought the races together." Barnum described Little Richard's music as not being "boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy things, they were fun records, all fun. And they had a lot to say sociologically in our country and the world." Barnum also stated that Little Richard's "charisma was a whole new thing to the music business", explaining that "he would burst onto the stage from anywhere, and you wouldn't be able to hear anything but the roar of the audience. He might come out and walk on the piano. He might go out into the audience." Barnum also stated that Little Richard was innovative in that he would wear colorful capes, blouse shirts, makeup and suits studded with multi-colored precious stones and sequins, and that he also brought flickering stage lighting from his show business experience into performance venues where rock and roll artists performed. In 2015, the National Museum of African American Music honored Penniman for helping to shatter the color line on the music charts changing American culture forever.
Influence
Little Richard influenced generations of performers across musical genres. James Brown and Otis Redding both idolized Little Richard. Brown allegedly came up with the Famous Flames debut hit, "Please, Please, Please", after Little Richard had written the words on a napkin. Redding started his professional career with Little Richard's band, The Upsetters. He first entered a talent show performing Little Richard's "Heeby Jeebies", winning for 15 consecutive weeks. Ike Turner claimed most of Tina Turner's early vocal delivery was based on Little Richard, something Little Richard himself reiterated in the foreword of Turner's biography, King of Rhythm. Bob Dylan first performed covers of Little Richard's songs on piano in high school with his rock and roll group, the Golden Chords; in 1959 when leaving school, he wrote in his yearbook under "Ambition": "to join Little Richard". Jimi Hendrix was influenced in appearance (clothing and hairstyle/mustache) and sound by Little Richard. He was quoted in 1966 saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." Others influenced by Little Richard early on in their lives included Bob Seger and John Fogerty. Michael Jackson admitted that Little Richard had been a huge influence on him prior to Off the Wall. Rock critics noted similarities between Prince's androgynous look, music and vocal style to Little Richard's. The origins of Cliff Richard's name change from Harry Webb was seen as a partial tribute to his musical hero Little Richard and singer Rick Richards. Several members of The Beatles were heavily influenced by Little Richard, including Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney idolized Little Richard in school and later used Little Richard's vocals as inspiration for his uptempo rockers. "Long Tall Sally" was the first song McCartney performed in public. During the Beatles' Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Harrison commented, "thank you all very much, especially the rock 'n' rollers, an' Little Richard there, if it wasn't for (gesturing to Little Richard), it was all his fault, really." Upon hearing "Long Tall Sally", John Lennon commented that he was so impressed that he "couldn't speak". Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were also profoundly influenced by Little Richard, with Jagger citing him as his first induction to R&B music and referring to him as "the originator and my first idol". Upon hearing "Tutti Frutti", Richards explained, "it was if, in a single instant, the world changed from monochrome to Technicolor". Little Richard was an early vocal influence on Rod Stewart. David Bowie called Little Richard his "inspiration" stating upon listening to "Tutti Frutti" that he "heard God". After opening for him with his band Bluesology, pianist Reginald Dwight was inspired to be a "rock and roll piano player", later changing his name to Elton John. Farookh Bulsara performed covers of Little Richard's songs as a teen, before finding fame as Freddie Mercury, frontman for Queen. Little Richard was referred to as Lou Reed's rock n roll hero, deriving inspiration from "the soulful, primal force" of the sound made by Little Richard and his saxophonist on "Long Tall Sally." Reed later stated, "I don't know why and I don't care, but I wanted to go to wherever that sound was and make a life." Patti Smith said, "To me, Little Richard was a person that was able to focus a certain physical, anarchistic, and spiritual energy into a form which we call rock 'n' roll ... I understood it as something that had to do with my future. When I was a little girl, Santa Claus didn't turn me on. Easter Bunny didn't turn me on. God turned me on. Little Richard turned me on." The music of Deep Purple and Motörhead was also influenced by Little Richard, as well as that of AC/DC. The latter's Bon Scott idolized Little Richard and aspired to sing like him, and Angus Young was first inspired to play guitar after listening to Little Richard's music. Later performers such as Mystikal, André "André 3000" Benjamin of Outkast and Bruno Mars were cited by critics as having emulated Little Richard's style in their own works. Mystikal's rap vocal delivery was compared to Little Richard's. André 3000's vocals in Outkast's hit, "Hey Ya!", were compared to an "indie rock Little Richard". Bruno Mars admitted Little Richard was one of his earliest influences. Mars' song, "Runaway Baby" from his album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans was cited by the New York Times as "channeling Little Richard".
Awards and honors
Little Richard received the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for "Long Tall Sally" in 1956. In 1984, he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 1990, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1994. In 1993, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1997, he was given the American Music Award of Merit. In 2002, along with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Little Richard was honored as one of the first group of BMI icons at the 50th Annual BMI Pop Awards. That same year, he was inducted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame. A year later, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was inducted into the Apollo Theater Hall of Fame. Four years afterwards, he received a plaque on the theater's Walk of Fame. In 2008, he received a star at Nashville's Music City Walk of Fame. In 2009, he was inducted to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. The UK issue of GQ named him its Man of the Year in its Legend category in 2010. Little Richard appeared in person to receive an honorary degree from his hometown's Mercer University on May 11, 2013. The day before the doctorate of humanities degree was to be bestowed upon him, the mayor of Macon announced that one of Little Richard's childhood homes, an historic site, will be moved to a rejuvenated section of that city's Pleasant Hill district. It will be restored and named the Little Richard Penniman – Pleasant Hill Resource House, a meeting place where local history and artifacts will be displayed as provided by residents. Penniman was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on May 7, 2015. On June 6, 2015, Penniman was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Clarksdale, MS. On June 19, 2015, the National Museum of African American Music honored Penniman with the Rhapsody & Rhythm Award for his key role in the formation of popular music genres, influencing singers and musicians across genres from Rock to Hip-Hop, and helping to shatter the color line on the music charts changing American culture forever.
Included in numerous Rolling Stone lists, Little Richard's Here's Little Richard was ranked fifty on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. He was ranked eighth on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone listed three of Little Richard's recordings, "The Girl Can't Help It", "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti", on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Two of the latter songs and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" were listed on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The Grammy Hall of Fame inducted several of Little Richard's recordings including "Tutti Frutti", "Lucille", "Long Tall Sally" and Here's Little Richard. "Tutti Frutti" topped music magazine Mojo'''s list of "The 100 Records That Changed the World". The same recording was inducted to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2010, with the library claiming the "unique vocalizing over the irresistible beat announced a new era in music".
Discography
Filmography
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
Little Richard Booking Agency
Category:1932 births
Category:African-American Christians
Category:African-American male singers
Category:African-American pianists
Category:African-American rock musicians
Category:African-American rock singers
Category:African-American songwriters
Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
Category:American rock pianists
Category:American rock singers
Category:American rock songwriters
Category:American male songwriters
Category:American male singer-songwriters
Category:American soul singers
Category:Bisexual men
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Category:Brunswick Records artists
Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
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Category:Mercury Records artists
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Category:Musicians from Macon, Georgia
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Category:Songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)
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Category:Pioneers of music genres |
2016-01 | Gasoline-697782228 | Gasoline | Gasoline
Gasoline , also known as petrol outside of North America, is a transparent, petroleum-derived liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives.
On average, a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 19 gallons of gasoline when processed in an oil refinery, though this can and does vary based on the crude oil source's assay.
The characteristic of a particular gasoline blend to resist igniting too early (which causes knocking and reduces efficiency in reciprocating engines) is measured by its octane rating. Gasoline is produced in several grades of octane rating. Tetraethyllead and other lead compounds are no longer used in most areas to regulate and increase octane-rating, but many other additives are put into gasoline to improve its chemical stability, control corrosiveness and provide fuel system 'cleaning,' and determine performance characteristics under intended use. Sometimes, gasoline also contains ethanol as an alternative fuel, for economic or environmental reasons.
Gasoline, as used worldwide in the vast number of internal combustion engines used in transport and industry, has a significant impact on the environment, both in local effects (e.g., smog) and in global effects (e.g., effect on the climate). Gasoline may also enter the environment uncombusted, as liquid and as vapors, from leakage and handling during production, transport and delivery, from storage tanks, from spills, etc. As an example of efforts to control such leakage, many (underground) storage tanks are required to have extensive measures in place to detect and prevent such leaks. Gasoline contains benzene and other known carcinogens.
Octane rating
Spark ignition engines are designed to burn gasoline in a controlled process called deflagration. However, the unburned mixture may autoignite by detonating from pressure and heat alone, rather than ignite from the spark plug at exactly the right time. This causes a rapid pressure rise which can damage the engine. This is often referred to as engine knocking or end-gas knock. Knocking can be reduced by increasing the gasoline's resistance to autoignition, which is expressed by its octane rating.
Octane rating is measured relative to a mixture of 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (an isomer of octane) and n-heptane. There are different conventions for expressing octane ratings, so the same physical fuel may have several different octane ratings based on the measure used. One of the best known is the research octane number (RON).
The octane rating of typical commercially available gasoline varies by country. In Finland, Sweden, and Norway, 95 RON is the standard for regular unleaded gasoline and 98 RON is also available as a more expensive option. In the UK, ordinary regular unleaded gasoline is 95 RON (commonly available), premium unleaded gasoline is always 97 RON, and super unleaded is usually 97-98 RON. However, both Shell and BP produce fuel at 102 RON for cars with high-performance engines and in 2006 the supermarket chain Tesco began to sell super unleaded gasoline rated at 99 RON. In the US, octane ratings in unleaded fuels can vary between 85 and 87 AKI (91-92 RON) for regular, through 89-90 AKI (94-95 RON) for mid-grade (equivalent to European regular), up to 90-94 AKI (95-99 RON) for premium (European premium).
South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, is located on the Highveld at above sea level. So the South African AA recommends 95 octane gasoline (petrol) at low altitude and 93 octane for use in Johannesburg because "The higher the altitude the lower the air pressure, and the lower the need for a high octane fuel as there is no real performance gain".
The octane rating became important as the military sought higher output for aircraft engines in the late 1930s and the 1940s. A higher octane rating allows a higher compression ratio or supercharger boost, and thus higher temperatures and pressures, which translate to higher power output. Some scientists even predicted that a nation with a good supply of high octane gasoline would have the advantage in air power. In 1943, the Rolls Royce Merlin aero engine produced 1320 horsepower (984 kW) using 100 RON fuel from a modest 27 liter displacement. Towards the end of the second world war, experiments were conducted using 150 RON fuel (100/150 avgas), obtained by adding 2.5% aniline to 100 octane avgas.
Stability
Quality gasoline should be stable for six months if stored properly but gasoline will break down slowly over time due to the separation of the components. Gasoline stored for a year will most likely be able to be burned in an internal combustion engine without too much trouble but the effects of long term storage will become more noticeable with each passing month until a time comes when the gasoline should be diluted with ever increasing amounts of freshly made fuel so that the older gasoline may be used up. If left undiluted, improper operation will occur and this may include engine damage from misfiring and/or the lack of proper action of the fuel within a fuel injection system and from an onboard computer attempting to compensate (if applicable to the vehicle). Storage should be in an airtight container (to prevent oxidation or water vapors mixing in with the gas) that can withstand the vapor pressure of the gasoline without venting (to prevent the loss of the more volatile fractions) at a stable cool temperature (to reduce the excess pressure from liquid expansion, and to reduce the rate of any decomposition reactions). When gasoline is not stored correctly, gums and solids may be created, which can corrode system components and accumulate on wetted surfaces, resulting in a condition called "stale fuel". Gasoline containing ethanol is especially subject to absorbing atmospheric moisture, then forming gums, solids, or two phases (a hydrocarbon phase floating on top of a water-alcohol phase).
The presence of these degradation products in the fuel tank, fuel lines plus a carburetor or fuel injection components makes it harder to start the engine or causes reduced engine performance. On resumption of regular engine use, the buildup may or may not be eventually cleaned out by the flow of fresh gasoline. The addition of a fuel stabilizer to gasoline can extend the life of fuel that is not or cannot be stored properly though removal of all fuel from a fuel system is the only real solution to the problem of long term storage of an engine or a machine or vehicle. Some typical fuel stabilizers are proprietary mixtures containing mineral spirits, isopropyl alcohol, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, or other additives. Fuel stabilizer is commonly used for small engines, such as lawnmower and tractor engines, especially when their use is seasonal (low to no use for one or more seasons of the year). Users have been advised to keep gasoline containers more than half full and properly capped to reduce air exposure, to avoid storage at high temperatures, to run an engine for ten minutes to circulate the stabilizer through all components prior to storage, and to run the engine at intervals to purge stale fuel from the carburetor.
Gasoline stability requirements are set in standard ASTM D4814-14b. The standard describes the various characteristics and requirements of automotive fuels for use over a wide range of operating conditions in ground vehicles equipped with spark-ignition engines.
Energy content
Energy is obtained from the combustion of gasoline by the conversion of a hydrocarbon to carbon dioxide and water. The combustion of octane follows this reaction:
2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
Gasoline contains about 42.4 MJ/kg (120 MJ/US gal, 33.3 kWh/US gal, 120,000 BTU/US gal) quoting the lower heating value.
Gasoline blends differ, and therefore actual energy content varies according to the season and producer by up to 4% more or less than the average, according to the US EPA. On average, about 74 L of gasoline (19.5 US gal, 16.3 imp gal) are available from a barrel of crude oil (about 46% by volume), varying due to quality of crude and grade of gasoline. The remainder are products ranging from tar to naphtha.
A high-octane-rated fuel, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has an overall lower power output at the typical 10:1 compression ratio of a gasoline engine. However, with an engine tuned to the use of LPG (i.e. via higher compression ratios, such as 12:1 instead of 10:1), the power output can be improved. This is because higher-octane fuels allow for a higher compression ratio without knocking, resulting in a higher cylinder temperature, which improves efficiency. Also, increased mechanical efficiency is created by a higher compression ratio through the concomitant higher expansion ratio on the power stroke, which is by far the greater effect. The higher expansion ratio extracts more work from the high-pressure gas created by the combustion process. An Atkinson cycle engine uses the timing of the valve events to produce the benefits of a high expansion ratio without the disadvantages, chiefly detonation, of a high compression ratio. A high expansion ratio is also one of the two key reasons for the efficiency of diesel engines, along with the elimination of pumping losses due to throttling of the intake air flow.
The lower energy content (per liter) of LPG in comparison to gasoline is due mainly to its lower density. Energy content per kilogram is higher than for gasoline (higher hydrogen to carbon ratio, for an example see Standard enthalpy of formation).
Molecular weights of the above reagents are C8H18 114, O2 32, CO2 44, H2O 18; therefore 1 kg of fuel reacts with 3.51 kg of oxygen to produce 3.09 kg of carbon dioxide and 1.42 kg of water.
Density
The density of gasoline ranges from 0.71–0.77 kg/L ( ; 0.026 lb/in3; 6.073 lb/US gal; 7.29 lb/imp gal), higher densities having a greater volume of aromatics. Since gasoline floats on water, water cannot generally be used to extinguish a gasoline fire unless used in a fine mist.
Finished marketable gasoline is traded with a standard reference of 0.755 kg/L, and its price is escalated/de-escalated according to its actual density.
Chemical analysis and production
Gasoline is produced in oil refineries. Roughly 19 US gallons of gasoline is derived from a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil. Material separated from crude oil via distillation, called virgin or straight-run gasoline, does not meet specifications for modern engines (particularly the octane rating, see below), but can be pooled to the gasoline blend.
The bulk of a typical gasoline consists of hydrocarbons with between 4 and 12 carbon atoms per molecule (commonly referred to as C4-C12). It is a mixture of paraffins (alkanes), cycloalkanes (naphthenes), and olefins (alkenes), where the usage of the terms paraffin and olefin is particular to the oil industry. The actual ratio depends on:
the oil refinery that makes the gasoline, as not all refineries have the same set of processing units;
the crude oil feed used by the refinery;
the grade of gasoline, in particular, the octane rating.
The various refinery streams blended to make gasoline have different characteristics. Some important streams are:
straight-run gasoline, usually also called naphtha is distilled directly from crude oil. Once the leading source of fuel, its low octane rating required lead additives. It is low in aromatics (depending on the grade of crude oil), containing some cycloalkanes (naphthenes) and no olefins (alkenes). Between 0 and 20% of this stream is pooled into the finished gasoline, because the supply of this fraction is insufficient and its RON is too low.. The chemical properties (namely octane and RVP) of the straight-run gasoline can be improved through reforming and isomerisation. However, before feeding those units, the naphtha needs to be split in light and heavy naphtha. Straight-run gasoline can be also used as a feedstock into steam-crackers to produce olefins.
reformate, produced in a catalytic reformer has a high octane rating with high aromatic content, and relatively low olefins (alkenes). Most of the benzene, toluene, and xylene (the so-called BTX) are more valuable as chemical feedstocks and are thus removed to some extent.
catalytic cracked gasoline or catalytic cracked naphtha, produced from a catalytic cracker, with a moderate octane rating, high olefins (alkene) content, and moderate aromatics level.
hydrocrackate (heavy, mid, and light) produced from a hydrocracker, with medium to low octane rating and moderate aromatic levels.
alkylate is produced in an alkylation unit, using as feedstocks isobutane and alkenes. Alkylate contains no aromatics and alkenes and has high MON.
isomerate is obtained by isomerizing low octane straight run gasoline to iso-paraffins (non-chain alkanes, like isooctane). Isomerate has medium RON and MON, but nil aromatics and olefins.
butane is usually blended in the gasoline pool, although the quantity of this stream is limited by the RVP specification.
The terms above are the jargon used in the oil industry and terminology varies.
Currently, many countries set limits on gasoline aromatics in general, benzene in particular, and olefin (alkene) content. Such regulations led to increasing preference for high octane pure paraffin (alkane) components, such as alkylate, and is forcing refineries to add processing units to reduce benzene content. In the EU the benzene limit is set at 1% volume for all grade of automotive gasoline.
Gasoline can also contain other organic compounds, such as organic ethers (deliberately added), plus small levels of contaminants, in particular organosulfur compounds, but these are usually removed at the refinery.
Additives
Inhaled (huffed) gasoline vapor is a common intoxicant that has become epidemic in some poorer communities and indigenous groups in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and some Pacific Islands. In response, Opal fuel has been developed by the BP Kwinana Refinery in Australia, and contains only 5% aromatics, which weakens the effects of inhalation.
Antiknock additives
Almost all countries in the world have phased out automotive leaded fuel. In 2011 six countries in the world were still using leaded gasoline: Afghanistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Algeria, Iraq and Yemen. It was expected that by the end of 2013 those countries would ban leaded gasoline, but it has not occurred. Algeria will replace leaded with unleaded automotive fuel only in 2015.
Different additives have replaced the lead compounds. The most popular additives include aromatic hydrocarbons, ethers and alcohol (usually ethanol or methanol).
For technical reasons the use of leaded additives is still permitted world-wide for the formulation of some grades of aviation gasoline such as 100LL, because the required octane rating would be technically infeasible to reach without the use of leaded additives.
Tetraethyllead
Gasoline, when used in high-compression internal combustion engines, tends to autoignite (detonate) causing damaging "engine knocking" (also called "pinging" or "pinking") noise. To address this problem, tetraethyllead (TEL) was widely adopted as an additive for gasoline in the 1920s. With the discovery of the extent of environmental and health damage caused by the lead, however, and the incompatibility of lead with catalytic converters, leaded gasoline was phased out in the USA beginning in 1973. By 1995, leaded fuel accounted for only 0.6% of total gasoline sales and under 2000 short tons (1814 t) of lead per year in the USA. From 1 January 1996, the U.S. Clean Air Act banned the sale of leaded fuel for use in on-road vehicles in the USA. The use of TEL also necessitated other additives, such as dibromoethane.
First European countries started replacing lead by the end of the 1980s and by the end of the 1990s leaded gasoline was banned within the entire European Union.
MMT
Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (MMT) is used in Canada and in Australia to boost octane. It also helps old cars designed for leaded fuel run on unleaded fuel without need for additives to prevent valve problems. Its use in the US has been restricted by regulations.
Fuel stabilizers (antioxidants and metal deactivators)
Gummy, sticky resin deposits result from oxidative degradation of gasoline upon long term storage. These harmful deposits arise from the oxidation of alkenes and other minor components in gasoline (see drying oils). Improvements in refinery techniques have generally reduced the susceptibility of gasolines to these problems. Previously, catalytically or thermally cracked gasolines are most susceptible to oxidation. The formation of these gums is accelerated by copper salts, which can be neutralized by additives called metal deactivators.
This degradation can be prevented through the addition of 5–100 ppm of antioxidants, such as phenylenediamines and other amines. Hydrocarbons with a bromine number of 10 or above can be protected with the combination of unhindered or partially hindered phenols and oil-soluble strong amine bases, such as hindered phenols. "Stale" gasoline can be detected by a colorimetric enzymatic test for organic peroxides produced by oxidation of the gasoline.
Gasolines are also treated with metal deactivators, which are compounds that sequester (deactivate) metal salts that otherwise accelerate the formation of gummy residues. The metal impurities might arise from the engine itself or as contaminants in the fuel.
Detergents
Gasoline, as delivered at the pump, also contains additives to reduce internal engine carbon buildups, improve combustion, and to allow easier starting in cold climates. High levels of detergent can be found in Top Tier Detergent Gasolines. The specification for Top Tier Detergent gasolines was developed by four automakers: GM, Honda, Toyota and BMW. According to the bulletin, the minimal EPA requirement is not sufficient to keep engines clean. Typical detergents include alkylamines and alkyl phosphates at the level of 50-100 ppm.
Ethanol
European Union
In the EU, 5% ethanol can be added within the common gasoline spec (EN 228). Discussions are ongoing to allow 10% blending of ethanol (available in Finnish, French and German gas stations). In Finland most gasoline stations sell 95E10, which is 10% of ethanol; and 98E5, which is 5% ethanol. Most gasoline sold in Sweden has 5-15% ethanol added.
Brazil
In Brazil, the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) requires gasoline for automobile use to have 27.5% of ethanol added to its composition. However, grades with higher ethanol content are available.
Australia
Legislation requires retailers to label fuels containing ethanol on the dispenser, and limits ethanol use to 10% of gasoline in Australia. Such gasoline is commonly called E10 by major brands, and it is cheaper than regular unleaded gasoline.
United States
The federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) effectively requires refiners and blenders to blend renewable biofuels (mostly ethanol) with gasoline, sufficient to meet a growing annual target of total gallons blended. Although the mandate does not require a specific percentage of ethanol, annual increases in the target combined with declining gasoline consumption has caused the typical ethanol content in gasoline to approach 10%. Most fuel pumps display a sticker that states that the fuel may contain up to 10% ethanol, an intentional disparity that reflects the varying actual percentage. Until late 2010, fuels retailers were only authorized to sell fuel containing up to 10 percent ethanol (E10), and most vehicle warranties (except for flexible fuel vehicles) authorize fuels that contain no more than 10 percent ethanol. In parts of the United States, ethanol is sometimes added to gasoline without an indication that it is a component.
India
The Government of India in October 2007 decided to make 5% ethanol blending (with petrol) mandatory. Currently, 10% Ethanol blended product (E10) is being sold in various parts of the country.
Dye
In Australia, the lowest grade of gasoline (RON 91) is dyed a light shade of red/orange and the medium grade (RON 95) is dyed yellow.
In the United States, aviation gasoline (avgas) is dyed to identify its octane rating and to distinguish it from kerosene-based jet fuel, which is clear.
In Canada the gasoline for marine and farm use is dyed red and is not subject to road tax .
Oxygenate blending
Oxygenate blending adds oxygen-bearing compounds such as MTBE, ETBE, ethanol, and biobutanol. The presence of these oxygenates reduces the amount of carbon monoxide and unburned fuel in the exhaust gas. In many areas throughout the US, oxygenate blending is mandated by EPA regulations to reduce smog and other airborne pollutants. For example, in Southern California, fuel must contain 2% oxygen by weight, resulting in a mixture of 5.6% ethanol in gasoline. The resulting fuel is often known as reformulated gasoline (RFG) or oxygenated gasoline, or in the case of California, California reformulated gasoline. The federal requirement that RFG contain oxygen was dropped on 6 May 2006 because the industry had developed VOC-controlled RFG that did not need additional oxygen.
MTBE was phased out in the US due to ground water contamination and the resulting regulations and lawsuits. Ethanol and, to a lesser extent, the ethanol-derived ETBE are common replacements. A common ethanol-gasoline mix of 10% ethanol mixed with gasoline is called gasohol or E10, and an ethanol-gasoline mix of 85% ethanol mixed with gasoline is called E85. The most extensive use of ethanol takes place in Brazil, where the ethanol is derived from sugarcane. In 2004, over 3.4 billion US gallons (2.8 billion imp gal/13 million m³) of ethanol was produced in the United States for fuel use, mostly from corn, and E85 is slowly becoming available in much of the United States, though many of the relatively few stations vending E85 are not open to the general public. The use of bioethanol, either directly or indirectly by conversion of such ethanol to bio-ETBE, is encouraged by the European Union Directive on the Promotion of the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport. Since producing bioethanol from fermented sugars and starches involves distillation, though, ordinary people in much of Europe cannot legally ferment and distill their own bioethanol at present (unlike in the US, where getting a BATF distillation permit has been easy since the 1973 oil crisis).
Safety
Environmental considerations
Combustion of of gasoline produces of carbon dioxide (2.3 kg/l), a greenhouse gas.
The main concern with gasoline on the environment, aside from the complications of its extraction and refining, is the potential effect on the climate. Unburnt gasoline and evaporation from the tank, when in the atmosphere, reacts in sunlight to produce photochemical smog. Vapor pressure initially rises with some addition of ethanol to gasoline, but the increase is greatest at 10% by volume. At higher concentrations of ethanol above 10%, the vapor pressure of the blend starts to decrease. At a 10% ethanol by volume, the rise in vapor pressure may potentially increase the problem of photochemical smog. This rise in vapor pressure could be mitigated by increasing the percentage of ethanol in the gasoline mixture.
The chief risks of such leaks come not from vehicles, but from gasoline delivery truck accidents and leaks from storage tanks. Because of this risk, most (underground) storage tanks now have extensive measures in place to detect and prevent any such leaks, such as monitoring systems (Veeder-Root, Franklin Fueling).
Toxicity
The safety data sheet for unleaded gasoline shows at least 15 hazardous chemicals occurring in various amounts, including benzene (up to 5% by volume), toluene (up to 35% by volume), naphthalene (up to 1% by volume), trimethylbenzene (up to 7% by volume), methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) (up to 18% by volume, in some states) and about ten others. Hydrocarbons in gasoline generally exhibit low acute toxicities, with LD50 of 700 – 2700 mg/kg for simple aromatic compounds. Benzene and many antiknocking additives are carcinogenic.
People can be exposed to gasoline in the workplace by swallowing it, breathing in vapors, skin contact, and eye contact. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has designated gasoline as a carcinogen.
Inhalation
Huffed gasoline is a common intoxicant that has become epidemic in some poorer communities and indigenous groups in Australia, New Zealand, and some Pacific Islands. In response, Opal fuel has been developed by the BP Kwinana refinery in Australia, and contains only 5% aromatics (unlike the usual 25%), which weakens the effects of inhalation.
Flammability
Like other hydrocarbons, gasoline burns in a limited range of its vapor phase and, coupled with its volatility, this makes leaks highly dangerous when sources of ignition are present. Gasoline has a lower explosion limit of 1.4% by volume and an upper explosion limit of 7.6%. If the concentration is below 1.4%, the air-gasoline mixture is too lean and does not ignite. If the concentration is above 7.6%, the mixture is too rich and also does not ignite. However, gasoline vapor rapidly mixes and spreads with air, making unconstrained gasoline quickly flammable.
Use and pricing
The United States accounts for about 44% of the world’s gasoline consumption. In 2003 The US consumed , which equates to of gasoline each day. The US used about of gasoline in 2006, of which 5.6% was mid-grade and 9.5% was premium grade.
Europe
Unlike the US, countries in Europe impose substantial taxes on fuels such as gasoline. The price of gasoline in Europe is typically about three times that in the US.
United States
From 1998 to 2004, the price of gasoline fluctuated between $1 and $2 USD per U.S. gallon. After 2004, the price increased until the average gas price reached a high of $4.11 per U.S. gallon in mid-2008, but receded to approximately $2.60 per U.S. gallon by September 2009. More recently, the U.S. experienced an upswing in gas prices through 2011, and by 1 March 2012, the national average was $3.74 per gallon.
In the United States, most consumer goods bear pre-tax prices, but gasoline prices are posted with taxes included. Taxes are added by federal, state, and local governments. As of 2009, the federal tax is 18.4¢ per gallon for gasoline and 24.4¢ per gallon for diesel (excluding red diesel). Among states, the highest gasoline tax rates, including the federal taxes as of 2005, are New York (62.9¢/gal), Hawaii (60.1¢/gal), and California (60¢/gal). However, many states' taxes are a percentage and thus vary in amount depending on the cost of the gasoline.
About 9% of all gasoline sold in the US in May 2009 was premium grade, according to the Energy Information Administration. Consumer Reports magazine says, "If [your owner’s manual] says to use regular fuel, do so—there’s no advantage to a higher grade." The Associated Press said premium gas—which is a higher octane and costs more per gallon than regular unleaded—should be used only if the manufacturer says it is "required". Cars with turbocharged engines and high compression ratios often specify premium gas because higher octane fuels reduce the incidence of "knock", or fuel pre-detonation.
The price of gas varies during the summer and winter months.
History
The first automotive combustion engines, so-called Otto engines, were developed in the last quarter of the 19th century in Germany. The fuel was a relatively volatile hydrocarbon obtained from coal gas. With a boiling point near 85 °C (octanes boil about 40 °C higher), it was well suited for early carburetors (evaporators). The development of a "spray nozzle" carburetor enabled the use of less volatile fuels. Further improvements in engine efficiency were attempted at higher compression ratios, but early attempts were blocked by knocking (premature explosion of fuel). In the 1920s, antiknock compounds were introduced by Migley and Boyd, specifically tetraethyllead (TEL). This innovation started a cycle of improvements in fuel efficiency that coincided with the large-scale development of oil refining to provide more products in the boiling range of gasoline. In the 1950s oil refineries started to focus on high octane fuels, and then detergents were added to gasoline to clean the jets in carburetors. The 1970s witnessed greater attention to the environmental consequences of burning gasoline. These considerations led to the phasing out of TEL and its replacement by other antiknock compounds. Subsequently, low-sulfur gasoline was introduced, in part to preserve the catalysts in modern exhaust systems.
Etymology and terminology
"Gasoline" is cited (under the spelling "gasolene") from 1863 in the Oxford English Dictionary. It was never a trademark, although it may have been derived from older trademarks such as "Cazeline" and "Gazeline".
Variant spellings of "gasoline" have been used to refer to raw petroleum since the 16th century. "Petrol" was first used as the name of a refined petroleum product around 1870 by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard, who marketed it as a solvent. When the product later found a new use as a motor fuel, Frederick Simms, an associate of Gottlieb Daimler, suggested to Carless that they register the trade mark "petrol", but by this time the word was already in general use, possibly inspired by the French pétrole, and the registration was not allowed. Carless registered a number of alternative names for the product, while their competitors used the term "motor spirit" until the 1930s.
In many countries, gasoline has a colloquial name derived from that of the chemical benzene (e.g., German Benzin, Czech benzina, Dutch benzine, Italian benzina, Polish benzyna, Chilean Spanish bencina, Thai เบนซิน bayn sin , Greek βενζίνη venzini, Romanian benzină, Swedish bensin, Arabic بنزين binzīn). Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Italy use the colloquial name nafta derived from that of the chemical naphtha.
The terms "mogas", short for motor gasoline, or "autogas", short for automobile gasoline, are used to distinguish automobile fuel from aviation fuel, or "avgas".
Comparison with other fuels
Volumetric and mass energy density of some fuels compared with gasoline (in the rows with gross and net, they are from):
(*) Diesel fuel is not used in a gasoline engine, so its low octane rating is not an issue; the relevant metric for diesel engines is the cetane number
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
Gold, Russell. The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World (Simon & Schuster, 2014).
Yergin, Daniel. The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (Penguin, 2011).
-----. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (Buccaneer Books, 1994). (Latest edition: Reissue Press, 2008).
Graph of inflation-corrected historic prices, 1970–2005. Highest in 2005
The Low-Down on High Octane Gasoline
MMT-US EPA
An introduction to the modern petroleum science, and to the Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins.
What's the difference between premium and regular gas? (from The Straight Dope)
"Here Comes Winter Gasoline" R-Squared Energy Blog 14 September 2006
International Fuel Prices 2005 with diesel and gasoline prices of 172 countries
EIA — Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
World Internet News: "Big Oil Looking for Another Government Handout", April 2006.
Durability of various plastics: Alcohols vs. Gasoline
Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural petroleum.
Fuel Economy Impact Analysis of RFG i.e. reformulated gasoline. Has lower heating value data, actual energy content is higher see higher heating value
External links
CNN/Money: Global gas prices
EEP: European gas prices
Transportation Energy Data Book
Energy Supply Logistics Searchable Directory of US Terminals
2011 NACS Annual Fuels Report
Definition of basic terms, Graphs of Gas prices. all in Slovak language
Gasoline from Vinegar | MIT Technology Review
High octane fuel, leaded and LRP gasoline — article from robotpig.net
CDC - NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards
Aviation Fuel Map
Images
Down the Gasoline Trail Handy Jam Organization, 1935 (Cartoon)
Category:IARC Group 2B carcinogens
Category:Liquid fuels
Category:Petroleum products |
2016-01 | Furry_fandom-695746811 | Furry_fandom | Furry fandom
The furry fandom is a subculture interested in fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes. Furry fandom is also used to refer to the community of people who gather on the Internet and at furry conventions.
History
According to fandom historian Fred Patten, the concept of furry originated at a science fiction convention in 1980, when a character drawing from Steve Gallacci’s Albedo Anthropomorphics started a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels. This led to the formation of a discussion group that met at science fiction conventions and comics conventions.
The specific term furry fandom was being used in fanzines as early as 1983, and had become the standard name for the genre by the mid-1990s, when it was defined as "the organized appreciation and dissemination of art and prose regarding 'Furries', or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters." However, fans consider the origins of furry fandom to be much earlier, with fictional works such as Kimba, The White Lion released in 1965, Richard Adams' novel Watership Down, published in 1972 (and its 1978 film adaptation), as well as Disney's Robin Hood as oft-cited examples. To distinguish these personae from seriously depicted animal characters, such as Lassie or Old Yeller, cartoon animals are referred to as funny animals.
During the 1980s, furry fans began to publish fanzines, developing a diverse social group that eventually began to schedule social gatherings. By 1989, there was sufficient interest to stage the first furry convention. Throughout the next decade, the Internet became accessible to the general population and became the most popular means for furry fans to socialize. The newsgroup alt.fan.furry was created in November 1990, and virtual environments such as MUCKs also became popular places on the Internet for fans to meet and communicate.
The furry fandom is male-dominated, with surveys reporting around 80% male respondents.
Inspiration
Allegorical novels, including works of both science fiction and fantasy, and cartoons featuring anthropomorphic animals are often cited as the earliest inspiration for the fandom. A survey conducted in 2007 suggested that, when compared to a non-furry control group, a higher proportion of those self-identifying as furries liked cartoons "a great deal" as children and recalled watching them significantly more often, as well as being more likely to enjoy works of science fiction than those outside of the community.
Activities
According to a survey from 2008, most furries believe that visual art, conventions, literature, and online communities are strongly important to the fandom.
Crafts
Fans with craft skills create their own plush toys, sometimes referred to as plushies, and also build elaborate costumes called fursuits, which are worn for fun or to participate in parades, convention masquerades, dances, or fund-raising charity events (as entertainers). Fursuits range from designs featuring simple construction and resembling sports mascots to those with more sophisticated features that include moving jaw mechanisms, animatronic parts, prosthetic makeup, and other features. Fursuits range in price from $500, for mascot-like designs, to an upwards of $10,000 for models incorporating animatronics. While about 80% of furries do not own a full fursuit, often citing their expensive cost as the decisive factor, a majority of them hold positive feelings towards fursuiters and the conventions in which they participate. Some fans may also wear "partial" suits consisting simply of ears and a tail, or a head, paws, and a tail.
Furry fans also pursue puppetry, recording videos and performing live shows such as Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends and the Funday PawPet Show, and create furry accessories, such as ears or tails.
Role-playing
Anthropomorphic animal characters created by furry fans, known as fursonas, are used for role-playing in MUDs, on internet forums, or on electronic mailing lists. A variety of species are employed as the basis of these personas, although many furries (for example over 60% of those surveyed in 2007) choose to identify themselves with carnivorans. The longest-running online furry role-playing environment is FurryMUCK. Another popular online furry social game is called Furcadia, created by Dragon's Eye Productions. There are also several furry-themed areas and communities in the virtual world Second Life.
Role-playing also takes place offline, with petting, hugging and "scritching" (light scratching and grooming) common between friends at social gatherings. Fursuits or furry accessories are sometimes used to enhance the experience.
Conventions
Sufficient interest and membership has enabled the creation of many furry conventions in North America and Europe. A furry convention is for the fans get together to buy and sell artwork, participate in workshops, wear costumes, and socialize. The world's largest furry convention, Anthrocon with more than 5,861 participants, held annually in Pittsburgh in June, was estimated to have generated approximately $3 million to Pittsburgh's economy in 2008. Another convention, Further Confusion, held in San Jose each January, closely follows Anthrocon in scale and attendance. US$470,000 was raised in conventions for charity from 2000–9. The first known furry convention, ConFurence, is no longer held; Califur has replaced it, as both conventions were based in Southern California. A University of California, Davis survey suggested that about 40% of furries had attended at least one furry convention.
Websites and online communities
The Internet contains a multitude of furry websites and online communities, such as art community websites Fur Affinity, Inkbunny, SoFurry and Weasyl; social networking sites Furry 4 Life and FurNation; and WikiFur, a collaborative furry wiki. These, with the IRC networks FurNet and Anthrochat, form a key part of furry fandom. Usenet newsgroups such as alt.fan.furry and alt.lifestyle.furry, popular from the mid-1990s to 2005, have been replaced by topic-specific forums, mailing lists and LiveJournal communities.
There are several webcomics featuring animal characters created by or for furry fans; as such, they may be referred to as furry comics. One such comic, T.H.E. Fox, was first published on CompuServe in 1986, predating the World Wide Web by several years, while another, Kevin and Kell by Bill Holbrook, has been awarded both a Web Cartoonists' Choice Award and an Ursa Major Award.
Furry lifestylers
The phrases furry lifestyle and furry lifestyler first appeared in July 1996 on the newsgroup alt.fan.furry during an ongoing dispute within that online community. The Usenet newsgroup alt.lifestyle.furry was created to accommodate discussion beyond furry art and literature, and to resolve disputes concerning what should or should not be associated with the fandom; its members quickly adopted the term furry lifestylers, and still consider the fandom and the lifestyle to be separate social entities. They have defined and adopted an alternative meaning of the word furry specific to this group: "a person with an important emotional/spiritual connection with an animal or animals, real, fictional or symbolic."
In their 2007 survey, Gerbasi et al. examined what it meant to be a furry, and proposed a taxonomy in which to categorise different "types" of furries. The largest group — 38% of those surveyed — described their interest in furry fandom predominantly as a "route to socializing with others who share common interests such as anthropomorphic art and costumes." However they also identified furries who saw themselves as "other than human", and/or who desired to become more like the furry species which they identified with.
Sexual aspects
Homosexuality and bisexuality are overrepresented in the furry fandom, by about a factor of 10 compared to the United States average self-identified rates of 1.8% bisexuality and 1.7% homosexuality. According to four different surveys, 14–25% of the fandom members report homosexuality, 37–52% bisexuality, 28–51% heterosexuality, and 3–8% other forms of alternative sexual relationships. Approximately half of the respondents reported being in a relationship, of which 76% were in a relationship with another member of furry fandom. Examples of sexual aspects within furry fandom include erotic art and furry-themed cybersex. The term "yiff" is sometimes used to indicate sexual activity or sexual material within the fandom—this applies to sexual activity and interaction within the subculture whether in the form of cybersex or offline.
Sexual attraction to furry characters is a polarized issue within the fandom; in one survey with 4300 furry respondents, 37% answered that sexual attraction is important in their furry activities, 38% were ambivalent, and 24% answered that it has little or nothing to do with their furry activities. In a different online survey, 33% of furry respondents answered that they have a "significant sexual interest in furry", another 46% stated they have a "minor sexual interest in furry", and the remaining 21% stated they have a "non-sexual interest in furry". The survey specifically avoided adult-oriented websites to prevent bias. Another survey found that 96.3% of male furry respondents reported viewing furry pornography, compared to 78.3% of female; males estimated 50.9% of all furry art they view is pornographic, compared to 30.7% female. Furries have a slight preference for pornographic furry artwork over non-pornographic artwork. 17.1% of males reported that when they viewed pornography it is exclusively or near-exclusively furry pornography, and only about 5% reported that pornography was the top factor which got them into the fandom.
A portion of the fandom is sexually interested in zoophilia, although a majority take a negative stance towards the former. In a survey conducted in 1997-1998, about 2% of furry respondents stated an interest in zoophilia, and less than 1% an interest in plushophilia; the survey was replicated in 2008, and it found 17% of respondents reported zoophilia. The older lower results, which are even lower than estimated in the general population, were due to the methodology of questioning respondents face-to-face which led to social desirability bias.
Public perception and media coverage
Early portrayal of the furries in magazines such as Wired, Loaded, Vanity Fair, and the syndicated sex column "Savage Love" focused mainly on the sexual aspect of furry fandom. Fictional portrayals of furry fandom have appeared on television shows such as ER, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Drew Carey Show, Sex2K on MTV, Entourage, 1000 Ways to Die, Tosh.0, and 30 Rock. Most furry fans claim that these media portrayals are misconceptions, while the recent coverage focuses on debunking myths and stereotypes that have come to be associated with the furry fandom. A reporter attending Anthrocon 2006 noted that "despite their wild image from Vanity Fair, MTV and CSI, furry conventions aren't about kinky sex between weirdos gussied up in foxy costumes", that conference attendees were "not having sex more than the rest of us", and that the furry convention was about "people talking and drawing animals and comic-book characters in sketchbooks." In October 2007, a Hartford Advocate reporter attended FurFright 2007 undercover because of media restrictions. She learned that the restrictions were intended to prevent misinformation, and reported that the scandalous behavior she had expected was not evident. Recent coverage of the furry fandom has been more balanced. According to Ian Wolf, a 2009 article from the BBC entitled "Who are the furries?" was the first piece of journalism to be nominated for an Ursa Major Award, the main awards given in the field of anthropomorphism.
Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Jim Powell was sharing a hotel with Anthrocon 2007 attendees a day before the convention and reported a negative opinion of the furries. Several downtown Pittsburgh businesses welcome furries during the event, with local business owners creating special T-shirts and drawing paw prints in chalk outside their shops to attract attendees. Dr. Samuel Conway, CEO of Anthrocon, said that "For the most part, people give us curious stares, but they're good-natured curious stares. We're here to have fun, people have fun having us here, everybody wins".
According to Furry survey, about half of furries perceive public reaction to the fandom as negative; less than a fifth stated that the public responded to them more negatively than they did most furries. Furry fans' belief that they will be portrayed as "mainly obsessed with sex" has led to mistrust of the media and social researchers.
See also
Animal roleplay
Kemonomimi
Otherkin
Power animal
Therianthropy
References
Notes
Further reading
Ferreday, Debra. "Becoming deer: Nonhuman drag and online utopias." Feminist Theory 12.2 (2011): 219-225.
Hilton, Craig. "Furry Fandom — An Insider's View from the Outside", parts 1 & 2. South Fur Lands #2 & #3, 1995, 1996.
Martin, Watts. Mange: the need for criticism in furrydom 1994, 1998 (Archive.org mirror)
Morgan, Matt. Creature Comfort: Anthropomorphism, Sexuality and Revitalization in the Furry Fandom. Diss. Mississippi State University, 2008.
Probyn-Rapsey, Fiona. "Furries and the Limits of Species Identity Disorder: A Response to Gerbasi et al." Society and Animals 19.3 (2011): 294-301.
External links
Category:Fandom
Category:Subcultures
Category:Types of communities |
2016-01 | Julius_Caesar-695386665 | Julius_Caesar | Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman statesman, general and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative ruling class within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with a legion, leaving his province and illegally entering Roman Italy under arms. Civil war resulted, and Caesar's victory in the war put him in an unrivaled position of power and influence.
After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian calendar. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity", giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of rebellious senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus. A new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesar's adopted heir Octavius, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavius set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.
Much of Caesar's life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources. Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history.
Early life and career
Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedere, caes-). The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name.
Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia, and his sister Julia, Caesar's aunt, married Gaius Marius, one of the most prominent figures in the Republic. His mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesar's childhood.
In 85 BC, Caesar's father died suddenly, so at 16, Caesar was the head of the family. His coming of age coincided with a civil war between his uncle, Gaius Marius, and his rival Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Both sides, whenever they were in the ascendancy, carried out bloody purges of their political opponents. While Marius and his ally, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, were in control of the city, Caesar was nominated to be the new high priest of Jupiter, and married to Cinna's daughter Cornelia. Following Sulla's final victory, though, Caesar's connections to the old regime made him a target for the new one. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry, and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.
Feeling it much safer to be far away from Sulla should the Dictator change his mind, Caesar quit Rome and joined the army, serving under Marcus Minucius Thermus in Asia and Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia. He served with distinction, winning the Civic Crown for his part in the Siege of Mytilene. On a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, he spent so long at his court that rumors of an affair with the king arose, which Caesar would vehemently deny for the rest of his life. Ironically, the loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career, as the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army.
Hearing of Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar felt safe enough to return to Rome. Lacking means since his inheritance was confiscated, he acquired a modest house in Subura, a lower-class neighborhood of Rome. He turned to legal advocacy, and became known for his exceptional oratory, accompanied by impassioned gestures and a high-pitched voice, and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption.
On the way across the Aegean Sea, Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner. He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. When the pirates thought to demand a ransom of 20 talents of silver, he insisted they ask for 50. After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them. He had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised while in captivity—a promise the pirates had taken as a joke. As a sign of leniency, he first had their throats cut. He was soon called back into military action in Asia, raising a band of auxiliaries to repel an incursion from the east.
On his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, a first step in a political career. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC, and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia, and included images of her husband Marius, unseen since the days of Sulla, in the funeral procession. His wife, Cornelia, also died that year. After her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Spain. While there he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realized with dissatisfaction he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little. On his return in 67 BC, he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla, whom he later divorced.
In 63 BC, he ran for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman state religion. He ran against two powerful senators. Accusations of bribery were made by all sides. Caesar won comfortably, despite his opponents' greater experience and standing. When Cicero, who was consul that year, exposed Catiline's conspiracy to seize control of the republic, several senators accused Caesar of involvement in the plot.
After serving as praetor in 62 BC, Caesar was appointed to govern Hispania Ulterior (modern south-eastern Spain) as propraetor, though some sources suggest he held proconsular powers. He was still in considerable debt and needed to satisfy his creditors before he could leave. He turned to Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest men. In return for political support in his opposition to the interests of Pompey, Crassus paid some of Caesar's debts and acted as guarantor for others. Even so, to avoid becoming a private citizen and thus be open to prosecution for his debts, Caesar left for his province before his praetorship had ended. In Spain, he conquered two local tribes and was hailed as imperator by his troops, reformed the law regarding debts, and completed his governorship in high esteem.
Caesar was acclaimed Imperator in 60 and 45 BC. In the Roman Republic, this was an honorary title assumed by certain military commanders. After an especially great victory, army troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. However, he also wanted to stand for consul, the most senior magistracy in the republic. If he were to celebrate a triumph, he would have to remain a soldier and stay outside the city until the ceremony, but to stand for election he would need to lay down his command and enter Rome as a private citizen. He could not do both in the time available. He asked the senate for permission to stand in absentia, but Cato blocked the proposal. Faced with the choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship.
Consulship and military campaigns
In 60 BC, Caesar sought election as consul for 59 BC, along with two other candidates. The election was sordid – even Cato, with his reputation for incorruptibility, is said to have resorted to bribery in favor of one of Caesar's opponents. Caesar won, along with conservative Marcus Bibulus.
Caesar was already in Crassus' political debt, but he also made overtures to Pompey. Pompey and Crassus had been at odds for a decade, so Caesar tried to reconcile them. The three of them had enough money and political influence to control public business. This informal alliance, known as the First Triumvirate ("rule of three men"), was cemented by the marriage of Pompey to Caesar's daughter Julia. Caesar also married again, this time Calpurnia, who was the daughter of another powerful senator.
Caesar proposed a law for the redistribution of public lands to the poor, a proposal supported by Pompey, by force of arms if need be, and by Crassus, making the triumvirate public. Pompey filled the city with soldiers, a move which intimidated the triumvirate's opponents. Bibulus attempted to declare the omens unfavorable and thus void the new law, but was driven from the forum by Caesar's armed supporters. His bodyguards had their ceremonial axes broken, two high magistrates accompanying him were wounded, and he had a bucket of excrement thrown over him. In fear of his life, he retired to his house for the rest of the year, issuing occasional proclamations of bad omens. These attempts to obstruct Caesar's legislation proved ineffective. Roman satirists ever after referred to the year as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar."
When Caesar was first elected, the aristocracy tried to limit his future power by allotting the woods and pastures of Italy, rather than the governorship of a province, as his military command duty after his year in office was over. With the help of political allies, Caesar later overturned this, and was instead appointed to govern Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Illyricum (southeastern Europe), with Transalpine Gaul (southern France) later added, giving him command of four legions. The term of his governorship, and thus his immunity from prosecution, was set at five years, rather than the usual one. When his consulship ended, Caesar narrowly avoided prosecution for the irregularities of his year in office, and quickly left for his province.
Conquest of Gaul
Caesar was still deeply in debt, but there was money to be made as a governor, whether by extortion or by military adventurism. Caesar had four legions under his command, two of his provinces bordered on unconquered territory, and parts of Gaul were known to be unstable. Some of Rome's Gallic allies had been defeated by their rivals at the Battle of Magetobriga, with the help of a contingent of Germanic tribes. The Romans feared these tribes were preparing to migrate south, closer to Italy, and that they had warlike intent. Caesar raised two new legions and defeated these tribes.
In response to Caesar's earlier activities, the tribes in the north-east began to arm themselves. Caesar treated this as an aggressive move and, after an inconclusive engagement against the united tribes, he conquered the tribes piecemeal. Meanwhile, one of his legions began the conquest of the tribes in the far north, directly opposite Britain. During the spring of 56 BC, the Triumvirs held a conference, as Rome was in turmoil and Caesar's political alliance was coming undone. The Lucca Conference renewed the First Triumvirate and extended Caesar's governorship for another five years. The conquest of the north was soon completed, while a few pockets of resistance remained. Caesar now had a secure base from which to launch an invasion of Britain.
In 55 BC, Caesar repelled an incursion into Gaul by two Germanic tribes, and followed it up by building a bridge across the Rhine and making a show of force in Germanic territory, before returning and dismantling the bridge. Late that summer, having subdued two other tribes, he crossed into Britain, claiming that the Britons had aided one of his enemies the previous year, possibly the Veneti of Brittany. His intelligence information was poor, and although he gained a beachhead on the coast, he could not advance further, and returned to Gaul for the winter. He returned the following year, better prepared and with a larger force, and achieved more. He advanced inland, and established a few alliances. However, poor harvests led to widespread revolt in Gaul, which forced Caesar to leave Britain for the last time.
While Caesar was in Britain his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, had died in childbirth. Caesar tried to re-secure Pompey's support by offering him his great-niece in marriage, but Pompey declined. In 53 BC Crassus was killed leading a failed invasion of the east. Rome was on the brink of civil war. Pompey was appointed sole consul as an emergency measure, and married the daughter of a political opponent of Caesar. The Triumvirate was dead.
While militarily just as strong as the Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt in 52 BC to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. Vercingetorix managed to unite the Gallic tribes and proved an astute commander, defeating Caesar in several engagements, but Caesar's elaborate siege-works at the Battle of Alesia finally forced his surrender. Despite scattered outbreaks of warfare the following year, Gaul was effectively conquered. Plutarch claimed that the army had fought against three million men during the Gallic Wars, of whom one million died, and another million were enslaved. The Romans subjugated 300 tribes and destroyed 800 cities. However, in view of the difficulty in finding accurate counts in the first place, Caesar's propagandistic purposes, and the common exaggeration of numbers in ancient texts, the stated totals of enemy combatants are likely to be too high..
Civil war
In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor had finished. Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate. Pompey accused Caesar of insubordination and treason. In January 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Caesar, according to Plutarch and Suetonius, is supposed to have quoted the Athenian playwright Menander, in Greek, "the die is cast". Erasmus, however, notes that the more accurate Latin translation of the Greek imperative mood would be "alea iacta esto", let the die be cast. Pompey and many of the Senate fled to the south, having little confidence in his newly raised troops. Despite greatly outnumbering Caesar, who only had his Thirteenth Legion with him, Pompey did not intend to fight. Caesar pursued Pompey, hoping to capture him before his legions could escape.
Pompey managed to escape before Caesar could capture him. Heading for Spain, Caesar left Italy under the control of Mark Antony. After an astonishing 27-day route-march, Caesar defeated Pompey's lieutenants, then returned east, to challenge Pompey in Illyria, where, in July 48 BC in the battle of Dyrrhachium, Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat. In an exceedingly short engagement later that year, he decisively defeated Pompey at Pharsalus, in Greece.
In Rome, Caesar was appointed dictator, with Mark Antony as his Master of the Horse (second in command); Caesar presided over his own election to a second consulship and then, after 11 days, resigned this dictatorship. Caesar then pursued Pompey to Egypt, arriving soon after the murder of the general. There, Caesar was presented with Pompey's severed head and seal-ring, receiving these with tears. He then had Pompey's assassins put to death.
Caesar then became involved with an Egyptian civil war between the child pharaoh and his sister, wife, and co-regent queen, Cleopatra. Perhaps as a result of the pharaoh's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra. He withstood the Siege of Alexandria and later he defeated the pharaoh's forces at the Battle of the Nile in 47 BC and installed Cleopatra as ruler. Caesar and Cleopatra celebrated their victory with a triumphal procession on the Nile in the spring of 47 BC. The royal barge was accompanied by 400 additional ships, and Caesar was introduced to the luxurious lifestyle of the Egyptian pharaohs.
Caesar and Cleopatra were not married. Caesar continued his relationship with Cleopatra throughout his last marriage – in Roman eyes, this did not constitute adultery – and probably fathered a son called Caesarion. Cleopatra visited Rome on more than one occasion, residing in Caesar's villa just outside Rome across the Tiber.
Late in 48 BC, Caesar was again appointed Dictator, with a term of one year. After spending the first months of 47 BC in Egypt, Caesar went to the Middle East, where he annihilated the king of Pontus; his victory was so swift and complete that he mocked Pompey's previous victories over such poor enemies. On his way to Pontus, Caesar visited from 27 to 29 May 47 BC, (25–27 Maygreg.) Tarsus, where he met enthusiastic support, but where, according to Cicero, Cassius was planning to kill him at this point. Thence, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's senatorial supporters. He quickly gained a significant victory in 46 BC over Cato, who then committed suicide.
After this victory, he was appointed Dictator for 10 years. Pompey's sons escaped to Spain; Caesar gave chase and defeated the last remnants of opposition in the Battle of Munda in March 45 BC. During this time, Caesar was elected to his third and fourth terms as consul in 46 BC and 45 BC (this last time without a colleague).
Dictatorship and assassination
While he was still campaigning in Spain, the Senate began bestowing honors on Caesar. Caesar had not proscribed his enemies, instead pardoning almost all, and there was no serious public opposition to him. Great games and celebrations were held in April to honor Caesar’s victory at Munda. Plutarch writes that many Romans found the triumph held following Caesar's victory to be in poor taste, as those defeated in the civil war had not been foreigners, but instead fellow Romans. On Caesar's return to Italy in September 45 BC, he filed his will, naming his grandnephew Gaius Octavius (Octavian, later known as Augustus Caesar) as his principal heir, leaving his vast estate and property including his name. Caesar also wrote that if Octavian died before Caesar did, Decimus Junius Brutus would be the next heir in succession. In his will, he also left a substantial gift to the citizens of Rome.
During his early career, Caesar had seen how chaotic and dysfunctional the Roman Republic had become. The republican machinery had broken down under the weight of imperialism, the central government had become powerless, the provinces had been transformed into independent principalities under the absolute control of their governors, and the army had replaced the constitution as the means of accomplishing political goals. With a weak central government, political corruption had spiraled out of control, and the status quo had been maintained by a corrupt aristocracy, which saw no need to change a system that had made its members rich.
Between his crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BC, and his assassination in 44 BC, Caesar established a new constitution, which was intended to accomplish three separate goals. First, he wanted to suppress all armed resistance out in the provinces, and thus bring order back to the empire. Second, he wanted to create a strong central government in Rome. Finally, he wanted to knit together the entire empire into a single cohesive unit.
The first goal was accomplished when Caesar defeated Pompey and his supporters. To accomplish the other two goals, he needed to ensure that his control over the government was undisputed, so he assumed these powers by increasing his own authority, and by decreasing the authority of Rome's other political institutions. Finally, he enacted a series of reforms that were meant to address several long-neglected issues, the most important of which was his reform of the calendar.
Dictatorship
When Caesar returned to Rome, the Senate granted him triumphs for his victories, ostensibly those over Gaul, Egypt, Pharnaces, and Juba, rather than over his Roman opponents. Not everything went Caesar's way. When Arsinoe IV, Egypt's former queen, was paraded in chains, the spectators admired her dignified bearing and were moved to pity. Triumphal games were held, with beast-hunts involving 400 lions, and gladiator contests. A naval battle was held on a flooded basin at the Field of Mars.<ref name="ReferenceA">J.F.C. Fuller, Julius Caesar, Man, Soldier, Tyrant", Chapter 13</ref> At the Circus Maximus, two armies of war captives, each of 2,000 people, 200 horses, and 20 elephants, fought to the death. Again, some bystanders complained, this time at Caesar's wasteful extravagance. A riot broke out, and only stopped when Caesar had two rioters sacrificed by the priests on the Field of Mars.
After the triumph, Caesar set out to pass an ambitious legislative agenda. He ordered a census be taken, which forced a reduction in the grain dole, and that jurors could only come from the Senate or the equestrian ranks. He passed a sumptuary law that restricted the purchase of certain luxuries. After this, he passed a law that rewarded families for having many children, to speed up the repopulation of Italy. Then, he outlawed professional guilds, except those of ancient foundation, since many of these were subversive political clubs. He then passed a term-limit law applicable to governors. He passed a debt-restructuring law, which ultimately eliminated about a fourth of all debts owed.
The Forum of Caesar, with its Temple of Venus Genetrix, was then built, among many other public works. Caesar also tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidized grain and reduced the number of recipients to a fixed number, all of whom were entered into a special register. From 47 to 44 BC, he made plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans.
The most important change, however, was his reform of the calendar. The calendar was then regulated by the movement of the moon, and this had left it in a mess. Caesar replaced this calendar with the Egyptian calendar, which was regulated by the sun. He set the length of the year to 365.25 days by adding an intercalary/leap day at the end of February every fourth year.
To bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons, he decreed that three extra months be inserted into 46 BC (the ordinary intercalary month at the end of February, and two extra months after November). Thus, the Julian calendar opened on 1 January 45 BC. This calendar is almost identical to the current Western calendar.
Shortly before his assassination, he passed a few more reforms. He established a police force, appointed officials to carry out his land reforms, and ordered the rebuilding of Carthage and Corinth. He also extended Latin rights throughout the Roman world, and then abolished the tax system and reverted to the earlier version that allowed cities to collect tribute however they wanted, rather than needing Roman intermediaries. His assassination prevented further and larger schemes, which included the construction of an unprecedented temple to Mars, a huge theater, and a library on the scale of the Library of Alexandria.
He also wanted to convert Ostia to a major port, and cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Militarily, he wanted to conquer the Dacians and Parthians, and avenge the loss at Carrhae. Thus, he instituted a massive mobilization. Shortly before his assassination, the Senate named him censor for life and Father of the Fatherland, and the month of Quintilis was renamed July in his honor.
He was granted further honors, which were later used to justify his assassination as a would-be divine monarch: coins were issued bearing his image and his statue was placed next to those of the kings. He was granted a golden chair in the Senate, was allowed to wear triumphal dress whenever he chose, and was offered a form of semiofficial or popular cult, with Mark Antony as his high priest.
Political reforms
The history of Caesar's political appointments is complex and uncertain. Caesar held both the dictatorship and the tribunate, but alternated between the consulship and the proconsulship. His powers within the state seem to have rested upon these magistracies. He was first appointed dictator in 49 BC, possibly to preside over elections, but resigned his dictatorship within 11 days. In 48 BC, he was reappointed dictator, only this time for an indefinite period, and in 46 BC, he was appointed dictator for 10 years.
In 48 BC, Caesar was given permanent tribunician powers, which made his person sacrosanct and allowed him to veto the Senate, although on at least one occasion, tribunes did attempt to obstruct him. The offending tribunes in this case were brought before the Senate and divested of their office. This was not the first time Caesar had violated a tribune's sacrosanctity. After he had first marched on Rome in 49 BC, he forcibly opened the treasury, although a tribune had the seal placed on it. After the impeachment of the two obstructive tribunes, Caesar, perhaps unsurprisingly, faced no further opposition from other members of the Tribunician College.
When Caesar returned to Rome in 47 BC, the ranks of the Senate had been severely depleted, so he used his censorial powers to appoint many new senators, which eventually raised the Senate's membership to 900. All the appointments were of his own partisans, which robbed the senatorial aristocracy of its prestige, and made the Senate increasingly subservient to him. To minimize the risk that another general might attempt to challenge him, Caesar passed a law that subjected governors to term limits.
In 46 BC, Caesar gave himself the title of "Prefect of the Morals", which was an office that was new only in name, as its powers were identical to those of the censors. Thus, he could hold censorial powers, while technically not subjecting himself to the same checks to which the ordinary censors were subject, and he used these powers to fill the Senate with his own partisans. He also set the precedent, which his imperial successors followed, of requiring the Senate to bestow various titles and honors upon him. He was, for example, given the title of "Father of the Fatherland" and "imperator".
Coins bore his likeness, and he was given the right to speak first during Senate meetings. Caesar then increased the number of magistrates who were elected each year, which created a large pool of experienced magistrates, and allowed Caesar to reward his supporters.
Caesar even took steps to transform Italy into a province, and to link more tightly the other provinces of the empire into a single cohesive unit. This addressed the underlying problem that had caused the Social War decades earlier, where individuals outside Rome and Italy were not considered "Roman", thus were not given full citizenship rights. This process, of fusing the entire Roman Empire into a single unit, rather than maintaining it as a network of unequal principalities, would ultimately be completed by Caesar's successor, the emperor Augustus.
In February 44 BC, one month before his assassination, he was appointed dictator for life. Under Caesar, a significant amount of authority was vested in his lieutenants, mostly because Caesar was frequently out of Italy. In October 45 BC, Caesar resigned his position as sole consul, and facilitated the election of two successors for the remainder of the year, which theoretically restored the ordinary consulship, since the constitution did not recognize a single consul without a colleague.
Near the end of his life, Caesar began to prepare for a war against the Parthian Empire. Since his absence from Rome might limit his ability to install his own consuls, he passed a law which allowed him to appoint all magistrates in 43 BC, and all consuls and tribunes in 42 BC. This, in effect, transformed the magistrates from being representatives of the people to being representatives of the dictator.
Assassination
On the Ides of March (15 March; see Roman calendar) of 44 BC, Caesar was due to appear at a session of the Senate. Mark Antony, having vaguely learned of the plot the night before from a terrified liberator named Servilius Casca, and fearing the worst, went to head Caesar off. The plotters, however, had anticipated this and, fearing that Antony would come to Caesar's aid, had arranged for Trebonius to intercept him just as he approached the portico of the Theatre of Pompey, where the session was to be held, and detain him outside. (Plutarch, however, assigns this action to delay Antony to Brutus Albinus.) When he heard the commotion from the Senate chamber, Antony fled.
According to Plutarch, as Caesar arrived at the Senate, Tillius Cimber presented him with a petition to recall his exiled brother. The other conspirators crowded round to offer support. Both Plutarch and Suetonius say that Caesar waved him away, but Cimber grabbed his shoulders and pulled down Caesar's tunic. Caesar then cried to Cimber, "Why, this is violence!" ("Ista quidem vis est!").
At the same time, Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator's neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm. According to Plutarch, he said in Latin, "Casca, you villain, what are you doing?" Casca, frightened, shouted, "Help, brother!" in Greek ("", "adelphe, boethei"). Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenceless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around 60 or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times.
According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.
The dictator's last words are not known with certainty, and are a contested subject among scholars and historians alike. Suetonius reports that others have said Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "" (transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?": "You too, child?" in English). However, for himself, Suetonius says Caesar said nothing.
Plutarch also reports that Caesar said nothing, pulling his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators. The version best known in the English-speaking world is the Latin phrase "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly rendered as "You too, Brutus?"); this derives from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where it actually forms the first half of a macaronic line: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar." It has no basis in historical fact and Shakespeare's use of Latin here is not from any assertion that Caesar would have been using the language, rather than the Greek reported by Suetonius, but because the phrase was already popular when the play was written.
According to Plutarch, after the assassination, Brutus stepped forward as if to say something to his fellow senators; they, however, fled the building. Brutus and his companions then marched to the Capitol while crying out to their beloved city: "People of Rome, we are once again free!" They were met with silence, as the citizens of Rome had locked themselves inside their houses as soon as the rumor of what had taken place had begun to spread. Caesar's dead body lay where it fell on the Senate floor for nearly three hours before other officials arrived to remove it.
Caesar's body was cremated, and on the site of his cremation, the Temple of Caesar was erected a few years later (at the east side of the main square of the Roman Forum). Only its altar now remains.
A lifesize wax statue of Caesar was later erected in the forum displaying the 23 stab wounds. A crowd who had gathered there started a fire, which badly damaged the forum and neighboring buildings. In the ensuing chaos, Mark Antony, Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), and others fought a series of five civil wars, which would end in the formation of the Roman Empire.
Aftermath of the assassination
The result unforeseen by the assassins was that Caesar's death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic. The Roman middle and lower classes, with whom Caesar was immensely popular and had been since before Gaul, became enraged that a small group of aristocrats had killed their champion. Antony, who had been drifting apart from Caesar, capitalised on the grief of the Roman mob and threatened to unleash them on the Optimates, perhaps with the intent of taking control of Rome himself. To his surprise and chagrin, Caesar had named his grandnephew Gaius Octavian his sole heir, bequeathing him the immensely potent Caesar name and making him one of the wealthiest citizens in the Republic.
The crowd at the funeral boiled over, throwing dry branches, furniture, and even clothing on to Caesar's funeral pyre, causing the flames to spin out of control, seriously damaging the Forum. The mob then attacked the houses of Brutus and Cassius, where they were repelled only with considerable difficulty, ultimately providing the spark for the Liberators' civil war, fulfilling at least in part Antony's threat against the aristocrats. Antony did not foresee the ultimate outcome of the next series of civil wars, particularly with regard to Caesar's adopted heir. Octavian, aged only 18 when Caesar died, proved to have considerable political skills, and while Antony dealt with Decimus Brutus in the first round of the new civil wars, Octavian consolidated his tenuous position.
To combat Brutus and Cassius, who were massing an enormous army in Greece, Antony needed soldiers, the cash from Caesar's war chests, and the legitimacy that Caesar's name would provide for any action he took against them. With the passage of the lex Titia on 27 November 43 BC, the Second Triumvirate was officially formed, composed of Antony, Octavian, and Caesar's loyal cavalry commander Lepidus. It formally deified Caesar as Divus Iulius in 42 BC, and Caesar Octavian henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god").
Because Caesar's clemency had resulted in his murder, the Second Triumvirate reinstated the practice of proscription, abandoned since Sulla. It engaged in the legally sanctioned murder of a large number of its opponents to secure funding for its 45 legions in the second civil war against Brutus and Cassius. Antony and Octavius defeated them at Philippi.
Afterward, Mark Antony formed an alliance with Caesar's lover, Cleopatra, intending to use the fabulously wealthy Egypt as a base to dominate Rome. A third civil war broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This final civil war, culminating in the latter's defeat at Actium, resulted in the permanent ascendancy of Octavian, who became the first Roman emperor, under the name Caesar Augustus, a name that raised him to the status of a deity.
Julius Caesar had been preparing to invade Parthia, the Caucasus, and Scythia, and then march back to Germania through Eastern Europe. These plans were thwarted by his assassination. His successors did attempt the conquests of Parthia and Germania, but without lasting results.
Deification
Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman to be officially deified. He was posthumously granted the title Divus Iulius or Divus Julius (the divine Julius or the deified Julius) by decree of the Roman Senate on 1 January 42 BC. The appearance of a comet during games in his honour was taken as confirmation of his divinity. Though his temple was not dedicated until after his death, he may have received divine honors during his lifetime: and shortly before his assassination, Mark Antony had been appointed as his flamen (priest). Both Octavian and Mark Antony promoted the cult of Divus Iulius. After the death of Antony, Octavian, as the adoptive son of Caesar, assumed the title of Divi Filius (son of a god).
Personal life
Health and physical appearance
Based on remarks by Plutarch, Caesar is sometimes thought to have suffered from epilepsy. Modern scholarship is "sharply divided" on the subject, and some scholars believe that he was plagued by malaria, particularly during the Sullan proscriptions of the 80s. Several specialists in headache medicine believe that instead of epilepsy, a more accurate diagnosis would be migraine headache. Other scholars contend his epileptic seizures were due to a parasitic infection in the brain by a tapeworm.
Caesar had four documented episodes of what may have been complex partial seizures. He may additionally have had absence seizures in his youth. The earliest accounts of these seizures were made by the biographer Suetonius, who was born after Caesar died. The claim of epilepsy is countered among some medical historians by a claim of hypoglycemia, which can cause epileptoid seizures.
In 2003, psychiatrist Harbour F. Hodder published what he termed as the "Caesar Complex" theory, arguing that Caesar was a sufferer of temporal lobe epilepsy and the debilitating symptoms of the condition were a factor in Caesar's conscious decision to forgo personal safety in the days leading up to his assassination.
A line from Shakespeare has sometimes been taken to mean that he was deaf in one ear: Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. No classical source mentions hearing impairment in connection with Caesar. The playwright may have been making metaphorical use of a passage in Plutarch that does not refer to deafness at all, but rather to a gesture Alexander of Macedon customarily made. By covering his ear, Alexander indicated that he had turned his attention from an accusation in order to hear the defense.
The Roman historian Suetonius describes Caesar as "tall of stature with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a somewhat full face, and keen black eyes."
Name and family
Using the Latin alphabet of the period, which lacked the letters J and U, Caesar's name would be rendered GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR; the form CAIVS is also attested, using the older Roman representation of G by C. The standard abbreviation was C. IVLIVS CÆSAR, reflecting the older spelling. (The letterform Æ is a ligature of the letters A and E, and is often used in Latin inscriptions to save space.)
In Classical Latin, it was pronounced . In the days of the late Roman Republic, many historical writings were done in Greek, a language most educated Romans studied. Young wealthy Roman boys were often taught by Greek slaves and sometimes sent to Athens for advanced training, as was Caesar's principal assassin, Brutus. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his family name was written Καίσαρ, reflecting its contemporary pronunciation. Thus, his name is pronounced in a similar way to the pronunciation of the German Kaiser.
In Vulgar Latin, the plosive /k/ before front vowels began, due to palatalization, to be pronounced as an affricate, hence renderings like in Italian and in German regional pronunciations of Latin, as well as the title of Tsar. With the evolution of the Romance languages, the affricate [ts] became a fricative [s] (thus, ) in many regional pronunciations, including the French one, from which the modern English pronunciation is derived. The original /k/ is preserved in Norse mythology, where he is manifested as the legendary king Kjárr.
Caesar's cognomen itself became a title; it was promulgated by the Bible, which contains the famous verse "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". The title became Kaiser in German and Tsar or Czar in the Slavic languages. The last tsar in nominal power was Simeon II of Bulgaria, whose reign ended in 1946. This means that for two thousand years after Julius Caesar's assassination, there was at least one head of state bearing his name.
Parents
Father Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder (proconsul of Asia in 90s BC)
Mother Aurelia (related to the Aurelii Cottae)
Sisters
Julia Caesaris "Major" (the elder)
Julia Caesaris "Minor" (the younger)
Wives
First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla, from 83 BC until her death in 69 or 68 BC
Second marriage to Pompeia, from 67 BC until he divorced her around 61 BC
Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis, from 59 BC until Caesar's death
Children
Julia, with Cornelia Cinnilla, born in 83 or 82 BC
Caesarion, with Cleopatra VII, born 47 BC, and killed at age 17 by Caesar's adopted son Octavianus.
adopted: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, his great-nephew by blood (grandson of Julia, his sister), who later became Emperor Augustus.
Marcus Junius Brutus: The historian Plutarch notes that Caesar believed Brutus to have been his illegitimate son, as his mother Servilia had been Caesar's lover during their youth.
Junia Tertia, the daughter of Caesar's lover Servilia Caepionis was believed by Cicero among other contemporaries, to be Caesar's natural daughter.
Grandchildren
Grandson from Julia and Pompey, dead at several days, unnamed.
Lovers
Cleopatra VII, mother of Caesarion
Servilia Caepionis, mother of Brutus
Eunoë, queen of Mauretania and wife of Bogudes
Notable relatives
Gaius Marius (married to his paternal aunt Julia)
Mark Antony (his relative through Antony's mother Julia)
Lucius Julius Caesar (his third-cousin)
Julius Sabinus, a Gaul of the Lingones at the time of the Batavian rebellion of AD 69, claimed to be the great-grandson of Caesar on the grounds that his great-grandmother had been Caesar's lover during the Gallic Wars.
Rumors of homosexual practices
Roman society viewed the passive role during sexual activity, regardless of gender, to be a sign of submission or inferiority. Indeed, Suetonius says that in Caesar's Gallic triumph, his soldiers sang that, "Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar." According to Cicero, Bibulus, Gaius Memmius, and others (mainly Caesar's enemies), he had an affair with Nicomedes IV of Bithynia early in his career. The tales were repeated, referring to Caesar as the Queen of Bithynia, by some Roman politicians as a way to humiliate him. Caesar himself denied the accusations repeatedly throughout his lifetime, and according to Cassius Dio, even under oath on one occasion. This form of slander was popular during this time in the Roman Republic to demean and discredit political opponents. A favorite tactic used by the opposition was to accuse a popular political rival as living a Hellenistic lifestyle based on Greek and Eastern culture, where homosexuality and a lavish lifestyle were more acceptable than in Roman tradition.
Catullus wrote two poems suggesting that Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers, but later apologised.
Mark Antony charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors. Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. Octavian eventually became the first Roman Emperor.
Literary works
During his lifetime, Caesar was regarded as one of the best orators and prose authors in Latin — even Cicero spoke highly of Caesar's rhetoric and style. Only Caesar's war commentaries have survived. A few sentences from other works are quoted by other authors. Among his lost works are his funeral oration for his paternal aunt Julia and his Anticato, a document written to defame Cato in response to Cicero's published praise. Poems by Julius Caesar are also mentioned in ancient sources.
Memoirs
The Commentarii de Bello Gallico, usually known in English as The Gallic Wars, seven books each covering one year of his campaigns in Gaul and southern Britain in the 50s BC, with the eighth book written by Aulus Hirtius on the last two years.
The Commentarii de Bello Civili (The Civil War), events of the Civil War from Caesar's perspective, until immediately after Pompey's death in Egypt.
Other works historically have been attributed to Caesar, but their authorship is in doubt:
De Bello Alexandrino (On the Alexandrine War), campaign in Alexandria;
De Bello Africo (On the African War), campaigns in North Africa; and
De Bello Hispaniensi (On the Hispanic War), campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula.
These narratives were written and published annually during or just after the actual campaigns, as a sort of "dispatches from the front." They were important in shaping Caesar's public image and enhancing his reputation when he was away from Rome for long periods. They may have been presented as public readings. As a model of clear and direct Latin style, The Gallic Wars traditionally has been studied by first- or second-year Latin students.
Chronology of his life
Legacy
Historiography
The texts written by Caesar, an autobiography of the most important events of his public life, are the most complete primary source for the reconstruction of his biography. However, Caesar wrote those texts with his political career in mind, so historians must struggle to filter the exaggerations and bias contained in it. The Roman emperor Augustus began a cult of personality of Caesar, which described Augustus as Caesar's political heir. The modern historiography is influenced by the Octavian traditions, such as when Caesar's epoch is considered a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire. Still, historians try to filter the Octavian bias.
Many rulers in history became interested in the historiography of Caesar. Napoleon III wrote the scholary work Histoire de Jules César, which was not finished. The second volume listed previous rulers interested in the topic. Charles VIII ordered a monk to prepare a translation of the Gallic Wars in 1480. Charles V ordered a topographic study in France, to place in Gallic Wars in context; which created forty high-quality maps of the conflict. The contemporary Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent catalogued the surviving editions of the Commentaries, and translated them to Turkish language. Henry IV and Louis XIII of France translated the first two commentaries and the last two respectively; Louis XIV retranslated the first one afterwards.
Politics
Julius Caesar is seen as the main example of Caesarism'', a form of political rule led by a charismatic strongman whose rule is based upon a cult of personality, whose rationale is the need to rule by force, establishing a violent social order, and being a regime involving prominence of the military in the government. Other people in history, such as the French Napoleon Bonaparte and the Italian Benito Mussolini, have defined themselves as Caesarists. Bonaparte did not focus only on Caesar's military career but also on his relation with the masses, a predecessor to populism. The word is also used in a pejorative manner by critics of this type of political rule.
Depictions
Notes
References
Primary sources
Own writings
Forum Romanum Index to Caesar's works online in Latin and translation
Ancient historians' writings
Appian, Book 13 (English translation)
Cassius Dio, Books 37–44 (English translation)
Plutarch on Antony (English translation, Dryden edition)
Plutarch: The Life of Julius Caesar (English translation)
Plutarch: The Life of Mark Antony (English translation)
Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar. (Latin and English, cross-linked: the English translation by J. C. Rolfe)
Suetonius: The Life of Julius Caesar (J. C. Rolfe English translation, modified)
Secondary sources
External links
C. Julius Caesar Jona Lendering's in‑depth history of Caesar (Livius. Org)
Guide to online resources
History of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar at BBC History
Grey, D. The Assassination of Caesar, Clio History Journal, 2009.
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2016-01 | Ben_10_2005_TV_series-692851030 | Ben_10_2005_TV_series | Ben 10 (2005 TV series)
Ben 10 is an American animated series created by Man of Action (a group consisting of Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, and Steven T. Seagle), and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The series is about a 10-year-old boy named Ben Tennyson who gets a watch-like alien device called the "Omnitrix" (the prefix omni means all). Attached to his wrist, this allows him to transform into various alien creatures. He then uses these powers to fight evil from earth and space.
The pilot episode aired on December 27, 2005, as part of a sneak peek of Cartoon Network's Saturday morning lineup. The second episode was shown as a special on Cartoon Network's Fridays on January 13, 2006, and the final regular episode aired on April 15, 2008.
The series gradually became popular among audiences and was nominated for two Emmy Awards, winning one for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation". The show would go on to spawn a franchise; Ben 10 was succeeded by Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and Ben 10: Omniverse. A fifth series, and reboot, will premiere in 2016.
Premise
The series centers around Ben Tennyson (Tara Strong), a ten-year-old boy on a cross-country summer vacation, with his cousin Gwen (Meagan Smith) and their grandfather Max (Paul Eiding). On their first night camping in their grandfather's RV affectionately named the "Rust Bucket," Ben finds an alien pod with a mysterious watch-like device named the Omnitrix. The device then permanently attaches itself to his wrist giving him the ability to transform into a variety of alien life-forms each with its own unique skills and powers. With his new found super powers Ben has to learn the responsibilities of being a hero. During their vacation, the Tennysons are attacked by various enemies ranging from space aliens to supernatural entities.
Cast and characters
Benjamin Kirby "Ben" Tennyson:
Ben is shown to be a cocky, immature boy, who is not above enjoying attention and enjoys making jokes even during fights. Though his immaturity makes a bad impression on some people, Ben is good-hearted, noble and loyal, and his actions are motivated above all by a strong and sincere will to help and save others in need. He will stop at nothing to protect his family or anyone in danger whether human or alien. Ben proves to be resourceful, intelligent (Ben has been known to have eidetic memory), shrewd and cunning when needed, which saved him from many situations, especially when the Omnitrix cannot activate or doesn't provide him with the alien he originally wanted.
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Tennyson:
She is depicted as a kind and intelligent girl. Overall, her most notable skill is her innate, if latent, ability at magic. She got her powers from her alien grandmother, Verdona Tennyson. She is extremely skilled at magic as in "Tough Luck" when she picks up Hex's staff to defeat Charmcaster, Charmcaster replies that it can only be worked in the hands of a master magician and Gwen could still fire a yellow energy beam from it even though she hadn't learnt about them.
Grandpa Maxwell "Max" Tennyson:
Max mentions having spent his childhood summers on his Uncle Jedediah's farm, where he learned about the merits of hard work. A "not-quite-all-there" Max, under the effects of Zombozo's happiness-draining, mentions having been afraid of heights as a kid and then, when "enough was enough", Max "climbed up to the top of the water tower" and "scared the fear" right out of him. It was shown that Max had a childhood friend called Donovan Grand Smith, who sums up Max: "growing up he always was the worrywart never the risk-taker", like himself. Thirty years earlier, Donovan and Max had both been broke when Donovan offered Max a business opportunity which he turned down. Max later became a Plumber (Donovan thought Max was an actual plumber), establishing that Max's career as a Plumber lasted for about twenty-eight years before he retired (Max mentioned that after twenty-eight years on the job, he'd never figured out who was behind the Bermuda Triangle). It was revealed that Max had been an astronaut and would have been the first man on the moon, but left the program before the Apollo Moon mission. In his own words, Max said he just "took his step for mankind in other ways".
Main villains
Vilgax:
One of the most feared aliens in the galaxy and arch-enemy of Ben. Vilgax is vicious, arrogant, and dangerously relentless, as he will stop at nothing to take the Omnitrix, which he wishes to use in order to create a transforming super army. In the past, Vilgax was an enemy of Grandpa Max. Vilgax was injured and remained in a regeneration chamber in the first season, but when completely healed, he was cybernetically enhanced, giving him colossal size, strength and durability that made him a match for every alien Ben could access at that time.
Kevin Levin:
An 11-year-old delinquent sociopath with a mutant power that allows him to absorb energy. He uses the ability to commit crimes to benefit himself, never caring if it hurts anyone. He originally wanted to team up with Ben to become unstoppable, but after Ben refuses the offer, he absorbs power from the Omnitrix instead. He uses this to frame Ben for robberies using the alien forms, but the constant changes makes his DNA unstable and he eventually becomes a combination of all ten of the alien forms. Becoming a monster makes him hate Ben more than ever, as he blames him for his new form, and he swears revenge, becoming Ben's secondary arch-enemy: "Kevin 11".
Dr. Animo:
A scientist whose career was cut short when it was discovered that he was performing twisted genetic experiments on animals. He had hoped that his research would win him the Verties Award, which is an award in veterinary science. Because of the nature of his research, he lost the award to another doctor named Kelly. This drove him insane, and he dropped off the map for five years until he could perfect his research. After being defeated by Ben for the first time, Dr. Animo makes himself a personal nemesis to the boy, always hoping to defeat him and rule the world. His powers include controlling animals, reviving them and creating them.
Zs'Skayr:
An Ectonurite who was originally one of Ben's forms. Zs'Skayr was sampling Flourana DNAs into the Omnitrix but ended up having his own DNA sampled along with it creating a clone of him and Ben's form "Ghostfreak". His powers include invisibility, intangibility, possession, tentacles, energy beam projection, telekinesis and firing energy beams from his hands.
Charmcaster:
A gifted human who was the teenage niece of Hex. She first appears to be loyal to her uncle, but was actually using him to get power for herself. She becomes Gwen's personal nemesis. Her powers include mana manipulation and spell-casting.
Themes
The Omnitrix (The Omnimatrix)
The Omnitrix (The prefix omni- means all, the trix means matrix) was originally created by a Galvan (Grey Matter's species) named Azmuth and Albedo. The Omnitrix was intended to allow beings to experience life as other species in order to bring understanding and foster peace in the universe.
In the first form that Ben found, the Omnitrix looked like a wristwatch, primarily black and gray in color, with a gray (or black) dial in the middle (like a watch face) and had a green hourglass shape on it (actually the intergalactic "peace" symbol, also on Plumber's Badges and Azmuth's home world). However, many beings, like Vilgax have seen the Omnitrix' abilities as something that could be used as a powerful weapon.
According to Xylene, the Omnitrix was originally intended for Max, but since she was in battle she sent it to the forest by mistake. When Ben found it, his DNA was close enough to Max that it mistook him for Max and locked itself on Ben's wrist.
Active Mode
The default mode for the Omnitrix which means it can be used and that it has recharged or totally working properly. Actual usage time is unknown (between ten and twenty minutes, most commonly ten), and can time out at inopportune moments, it seems to time out faster the more it's taxed by activities such as fighting. However, if regular transformation is tampered with, Ben can't turn back (Ditto, for example, isn't allowed to revert when Ben's Ditto clones were not all merged, nor does it allow Ben to transform multiple times).
The Omnitrix also possesses a Master Control, activated by either random chance or by inserting a certain code into the Omnitrix. Once the Master Control is unlocked, the user can remain in an alien form indefinitely or until gravely physically injured and is able to switch between alien forms at will just by thinking it, speaking the name of the alien given by the user, or operating the Omnitrix which can still be found on the body when activated.
Time Out Mode
When the Omnitrix times out, it beeps and flashes, converting the user back to normal. It takes around 10 minutes to recharge, though it may take more time if tampered with. The main purpose of timing out is said to be to keep the original personality of certain aliens from overwhelming the user (such as the case of Ghostfreak).
The Omnitrix is powered by a special self-renewable power supply that will long outlive Ben. The Omnitrix has, on occasion, instantly recharged to protect its user from direct physical threat. This was shown when Ben was about to be killed by Kevin and then when Ghostfreak, who had escaped the Omnitrix at the time, tried to possess Ben, both times, despite just timing out moments earlier, the Omnitrix recharges instantly when Ben's life is put in direct threat. However, this may possibly be a safety mechanism where the Omnitrix taps into an emergency reserve of energy, as the Omnitrix almost immediately timed out mere moments later. This feature was apparently switched off after the recalibration. The Omnitrix has been known to 'malfunction', such as unexpectedly timing out, recharging instantly or changing into a different alien than was selected; however, these might be safeguards programmed to protect against someone stealing it.
It was confirmed by Dwayne McDuffie, the Omnitrix times out not to recharge its energy, but to prevent damage to Ben.
Capture Mode
When a new DNA sample has been unlocked for future use (it identifies the DNA against the database, then unlocks that code on the Omnitrix), or when the Omnitrix actually captures new DNA that is not already present on it.
Wrong Alien Method
When the Omnitrix reads the users mind, just in case when the omnitrix detects Vilgax, The Omnitrix will transform the user in other aliens instead of Waybig to make the battle longer just because Ben Transform in any alien before Waybig.
Self-Destruct Mode Activated In 30 Seconds
When in S.D.M. (Self-Destruct Mode), the Omnitrix counts down until it explodes.
When in S.D.M. for a few days, the Omnitrix charges up enough energy to cause an energy ripple that will destroy the entire universe, also in the original series while the Omnitrix was in S.D.M. it sent out bursts of energy that threw Ben through the air.
When in S.D.M is activated while the omnitrix was in Vilgax's Hand, he will throw Vilgax in the wall of his ship, recovering from the shockwave.
Other Features
The Omnitrix has Artificial Intelligence and Natural Intelligence that can read the mind of the user and transforms him/her into the alien form like Alien X it thinks is right for the situation when activated; it might be why Ben turns into another alien instead of the one he chose;
When it's near to Azmuth, it has been shown to pin-point the direction to reach him by turning its dial;
When transformed, the Omnitrix can protect the host from negative influences, like possession by an Ectonurite or the mutation effect of Corrodium or Dr. Animo's mutant ray, the same effect applied to Kevin during his second mutation, as it came from the Omnitrix too;
If someone tries to tamper with it against the host's will, it creates a large feedback pulse for defense;
The Omnitrix has a failsafe that it works when an alien was removed from the Omnitrix intendedly by the user, the omnitrix will never accept any DNA from the species that already removed in the Omnitrix like Feedback.
Allusions
"And Then There Were 10" starts with a space battle, just like in the opening scene of Star Wars Episode IV.
The Forever Knights appear to be inspired by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, both organizations viewed themselves as superior races descended from ancient times and their goals are to search for paranormal artifacts (such as alien tech for the Forever Knights, while the National Socialists search for occult items) to help out their causes. The Forever Knights' hatred of everything alien also appears to allude to the National Socialists' anti-Semitic views of the Jewish and other enemies of the Third Reich who are not considered Aryan purity.
Another possible source of inspiration for the Forever Knights might be the "Torchwood" Institute as presented in the more recent series of Doctor Who. Torchwood, like the Forever Knights, is dedicated to collecting Alien Tech ruthlessly and to the very specific goal of ensuring the dominating position of a presumed British Empire on planet Earth.
Another possible source of inspiration for the Forever Knights might be the rumors and common conspiracy theories regarding "Area 51" in the U.S.A. According to these theories, Area 51 is a location where aliens or their dead bodies have been kept, dissected and analyzed. In the movie Independence Day, Area 51 is also a place of alien tech research where an alien battle pod is analyzed and repaired and then used against the same Earth-invading alien civilization.
In "Ready to Rumble", when Porcupine curls up and rolls into the enemy, is much like Sonic the Hedgehog's Spin Dash.
"Ben 4 Good Buddy" is a reference to "Ten 4 good buddy".
"Big Fat Alien Wedding" is a reference to the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding; and the events are similar to the classic tragic story Romeo and Juliet.
Eye Guy is a reference to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers villain, also called Eye Guy.
In "Midnight Madness", has a reference to the Midnight Riders; the "Mega-mall-opolis" is a parody of the Mall of America in Minnesota; and Sublimo is derived from subliminal.
In "Super Alien Hero Buddy Adventures", the North brothers are named Kane and Abel, which most likely refers to Cain and Abel from the Bible.
In "The Big Tick", all the hand positions Cannonbolt used were Peter Parker's hand positions when he was trying to find out how to shoot webs in the first Spider-Man movie. Also, the plot about an intergalactic planet eater, the creature having its servant(s) go to the world before and the fact that its servant(s) move around on hoverboards is similar to the plot of Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
In "Ghostfreaked Out", was made a reference to Ghostbusters' phrase I ain't afraid of no ghost!, where Acid Breath says I ain't scared of no ghosts!.
Episodes
Production
Development
Ben 10 was created by "Man of Action" and was produced by Cartoon Network Studios. Man of Action is a group consisting of comic book creators Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, and Steven T. Seagle. The group worked on Ben 10 concept roughly 3 years before Cartoon Network picked up the series.
Early on in development, it was decided that a villain would be within the Omnitrix. After Ghostfreak was created the creators added dialogue into the first season to give the audience that there is something more to Ghostfreak. Originally Cannonbolt the 11th alien transformation in the series, was going to be in the original set of aliens, but was replaced with Ghostfreak.
When doing test animations for the series the first alien transformation to be tested was Four Arms. It was the most popular transformation out of all the aliens for "Man of Action". Many of the unused designs for Upchuck were recycled into in the episode "Ben 10,000" as two of Ben's aliens "Spitter" and "Articguana", and as villain Sploot.
Steven E. Gordon worked on a very early version of the show, his concept work reveals that Ben Tennyson was originally going to be a red headed young boy. Gordon also has early designs of the Omnitrix which look more like a watch than the final version, as well different designs and names for the alien transformations. Some of the beta names for the transformations were "StrongGuy", "Inferno", "RazorJaws", "Dragonfly", "Plantguy", and "Digger". Some of the early designs for the early aliens are more human and super hero like similar to Dial H For Hero.
Theme Song
The theme song for the series was written by Andy Sturmer and sung by Mz. Moxy. The main title were created by Renegade Animation. The flash animated sequence during the main title was designed to let the audience know that the show is going to be fun and not just an action show. The opening credits were altered in the third season and beyond to reflect that Ghostfreak was no longer to be used, and was replaced by Cannonbolt as the ninth alien.
Casting
Kris Zimmerman was in charge of casting and was the voice director. Tara Strong voices the title character Ben Tennyson, Upgrade, Benwolf, Lucy Mann-Tennyson, Ken Tennyson, and Sandra Tennyson. She also voices Future Gwen and Buzzshock in "Ben 10,000". Meagan Smith voices Ben's cousin Gwen Tennyson, and Paul Eiding voices Grandpa Max and his version of Upgrade.
Steven Blum voices Ben's alien transformations Heatblast and Ghostfreak, as well as the series main villain Vilgax. Dee Bradley Baker voices Ben's transformations Stinkfly, Eye Guy, and Wildmutt, Baker also voices Ben's school bully friend Cash Murray, and many of his enemies such as The Limax, Six Six, Acid Breath, and the character Elsgood. Baker also notable for voicing many various characters and aliens. Richard Steven Horvitz voices Ben's Grey Matter transformation and the villain Sublimino. Richard McGonagle voices Ben's Four Arms transformation, and the villain Exo-Skull. Fred Tatasciore voices Ben's aliens Ripjaws, Cannonbolt, and Way Big, Tatasciore also voices a future version of Ben in "Ben 10,000". And Jim Ward voices the transformations Diamondhead, XLR8, and Wildvine, and the character Gordon Tennyson.
Additional voices
Jack AngelTechnorg
Clancy BrownKenko the Shapeshifter
Bettina BushKai Green
Cathy CavadiniCooper Daniels
Larry CedarHowell Wainwright
Rosalind ChaoCouncilwoman Liang
John CyganAbel North, Kane North
Grey DeLisleHeatblast Gwen, Xylene, Camille Mann, Mrs. Mann
John DiMaggioBaron Highway, Vulkanus
Michael DornViktor, Benvicktor
Jeff DoucetteThumbskull
Robin Atkin DownesJonah Melville
Richard DoyleEnoch, Mr. Jingles, Driscoll
Walker EdmistonMarty
Greg EllisSynaptek
Dave FennoyTetrax Shard
Miriam FlynnVera Tennyson, Old Woman
Michael GoughLt. Steel
Richard GreenBenmummy
Kim Mai GuestPinky, Andy, Young Elsgood
Nicholas GuestClancy
Jennifer HaleRojo, Turbine, Jamie, Mandy, Ben's Teacher
Tom KaneUltimos, Donovan Grand Smith, Arctiguana
John KassirZombozo
Josh KeatonTim Dean, Hector
Patricia LentzShelby the Waitress, Mildred
Jennifer MalenkeMissy
Vanessa MarshallDiamondhead Gwen, Four Arms Gwen, Myaxx, Tini, Cannonbolt Gwen
James C. Mathis IIIEnforcer Alien
Miguel NajeraWes Green
Robert PatrickPhil
Rob PaulsenDitto
Khary PaytonHex
Rob PinkstonTodd Maplewood
Robert PicardoLeader Alien
Bill RatnerNarrator in "Gwen 10" and "Goodbye and Good Riddance"
Michael ReiszKevin (Season 1)
Neil RossLaurence Wainwright
Charlie SchlatterKevin (Seasons 2-4), Kevin 11,000, Devlin Levin
Dwight SchultzDr. Animo
Armin ShimermanSlix Vigma
Kath SoucieEdwind Grand Smith, Joan Maplewood, Tiffany
Jason SpisakGatorboy
Cree SummerFrightwig
Mark ThompsonVance Vetteroy
Kari WahlgrenCharmcaster, Baby Hex, Grey Matter Gwen
B.J. WardBetty Jean Tennyson
Billy WestKraab
Dave WittenbergUpchuck, Road Rage
Adam WylieJ.T, Max Tennyson (10 years old), Peterson
Keone YoungIshiyama
Films, Sequels, and Spin Offs
TV films
Two Ben 10 films have been released at different times during 2007 and 2008. The first is a regular animated feature called Secret of the Omnitrix, in which the Omnitrix is accidentally set to self-destruct and Ben must track down its creator to stop it. A trailer of the film was released with the film Billy & Mandy: Wrath of the Spider Queen, and it aired August 10, 2007. Michael Ouweleen described the film's villain, which was actually Vilgax, as "like Darth Vader without the sense of humor." A different version of Secrets of the Omnitrix, which introduced a different alien (Eye Guy) to the one in the original (Heatblast), aired on September 1, 2007. A third version (in which XLR8 was featured) aired on October 20, 2007. It was stated during the premiere of Alien Force that Secret of the Omnitrix was intended to be the chronological finale of Ben 10, even though it was broadcast long before the last episode, which was not canon.
A CGI movie titled Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens was first released on March 11, 2012 in Asia and on March 23, 2012 in the US. The movie focuses on a 10-year-old Ben returning to school after the summer. The movie was released in 2 different versions on Asia. The Filipino viewers will hear the Philippine winners while the rest of Southeast Asia will hear the Malaysian kids.
Theatrical films
Ben 10: Race Against Time is the first film in the series. It revolves around Ben (Graham Phillips), Gwen (Haley Ramm) and Grandpa Max (Lee Majors) returning to their hometown of Bellwood and attempting to adjust to being ‘normal’ again. Unfortunately, their lives are once again disrupted by a mysterious alien known as Eon (Christien Anholt), who has an unexpected connection to the Omnitrix.
Ben 10: Alien Swarm is the second film in the series. It is about Ben (Ryan Kelley), Gwen (Galadriel Stineman), Kevin (Nathan Keyes) and Grandpa Max (Barry Corbin). In the movie the group stumbles upon a hive of alien nanobots using humans as host bodies in order to take over the world. The Nanochips, or "alien swarm", are controlled by a single consciousness and Ben and his friends must work together to stop them.
Sequel series
Ben 10: Alien Force is the sequel to the show set five years after the original series. As an indirect result, this series is darker in tone compared to its predecessor. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on April 18, 2008 and ended on March 26, 2010. It has since been premiered in Canada, on Teletoon. A video game of the show is now out for the Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
Another sequel series, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, premiered on April 23, 2010 and takes place 3–4 weeks after the finale of Alien Force.
Protector of Earth
This is the first Ben 10 video game, released in autumn 2007.
Following the success of the Ben 10 animated TV series and films, various Ben 10 merchandise has been released for general sale. These items include Ben 10 books, action figures, card games such as Top Trumps, toys, video games - notably Ben 10: Protector of Earth, bedding, and footwear.
FusionFall
Ben 10 appears in Cartoon Network's online MMO FusionFall. The character design for Ben Tennyson was changed when the original Ben 10 series ended and was replaced by Ben 10: Alien Force. In the game, he serves as a "Player Guide" offering guide-based missions and special items that can only be used with certain guides.
Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix
Ben 10: Race Against Time
Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens
Ben 10: Protector of Earth
Ben 10: Alien Force
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
Ben 10 Toys Lines
Ben 10: Omniverse
References
External links
Official Ben 10 US site
Official Ben 10 AU site
Official Ben 10 UK site
Inside the World of Ben 10 - Event with creator Tramm Wigzell at BAFTA
Category:Ben 10
Category:2005 American television series debuts
Category:2008 American television series endings
Category:2000s American animated television series
Category:American science fiction television series
Category:Cartoon Network original programs
Category:Kids' WB original programs
Category:Child superheroes
Category:Science fantasy television series
Category:English-language television programming
Category:Cartoon Network Studios series and characters
Category:Cartoon Network Studios superheroes
Category:Shapeshifting in fiction
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Category:American children's television series
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2016-01 | Generation_X-697353709 | Generation_X | Generation X
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western Post–World War II baby boom. Most demographers and commentators use birth dates ranging from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.
Origin of term
The term Generation X was coined by the Magnum photographer Robert Capa in the early 1950s. He used it later as a title for a photo-essay about young men and women growing up immediately after the Second World War. The project first appeared in Picture Post in the UK and Holiday in the U.S. in 1953. Describing his intention, Capa said "We named this unknown generation, The Generation X, and even in our first enthusiasm we realised that we had something far bigger than our talents and pockets could cope with."
The name was popularized by Canadian author Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, concerning young adults during the late 1980s and their lifestyles. While Coupland's book helped to popularize the phrase Generation X, he erroneously attributed it to English rock musician Billy Idol in a 1989 magazine article. In fact, Idol had been a member of the punk band Generation X from 1976 to 1981, which was named after Deverson and Hamblett's 1965 sociology book on British youth, Generation X—a copy of which was owned by Idol's mother.
Characteristics and demographics
Gen X is the generation born after the Western World War II baby boom describing a generational change from the Baby Boomers.
In a 2012 article for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, George Masnick wrote that the "Census counted 82.1 million" Gen Xers in the U.S. The Harvard Center uses 1965 to 1984 to define Gen X so that Boomers, Xers and Millennials "cover equal 20-year age spans". Masnick concluded that immigration filled in any birth year deficits during low fertility years of the late 1960s and early 1970s
Jon Miller at the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the University of Michigan wrote that "Generation X refers to adults born between 1961 and 1981" and it "includes 84 million people" in the U.S.
John Markert at Cumberland University employs a similar approach, but wrote a 2004 article in which "Generations should be discreet twenty-year periods" but with "ten-year cohorts" and 5-year bihorts non-simultaneously, classifies Generation X as those born in the years 1966 to 1985. Markert censures other methods and tactics to define Generation X in his article stating that "inconsistent use of dates by the same author" simply results "in an apple to lemon measurement standard".
In 2011 "The Generation X Report", based on annual surveys used in the longitudinal study of today's adults, found Gen Xers, defined in the report as people born between 1961 and 1981, to be highly educated, active, balanced, happy and family oriented. The study contrasted with the slacker, disenfranchised stereotype associated with youth in the 1970s and 1980s. Various questions and responses from approximately 4,000 people who were surveyed each year from 1987 through 2010 made up the study. Clive Thompson, writing in Wired in 2014 claimed that the differences between Generation X and its predecessors had been over-hyped, quoting Kali Trzesniewski, a scholar of life-span changes, as saying that the basic personality metrics of Americans had remained stable for decades.
In 2012, the Corporation for National and Community Service ranked Gen X volunteer rates in the U.S. at "29.4% per year", the highest compared with other generations. The rankings were based on a three-year moving average between 2009 and 2011.
In the preface to Generation X Goes Global: Mapping a Youth Culture in Motion, a collection of global essays, Professor Christine Henseler summarizes it as "a generation whose worldview is based on change, on the need to combat corruption, dictatorships, abuse, AIDS, a generation in search of human dignity and individual freedom, the need for stability, love, tolerance, and human rights for all".
In cinema, directors Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Jane Campion, Steven Soderbergh, Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater and Todd Solondz have been called Generation X filmmakers. Smith is most known for his View Askewniverse films, the flagship film being Clerks, which is set in New Jersey circa 1994, and focuses on two bored, convenience-store clerks in their twenties. Linklater's Slacker similarly explores young adult characters who were more interested in philosophizing than settling with a long-term career and family. Solondz' Welcome to the Dollhouse touched on themes of school bullying, school violence, teen drug use, peer pressure and broken or dysfunctional families, set in a junior high school environment in New Jersey during the early to mid-1990s. While not a member of Gen X himself, director John Hughes has been recognized as having created a series of classics "that an entire generation took ownership of with films like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science".
Gen Xers are often called the MTV Generation. They experienced the emergence of music videos, new wave music, electronic music, synthpop, glam rock, heavy metal and the spin-off glam metal, punk rock and the spin-off pop punk, alternative rock, grunge, and hip hop.
Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more heterogeneous generation, embracing social diversity in terms of such characteristics as race, class, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
Unlike their parents who challenged leaders with an intent to replace them, Gen Xers are less likely to idolize leaders and are more inclined to work toward long-term institutional and systematic change through economic, media and consumer actions.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Generation X holds the highest education levels when looking at current age groups.
Pursuant to a study by Elwood Carlson on "how different generations respond in unique ways to common problems in some political, social, and consumption choices", the Population Reference Bureau, a private demographic research organization based in Washington, D.C., cited Generation X birth years as falling between 1965 and 1982. On the first page of the study, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe's definition of a "cohort generation" is cited. They define Generation X by the years 1961 to 1981.
In 2008, Details magazine editor-at-large Jeff Gordinier released his book X Saves the World -- How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking.
Economy
Studies done by Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute challenged the notion that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it.
A report titled Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? focused on the income of males 30–39 in 2004 (those born April 1964March 1974). The study was released on May 25, 2007 and emphasized that this generation's men made less (by 12%) than their fathers had at that same age in 1974, thus reversing a historical trend. It concluded that per year increases in household income generated by fathers/sons have slowed (from an average of 0.9% to 0.3%), barely keeping pace with inflation. "Family incomes have risen though (over the period 1947 to 2005) because more women have gone to work, supporting the incomes of men, by adding a second earner to the family. And as with male income, the trend is downward".
Generation Flux is a neologism and psychographic designation coined by Fast Company for American employees who need to make several changes in career throughout their working lives because of the chaotic nature of the job market following the Financial crisis of 2007–08. Those in "Generation Flux" have birth years in the ranges of Gen X and Millennials.
Entrepreneurship
According to authors Michael Hais and Morley Winograd, "small businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit that Gen Xers embody have become one of the most popular institutions in America. There's been a recent shift in consumer behavior and Gen Xers will join the “idealist generation” in encouraging the celebration of individual effort and business risk-taking. As a result, Xers will spark a renaissance of entrepreneurship in economic life, even as overall confidence in economic institutions declines. Customers, and their needs and wants (including Millennials) will become the North Star for an entire new generation of entrepreneurs".
United Kingdom
A 2008 article by The Observer, cites the Generation X birth years as falling between 1965 and 1982; the same article later describes Millennials as being born between 1982 and 2002. The writer states that Generation Xers were "labelled by some" as the me-generation of the Eighties." Another piece written by a Guardian journalist in 2011 uses 1961 to 1981 for this generation.
The Telegraph cited Gen X birth dates as falling between a longer time span (1965–1985), In 2007, The Independent estimated an earlier range of birth dates (1963–1978) compared to other writers or researchers. However, the newspaper's 2010 article titled "Generation X: A mid-life crisis" uses the 1961 to 1981 date range. The BBC News article about a lack of "mid-career volunteers" in their 20s provides a Generation X age range, which, being written in 2007, would suggest birth years that fall between 1962 and 1982.
A Daily Express article in December 2013 discusses the impact the recession has had on the generation "born between 1961 and 1981." Despite a good degree and desired job skills, "they discovered that there is no job security and everywhere there are cutbacks on staff, salaries and benefits," Jan Etherington writes.
Canada
David Foot, author and University of Toronto professor, divides the generation born after the Baby Boomers into two groups in his book Boom Bust & Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift: Generation X, born between 1960 and 1966; and the "Bust Generation", born between 1967 and 1979. Foot contends that those born between the periods of 1947–1966 were the Baby Boomers, where in Canada they were the largest boom of the industrialized world (relative to population). This large boom complicated the job market for the upcoming generation. However, it is also common in Canada to represent Generation Xers using the date ranges 1961–1981 or 1965–1981.
Australia and New Zealand
A Sydney Morning Herald article defined Gen X as "those born roughly between 1963–1980." The Australian Bureau of Statistics use a 1965–1981 birth range to define Generation X. According to generational demographers Bill Strauss and Neil Howe, "shorter birth year definitions are shorthand for fertility rates. Gen Xers (as a cultural generation) look beyond demographics to define themselves by a shared location in history, common beliefs, attitudes and values (and a common perceived membership). Defining Gen X purely by demographic bulges and busts (like the Census) misses key cultural indicators that a very different set of young people has come along. Commentators who set Millennial birth boundaries starting in the late-70s often make the same assumptions using fertility rates to define birth dates rather than shared beliefs, attitudes and values. Children born in the early 1960s and after had a very different coming of age experience than those born in the late 1950s. Some of the most influential cultural definers of Gen X were born during the period between 1961 and 1964."
Sources in New Zealand, including the country's labour statistics, define Gen X between the years 1965 and 1981. According to a December 2013 article from The New Zealand Herald, a study done by researcher Dr. Kristin Murray of Massey University claims to have "debunked stereotypes about workers of different generations" who "may have more in common than we may think." She found that though there were cultural differences between those in their twenties and those in their mid-thirties, "those cultural differences weren't reflected in underlying values and motivations." But, she found that Generation X-ers (1965–1981) and Baby Boomers (1946–1964) were "most alike." However, Dr. Murray clarifies that her study "focused on values, so there could still be differences in behavior between age groups." Jason Walker, who is the New Zealand managing director for job recruitment company Hays, disagrees with Dr. Murray's findings. His company's research showed that Generation X members worked their way up the corporate ladder, advancing by learning new job skills. The Baby Boomers were dependent on their employers to take care of them if they worked hard. The "technologically savvy" Millennials, conversely, were "more risk-taking in their careers" and expected "fast-paced results." If they weren't challenging enough, or if they felt like they were in a dead-end job, they would move on.
See also
List of generations
Demographics of the United States
Generation gap
Notes
Further reading
Generation X Goes Global: Mapping a Youth Culture in Motion, Christine Henseler, Ed.; 2012
X
Category:Demographics
Category:Postmodernism |
2016-01 | Britney_Spears_discography-694615022 | Britney_Spears_discography | Britney Spears discography
American singer Britney Spears has released eight studio albums, seven compilation albums, 42 singles, and two promotional singles and has had three other appearances. In 1997, Spears signed a recording contract with Jive Records to launch her career.
Spears made her chart debut in November 1998 with "...Baby One More Time", which attained global success and reached the top position of every major countries charts. It was followed by the release of her debut studio album, ...Baby One More Time, which opened at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart and US Billboard 200, being later certified fourteen-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Spears' second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again, was released on May 16, 2000, and became the fastest-selling album ever by a female act in the US with 1,319,193 units sold in its opening week. It spawned four singles: "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Lucky", "Stronger", and "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know". In November 2001, Spears' self-titled album spawned worldwide hit "I'm a Slave 4 U", which is notable for being a musical departure from her previous material. After a two-year break, Spears's fourth studio album, In the Zone, was released in November 2003. The album featured "Me Against the Music", a collaboration with Madonna that reached the top position of the European Hot 100 Singles, and "Toxic", which earned Spears her first Grammy in the category of Best Dance Recording and gained her credibility among critics. Her first compilation album, Greatest Hits: My Prerogative, was released the following year and sold nearly 6 million copies worldwide.
Following her personal struggles through 2007, Spears' fifth studio album, Blackout, was released in October of the same year. It was positively received by critics, who praised its innovative and modern sound. Unlike all of Spears' previous albums, Blackout was not heavily promoted through magazine interviews, talk-show appearances or televised performances besides a performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards and was not accompanied by a tour either. Even so, it was able to sell over 3 million units worldwide, spawning hit singles "Gimme More" and "Piece of Me". With the release of her sixth studio album Circus, Spears became the only act in the Nielsen SoundScan era, 1991–present, to have four albums debut with 500,000 or more copies sold in the US. With the releases of "Womanizer" and "Circus", it sold four million copies worldwide. Spears's third compilation album, The Singles Collection, featured her third US number one single, "3". In 2011, she released the song "Hold It Against Me", which made Spears only the second artist in the Billboard Hot 100 chart's 52-year history to debut at number one with two or more songs, just behind Mariah Carey. The track was included on her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale, which debuted at number one in the country. Spears's eighth studio album Britney Jean was released in 2013; it made little commercial impact, received mixed reviews from critics and became the lowest-selling record of her career.
Spears has sold over 100 million albums worldwide and more than 28.6 million digital singles in the United States only, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Billboard ranked her as the 8th overall Artist of the Decade, and also recognized her as the best-selling female album artist of the first decade of the 21st century, as well as the fifth overall. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) also recognized Spears as the eighth top-selling female artist in the United States, with 34 million certified albums. Currently, Spears is the only artist in history to have a number-one single and a number-one studio album in each of the three decades of her career (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s).
Albums
Studio albums
Extended plays
Compilation albums
Box sets
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Promotional singles
Other charted songs
Other appearances
See also
Britney Spears videography
Notes
References
Discography
Category:Pop music discographies
Category:Discographies of American artists |
2016-01 | Supernatural_American_TV_series-695623172 | Supernatural_American_TV_series | Supernatural (American TV series)
Supernatural is an American fantasy horror television series created by Eric Kripke. It was first broadcast on September 13, 2005, on The WB and subsequently became part of successor The CW's lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings in the world. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Television, in association with Wonderland Sound and Vision. Along with Kripke, executive producers have been McG, Robert Singer, Phil Sgriccia, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver, John Shiban, Ben Edlund and Adam Glass. Former executive producer and director Kim Manners died of lung cancer during production of the fourth season.
The series is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia and surrounding areas and was in development for nearly ten years, as creator Kripke spent several years unsuccessfully pitching it. The pilot was viewed by an estimated 5.69 million viewers, and the ratings of the first four episodes prompted The WB to pick up the series for a full season. Originally, Kripke planned the series for three seasons but later expanded it to five. The fifth season concluded the series' main storyline, and Kripke departed the series as showrunner. The series has continued on for several more seasons with Sera Gamble and Jeremy Carver assuming the role of showrunner. The series was renewed for an eleventh season, which premiered on October 7, 2015. With its eleventh season, Supernatural became the longest-running North American science-fiction series (surpassing Smallville, which has 218 episodes).
Production
Conception and creation
Before bringing Supernatural to television, creator Eric Kripke had been developing the series for nearly ten years, having been fascinated with urban legends since he was a child. Although he had envisioned Supernatural as a movie, he spent years unsuccessfully pitching it as a series. The concept went through several phases before becoming the eventual product, shifting from the original idea of an anthology series to one of tabloid reporters driving around the country in a van "fighting the demons in search of the truth". Kripke wanted it to be a road trip series, feeling that it was the "best vehicle to tell these stories because it's pure, stripped down and uniquely American... These stories exist in these small towns all across the country, and it just makes so much sense to drive in and out of these stories."
As he had previously written for The WB series Tarzan, Kripke was offered the chance to pitch show ideas to the network and used the opportunity for Supernatural. However, the network disliked his tabloid reporter idea, so Kripke successfully pitched his last-minute idea of the characters being brothers. He decided to have the brothers be from Lawrence, Kansas, because of its closeness to Stull Cemetery, a location famous for its urban legends.
When it came time to name the two lead characters, Kripke decided on "Sal" and "Dean" as an homage to Jack Kerouac's road-trip novel On the Road. However, he felt that "Sal" was inappropriate for a main character and changed the name to "Sam". It was originally intended for the brothers' last name to be "Harrison" as a nod to actor Harrison Ford, as Kripke wanted Dean to have the "devil-may-care swagger of Han Solo". However, there was a Sam Harrison living in Kansas, so the name had to be changed for legal reasons. Combining his interest in the Winchester Mystery House and his desire to give the series the feel of "a modern-day Western", Kripke settled on the surname of "Winchester". However, this also presented a problem. The first name of Sam and Dean's father was originally "Jack", and there was a Jack Winchester residing in Kansas, so Kripke was forced to change the character's name to "John".
Growing up, Kripke connected to television shows that had signature cars, such as The Dukes of Hazzard and Knight Rider. This prompted him to include one in Supernatural. He originally intended for the car to be a '65 Mustang, but his neighbor convinced him to change it to a '67 Impala, since "you can put a body in the trunk" and because "you want a car that, when people stop next to it at the lights, they lock their doors." Kripke has commented, "It's a Rottweiler of a car, and I think it adds authenticity for fans of automobiles because of that, because it's not a pretty ride. It's an aggressive, muscular car, and I think that's what people respond to, and why it fits so well into the tone of our show."
Kripke had previously pitched the series to Fox executive Peter Johnson, and when Johnson moved to Wonderland Sound and Vision as president of TV, he contacted Kripke. Johnson soon signed on as co-executive producer, as did Wonderland owner McG as executive producer, with the production company set to make the pilot episode. Before it could be filmed, however, script issues needed to be dealt with. Originally, the brothers were not raised by their father, but rather by their aunt and uncle. Thus, when Dean comes to Sam for assistance in the pilot episode, he has to convince him that the supernatural exists. However, Kripke realized that this made the backstory too complicated and reworked it with Peter Johnson so that their father raised them to be hunters. The script went through many additional revisions. One of the original ideas was for Sam's girlfriend Jessica to be revealed as a demon, which prompts him to join Dean on the road; however, Kripke felt it was more appropriate for Sam's motivation to be Jessica's death, so he had her killed in the same manner as Sam's mother, making them the "right bookends". Other revised concepts include Sam believing Dean to be a serial killer that murders their father and their father dying in Jessica's place. Filming for the pilot episode was greenlit after director David Nutter, who previously had worked with Kripke on Tarzan, signed on. When the series was eventually picked up, the studio brought in Robert Singer as executive producer, as it wanted Kripke to work with someone with production experience. Due to his previous work on The X-Files, co-executive producer John Shiban was also hired to help design the series mythology. Kripke had the series planned out for three seasons but later expanded it to five and hoped to end it there on a high note.
Writing
The staff for the first season consisted of Kripke and five other writers, with assistants to help with researching urban legends. Most of the work done in writing the series is very collaborative, with the writers often breaking up into groups. At the beginning of each season, the writers are brought together and pitch their ideas, which are then assigned to a specific writer to be developed. Each story idea is outlined on a dry-erase board, with Kripke and Bob Singer making necessary changes. Afterward, the script is written, and Kripke goes through it to make sure it has the same tone as other episodes. Kripke found this task very difficult to do in the first season, but he felt it became easier by the third season, as the staff came to "really understand the show's style".
The tone of Supernatural was heavily influenced by films such as Poltergeist—having the horror happen in a family setting rather than remote location—and Evil Dead II and An American Werewolf in London—having bits of comedy mixed in. Commenting on the former, Kripke said, "It's the idea that horror can happen in your own backyard. How many viewers have to worry about the vampire in the gothic castle?" Other influences include The Two Sisters and Asian horror films The Eye, Ju-on, and Ring.
According to creator Eric Kripke, the show originally was intended to focus on the weekly monsters, with Sam and Dean Winchester merely being "an engine to get us in and out of different horror movies every week". His sole desire was to merely "scare the crap out of people". However, a few episodes in, Kripke and executive producer Bob Singer noticed the onscreen chemistry between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. This revelation caused them to change the series to focus more on the brothers than the monsters, basing the weekly monster around the storyline they wanted for the Winchesters. According to Kripke, "...sometimes we don't even have the monster until way late in the break, once we get all the angst and the drama done first."
Effects
Though companies were hired for work on the pilot episode—such as Entity FX for the visual effects—effects departments now work exclusively for the series. Ivan Hayden is the visual effects supervisor, and works with many levels of the production staff. During pre-production, Hayden must go through the scripts, looking for possible visual effects. He then has a concept meeting with the writers, and after settling on the effect designs to use, coordinates with the special effects and stunt departments. Hayden is also present during filming to help the director make sure that the scenes are being filmed in the best way for the visual effects, such as by ensuring that the actors are looking at the correct location where an effect will later be added. Afterward, he then meets with the editors. Another aspect of the visual effects department is coming up with rules and physics for each supernatural creature, though the rules are often bent if it benefits the story. In 2012, it was announced that Hayden will be working at the new Vancouver location of Encore for its VFX division.
Music
Supernatural features a synthesized orchestral score, although traditional acoustic instruments such as guitars and cellos are used at times. Special instruments have also been used in specific episodes, such as "bluesy gospel music" played on a broken-down piano in the faith-healing episode "Faith". Unlike other television shows, the series features two composers: Christopher Lennertz and Jay Gruska. Each composer scores every other episode, giving them extra time to write the scores, which usually end up being around 30 minutes per episode. They write themes for their own episodes and characters and work with one another if there is overlap between episodes. They try to base the music on the visuals of the episode, such as in the episode "Dead in the Water", in which off-angle shots are accompanied by repetitive and discordant notes, and spoken words such as "water" and "die" are followed by a lower pitch to create a "gurgly" sound. While there are similarities in the scores for situations such as the brothers and their father, about a third of each episode's score is newly written for the series.
While original scores are used throughout episodes, another important aspect of the series' music is the use of classic rock, over which creator Eric Kripke threatened to quit when the network would not allow its inclusion. Most of the songs are from Kripke's private collection, although one of his favorite bands—Led Zeppelin—is too expensive to use. Some episode titles are references to Led Zeppelin songs. The series has featured such bands as Blue Öyster Cult, Bad Company, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rush, Boston, Triumph and AC/DC on more than one occasion. Multiple songs are usually used throughout each episode, and accompany "The Road So Far" sequences before select episodes that highlight a montage of past events. Although Kripke prefers to keep a fine line between the score and songs used, sometimes Lennertz and Gruska are required to write short sections of rock-like music to fill 15-to-20-second gaps, as it would be too costly to acquire song rights. Always on the last episode of every season except the first season, the song "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas is played at the beginning.
Filming locations
Though the pilot was filmed in Los Angeles, principal filming takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Thus, on-location filming usually takes place in the area. "Dead in the Water" was filmed at Buntzen Lake, and the final scenes of "Simon Said" were filmed at Cleveland Dam. Other locations used on the show are often reused two or three times, with the art department making variations to conceal this. Heritage Park in Burnaby has been used as a cemetery in "Red Sky at Morning", and as the location of the gingerbread-house cottage in "Bedtime Stories". Also, Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam has served many functions for the series, including an asylum in "Asylum", a hospital in "In My Time of Dying", and a prison in "Folsom Prison Blues". The episode "Houses of the Holy" was filmed on location in Vancouver at St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church. Because episodes usually take place in the middle of nowhere, filming often takes place at an old military base. Having been shut down for years, the buildings have been removed, leaving just roads on which sets are erected, such as for crossroads scenes.
Online distribution
Rather than having the series debut on television, The WB instead made the pilot episode available for online streaming through Yahoo! a week before it was set to premiere on the network as part of a promotional scheme. Following the transition to The CW, Supernatural episodes were added to Apple's iTunes Store starting in December 2006, being one of the first CW series to be made available for sale online. The following month, the network began streaming episodes of the series on its website with limited commercial interruption, available for up to four weeks after the initial airings. Beginning January 11, 2007, Australia's Network Ten also began offering full episodes for download via their website, through a deal with Warner Bros. Television. To combat piracy, Ten debuted the second season premiere five days before its initial broadcast in the country, making Supernatural the first major network show available for free download in Australia before being aired. Subsequent episodes became available online just hours after being televised. Around the same time, episodes were also made available for download on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace. In September 2008, Amazon.com launched its new on-demand TV service, with Supernatural being one of the many television shows available for sale.
DVD and Blu-ray releases
Cast and characters
The series originally focuses primarily on the brothers Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, as they travel throughout the country hunting down evil supernatural creatures, mostly demons. Padalecki became interested in the role because he liked horror series, including both The X-Files and The Twilight Zone, which he found similar to Supernatural. He was also excited to play "the reluctant hero", comparing Sam to The Matrixs Neo and Luke Skywalker of Star Wars. Padalecki had previous experience working with executive producers McG and David Nutter, the former convincing him to audition for the role. Ackles was originally asked by Nutter to audition for the role of Sam but preferred the character of Dean after reading the script. At the time of his audition, he was already a series regular on fellow WB series Smallville. After landing the part of Dean, his Smallville role was cut short.
While the series does not have many lead characters, there are many recurring characters. Jeffrey Dean Morgan portrays John Winchester, father of Sam and Dean. Making an appearance in the pilot episode, John does not return until nearly halfway through the first season, after which he becomes a recurring character until his eventual death in the second season's premiere episode, though his spirit returns to help his sons in the season finale. Later in the series, it is announced that John Winchester fathered a third son with another woman; a half-brother to Sam and Dean. According to writer John Shiban, it was decided early on that John would die. The writers found that having the brothers being separated from their father "split the show". Shiban noted that "...the boys were looking for Dad, and they were looking for a monster of the week, whatever that is, whatever case crosses their path. It became difficult, because we thought it was like – 'what is Dad doing? Is he doing more interesting things than the boys are doing, or what?'" They believed Morgan was initially reluctant about returning to Supernatural for the second season because of his recurring role on the series Grey's Anatomy. Future appearances of the character have been hindered by Morgan's busy schedule.
Also introduced in the first season are the demon Azazel and his unnamed daughter. While Azazel mainly appears merely as shadows or silhouettes in the first season, only taking physical form when he possesses John Winchester, Azazel's daughter uses a girl named Meg Masters—portrayed by Nicki Lynn Aycox—as a host. In the second season premiere, Azazel's host is portrayed by Fredric Lehne; originally brought on only for one episode, Lehne impressed the showrunners so much that he was asked to return for the season's two-part finale. Even after the character's death, Azazel makes appearances in the fourth season, being portrayed, respectively, by Christopher B. MacCabe and Mitch Pileggi in the time travel episode "In the Beginning" by Rob LaBelle in a flashback in the season finale. Lehne also reprises the role in the first episode of season six when Dean is poisoned and begins to see Azazel again. Likewise, after Azazel's daughter is exorcised from Meg towards the end of the first season, the demon and her host continued to appear in the series, although now as two separate characters. Aycox continued her role in the fourth season when the angry spirit of Meg tries to kill the Winchesters. The demon returns for an episode in the second season played by Padalecki, temporarily taking Sam as a host. She appears once again in the fifth season, her newest host being portrayed by Rachel Miner, in a recurring role.
The writers eventually wanted to flesh out the concept of hunters, resulting in the introduction of many new characters. Actor Jim Beaver makes his first appearance as Bobby Singer, an old family friend of the Winchesters, at the end of the first season. Becoming a sort of surrogate father to Sam and Dean after their father's death, the character acts as their mentor and foremost point of contact before his departure in the seventh season. Other hunters appear in the second season with the introduction of Harvelle's Roadhouse, a saloon frequented by hunters. It is owned by Ellen Harvelle (played by Samantha Ferris), whose late husband was a friend of John Winchester. Working alongside her mother is Jo Harvelle (played by Alona Tal). Also present is the computer guy Ash (played by Chad Lindberg), who uses his vast computer skills to track the paranormal. Tal was eventually written out of the series, and believes the reason to be that the producers felt she looked like Sam and Dean's "14-year-old sister". Kripke claims the character was incorrectly conceived, and also cites poor fan reaction for her removal. Also, the character of Ash is killed off in the second season finale with the destruction of the Roadhouse. Ellen was meant to return in the third season, but the episode had to be scrapped due to the writer's strike. The writers intended for her to be featured in the third season finale, but Ferris declined because the deal offered to her was not acceptable, as "It could cost [her] money and work". However, both actresses returned as Jo and Ellen in the fifth season.
For the third season, the writers decided to introduce Ruby, a demonic former witch who claims to the Winchesters to be an ally, to the cast. They also added another character, Bela, who was the new 'love interest' for Sam. However, The CW requested that another female be added, so the character Bela Talbot, a self-centered thief who sells occult objects to wealthy clients and who was already intended to appear in multiple episodes, was upgraded to a series regular. Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan were eventually cast as Ruby and Bela, respectively, though they originally auditioned for the others' role. Though only making six appearances each in the third season, both actresses were credited as co-stars for their episodes. At the end of the season, Bela was killed off, and Cassidy was let go for budgetary reasons. The role of Ruby was recast for the fourth season, auditions only describing the character as "a love interest". Genevieve Cortese (who later married Padalecki) took over the role until the character's death at the end of the season.
Wanting to bring in Christian mythology to the series, the writers created the angel Castiel to introduce it. With Kripke wanting to keep the introduction of an angel a secret, the character was instead described as a demon during auditions. Misha Collins was cast as the character. Making his debut in the fourth season premiere, Castiel resurrects Dean from Hell after his death in the third season, and comes to be an ally of the Winchesters. The character was originally intended for only a six-episode story arc, but the role was later expanded. Collins was promoted to a series regular for the fifth and sixth season, something Collins believes to be mainly due to fan support. Collins was downgraded to recurring status for the seventh and eighth seasons, but returned to series regular status for seasons nine and ten.
Along with Castiel came other angelic characters, with Robert Wisdom portraying the "militant" and "dogmatic" Uriel, who secretly supports Lucifer; Julie McNiven playing the fallen angel Anna Milton, who eventually regains her angelic form but remains an outcast of Heaven; and Kurt Fuller as Castiel's boss Zachariah, who wishes to start the Apocalypse in order to bring Paradise to Earth. Though Wisdom's character is eventually killed, McNiven and Fuller continue their roles into the fifth season and are joined by Mark Pellegrino as the recently released but fallen archangel Lucifer. Pellegrino also appears as Lucifer as a hallucination in Sam's head in season 7. Pellegrino had been the second choice for the role of Castiel and was offered the role of Lucifer without an audition. Further on, Fuller's and McNiven's characters were also killed along with both Harvelle characters.
Season 5 introduces the demon Crowley, played by Mark Sheppard, who would become the Winchester's longest-recurring antagonist and occasional anti-hero in the series. Crowley appears in three episodes of season 5 to help the Winchesters seal Lucifer back in the Cage, believing that once he destroys humanity he will target all demonkind next. In season 6, Crowley becomes the King of Hell and one of the main antagonists working with Castiel to stop Archangel Raphael, the other main antagonist of season 6, from restarting the Apocalypse by harnessing the souls of Purgatory and splitting the power with Castiel. In season 7, Crowley becomes an anti-hero who helps the Winchesters against the threat of Leviathans led by Dick Roman, after they are released from Purgatory by Castiel. Crowley becomes the main antagonist of season 8, attempting to harness the Words of God and their powers and stop the Winchesters from sealing Hell forever. In season 9, Crowley becomes an unwilling prisoner of the Winchesters but is forced to deal with Abaddon trying to steal his position as King of Hell. Sheppard was promoted to series regular status for season 10.
Season 7 introduces Kevin Tran the prophet (played by Osric Chau), who translates the word of God to help the Winchesters stop the Leviathans which leads to their destruction. In season 8, Kevin works to translate another word of God to find the means of sealing Hell forever. In season 9, Kevin instead tries to find the means of returning the fallen angels to Heaven but is killed by a Gadreel-possessed Sam.
Season 9 introduces the angel Gadreel, who originally poses as Ezekiel, played by Tahmoh Penikett and Padalecki. After Sam is seriously injured when he decides not to seal Hell, Gadreel comes to Dean in response to his prayer for help, possesses Sam to heal him, and becomes Dean's ally. However, Gadreel's true identity is later revealed by Metatron to be the guardian who had allowed Lucifer into the Garden of Eden and was imprisoned until the fall. Gadreel then allies with Metatron in an attempt to redeem himself and lead the angels back to Heaven. He kills Kevin Tran and is later expelled from Sam and possesses his original vessel again. However, after Metatron begins sacrificing angels for his plans, Gadreel becomes regretful and joins Sam, Dean and Castiel.
Because the show focuses mainly on the two Winchester brothers, the writers realized that viewers would know that the characters are not in danger of being permanently killed. To fix this, the staff often writes in guest characters to give tension to the episode, occasionally having them die.
Synopsis
Season 1
The first season consists of 22 episodes that premiered on September 13, 2005, and concluded on May 4, 2006. The first 16 episodes aired on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm, after which the series was rescheduled to Thursdays at 9:00 pm.
After their mother's death in a suspicious fire that burns down their house 22 years prior, Sam and Dean Winchester's father goes missing during a "hunting trip". As a result, Dean tracks down Sam at Stanford University. The two brothers live a life on the road, in Dean's black, 1967 Chevrolet Impala with Kansas license plates. However, their father is not a typical hunter: he hunts supernatural creatures like ghosts, vampires, and spirits, and he's trained his sons to do the same. Along the way, Sam and Dean save innocent people, fight creatures and ghosts, and collect clues to their father's whereabouts. Sam begins to mysteriously develop psychic abilities and visions as they travel. They also find another man with abilities similar to Sam's, whose mother died the same way. They reach out to the young man, Max Miller, offering help and seeking answers. But Max has experienced years of physical abuse and neglect and his life ends in a murder suicide which Dean and Sam are unable to stop. They eventually find and reunite with their father, who reveals that the creature that killed their mother years earlier is the demon Azazel (aka "Yellow Eyes") and the only thing that can kill him is a legendary gun created by Samuel Colt. The season ends with the brothers and their father involved in a car crash when a truck hits the side of the Impala. They lie inside the car, covered in blood and unconscious.
Season 2
The second season consists of 22 episodes that aired on Thursdays at 9:00 pm beginning September 28, 2006, and ending May 17, 2007.
The season follows Sam and Dean as they deal with their father's death, who, after the car crash, traded Azazel his life for Dean's. Sam and Dean continue to hunt Azazel, who caused the fires that led to the deaths of their mother, and later, Sam's girlfriend, Jessica. They receive assistance from new allies Ellen, Jo, and Ash. Part of Azazel's master plan is eventually revealed as he gathers Sam and others with similar psychic abilities to fight each other, leading to the death of Sam. Dean makes a deal with a crossroads demon to bring Sam back in exchange for his soul, which will be collected in one year and taken to Hell. Azazel opens a portal to Hell, and as hundreds of demons and souls escape, has a final confrontation with the Winchesters. With the help of the spirit of John Winchester, who escaped Hell through the portal, Dean finally kills Azazel and the portal is closed. The Winchester brothers and their allies are left to deal with the demon army that has been unleashed and the one-year contract Dean has before he goes to Hell.
Season 3
The third season consists of 16 episodes that aired on Thursdays at 9:00 pm beginning October 4, 2007, and ending May 15, 2008. Originally 22 episodes were ordered for the third season, but production was halted on December 5, 2007, upon completion of the twelfth episode by the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. The season number was shortened to sixteen episodes, with four new episodes airing in April and May 2008.
The season mainly focuses on trying to save Dean from his deal and tracking down the demons that were released from the gate. Along the way, the brothers meet Ruby, a "good" demon, who has an interest in Sam and claims to be able to help save Dean. Also, they meet Bela Talbot, an acquirer and seller of occult objects, who is constantly a thorn in their side. The brothers eventually learn from Bela which demon holds Dean's contract: a powerful demon named Lilith. Lilith takes Bela's soul after her contract expires, but not before she warns Sam and Dean. The brothers, along with Ruby, track Lilith down and attempt to kill her. Lilith is unable to stop Sam on account of his mysterious abilities; however, Dean's contract expires and his soul is taken to Hell.
Season 4
The fourth season consists of 22 episodes that aired on Thursdays at 9:00 pm beginning September 18, 2008, and ending May 14, 2009.
Dean is rescued from Hell and brought back by an angel of the Lord named Castiel, one of several angels who appears throughout the season. The rest of the season follows the brothers as they work with Castiel to stop Lilith's plan of breaking the 66 seals, which would allow the fallen archangel Lucifer, AKA "the Devil" or "Satan himself", to walk the Earth free once again. The relationship between Sam and Dean is strained. Sam starts siding with Ruby over Dean. He begins to give into his demonic side by drinking demon blood to become strong enough to defeat Lilith. He and Dean eventually have a falling out. Sam sides fully with Ruby in his obsessive quest to kill Lilith. Dean makes a deal with the angels to save Sam, and learns that the angels want the Apocalypse to occur in order to rebuild Paradise on Earth. With aid from Castiel, Dean escapes and tries to stop Sam after learning that Lilith is, in fact, the last seal, but Sam kills her anyway, breaking open Lucifer's prison. Ruby reveals her true colors as a demon loyal to Lucifer and Dean kills her. As the season ends, Lucifer's cage opens and he escapes from Hell.
Season 5
The fifth season consists of 22 episodes that aired on Thursdays at 9:00 pm beginning September 10, 2009, and ending May 13, 2010. This season was rumored to be the last season, because Eric Kripke had said previously that he planned the show to run for only five seasons. Despite this, Padalecki and Ackles had contracts for a sixth season, and The CW renewed it for season six on February 16, 2010.
The fifth season revolves around the fight to stop Lucifer and save the world from the Apocalypse, inspired by events in the Book of Revelation. Throughout the season, while Castiel searches for God, Sam and Dean battle both angels and demons as they fight their destiny to become the vessels of Lucifer and Michael, respectively. One way they attempt to stop Lucifer is to retrieve the Colt from the demon Crowley and kill Lucifer with it, but this fails as Lucifer can't be killed by the Colt, and they lose fellow hunters and friends Jo and Ellen in the process. Their loss, and the revelation that God will not help stop the Apocalypse, drives Dean to agree to act as the vessel of Michael, but, ultimately, he doesn't go through with it. Instead, Dean kills the angel Zachariah, who has been tormenting the brothers all season. Michael ultimately takes Adam Milligan, the newly resurrected half-brother of Sam and Dean, as a vessel instead. Unable to defeat Lucifer, Sam and Dean, with information from the Trickster, revealed to be the archangel Gabriel, and with help from the demon Crowley, decided to collect the rings of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including Death, which act as the key to Lucifer's prison. The concept of destiny versus freedom, choice, and free will plays a large role. Throughout the season, Dean, Sam, Castiel, and Bobby each have a crisis as they near giving up. However, through each other's support, they continue forward until the end. It is also notable that Dean and Castiel have an ongoing friendship during this season, while Dean and Sam initially grow further apart. In the end, Sam allows Lucifer to possess him and he kills Bobby and Castiel, who is now human. Sam then manages to regain control, thanks to his bond with Dean, and throws himself (while possessed by Lucifer) and Adam (possessed by Michael) into the Cage to trap Lucifer once more. Castiel is resurrected by God and, more powerful than ever, resurrects Bobby and then returns to Heaven to restore order. Dean returns to his old girlfriend Lisa to live a normal life. Sam is next shown mysteriously free of the Cage, watching his brother eating dinner in the house with Lisa and her son Ben.
Season 6
The sixth season consists of 22 episodes that aired on Fridays at 9:00 pm beginning September 24, 2010, and ending May 20, 2011. Beginning with this season, Kripke did not return as showrunner, but still remained as a hands-on executive producer, leaving executive producer Sera Gamble to take over the reins.
The sixth season begins a year after the conclusion of the fifth season, with Dean living a somewhat happy life with Lisa and Ben. When an emotionless Sam returns to Dean, he is forced to leave his new life behind and work with his resurrected grandfather Samuel to capture Alpha monsters for the demon Crowley. The brothers are unable to get much help from Castiel since his time is occupied by a civil war raging in heaven against the archangel Raphael, and they cannot trust Samuel. Dean's suspicions are confirmed when he finds Samuel working with demons to discover the location of Purgatory. Dean discovers that Sam's soul is still in the Cage, so he implores the Horseman Death to retrieve it. To ensure Sam does not remember his time in the Cage, Death blocks that part of Sam's memory using a mental wall. The season's second half revolves around the so-called Mother of All, which ultimately leads to events which prove that Castiel is behind the circumstances of Sam's return, the hunt for the Alpha monsters, and the search for Purgatory and was working with Crowley the entire time. When the brothers try to stop Castiel, he brings Sam's memory of the Cage back and proceeds with his plan, absorbing all the souls from Purgatory and pronouncing himself God, having ascended beyond a mere angel.
Season 7
The seventh season consists of 23 episodes that aired on Fridays at 9:00 pm beginning September 23, 2011, and ending May 18, 2012.
After absorbing all the souls from Purgatory and declaring himself God, Castiel goes forth to punish all the wrongdoers in the world. Very quickly, though, he discovers that he absorbed the Leviathans, who are attempting to break free of his vessel. Sam and Dean manage to return most of the souls to Purgatory but fail to return the Leviathans, who seemingly kill Castiel before vanishing. The Leviathans inhabit the bodies of many different people around the world. Sam and Dean learn that their weakness is Sodium Borate (aka Borax), though it has minimum effectiveness on the Leviathan leader Dick Roman. After Roman kills Bobby, Dean becomes obsessed with taking the Leviathans down and learns of a facility they are building, only to discover that it is a facility to cure cancer. As one Leviathan states, "We're only here to help". The spirit of Bobby later confirms that while they are curing disease, they are doing it as part of their grand plan to turn humanity into the perfect food source. With the help of Castiel, the brothers learn that the only way to kill the Leviathans is with the "bone of a righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of the fallen" and set out to find the three bloods. Eventually, Dean and Castiel kill Dick but are dragged into Purgatory as a result, while Sam is left alone to deal with Crowley, who plans to rise to power now that the Leviathans are disorganized.
Key plot points presented in the season were Sam struggling with the constant hallucinations of Lucifer and the ghost of Bobby "haunting" Sam and Dean through his alcohol flask. Bobby's rage toward Dick Roman slowly causes him to become a vengeful spirit, and Sam and Dean ultimately deal with this by burning the flask at his request, thus destroying Bobby.
Season 8
The eighth season consists of 23 episodes that aired on Wednesdays at 9:00 pm beginning October 3, 2012, and ending May 15, 2013.
One year after being dragged to Purgatory, Dean returns to Earth without Castiel, carrying inside his body the soul of a vampire named Benny. The two brothers begin a fight against Crowley to find the Demon Tablet and lock the Gates of Hell, thereby trapping all demons in Hell. Castiel, brought back by an angel named Naomi, takes possession of the Angel Tablet. After realizing that to lock the Gates of Hell Sam must die, Dean ends the trials. Castiel, however, is stripped of his grace by an angel named Metatron who proceeds to have millions of angels locked out of Heaven.
Season 9
The ninth season consists of 23 episodes that aired on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm beginning October 8, 2013, and ending May 20, 2014.
In the first half of the ninth season, the angels have fallen to Earth and two factions are warring against each other while hunting Castiel while rogue angels roam the Earth causing trouble as well. Castiel is now human and having to adjust to his new life while Crowley is Sam and Dean's prisoner and Abaddon works to take over Hell. Sam is left near-death from the Trials of God and Dean is forced to let an angel claiming to be Ezekiel possess Sam to heal him from the inside. While dealing with the various threats that crop up, Dean must hide Ezekiel's presence from Sam so he won't expel him and die while also keeping Castiel away at Ezekiel's demand. The brothers must also search for a way to return the angels to Heaven. Eventually it is revealed that Ezekiel is actually the angel Gadreel who let Lucifer into the Garden of Eden. Gadreel murders Kevin Tran and escapes while Castiel regains his powers. With Crowley's help, Sam expels Gadreel, but the experience causes Sam and Dean to split up while letting Crowley go as part of the deal Dean made for him to save Sam.
In the second half, Dean begins searching for both Gadreel for revenge and the First Blade to kill Abaddon with the help of Crowley with whom he forms a reluctant alliance as Abaddon has begun attempting to take over Hell and is "much worse" than Crowley. Despite being warned of terrible repercussions, Dean takes on the Mark of Cain in order to be able to wield the First Blade. After healing Sam completely, Castiel begins a search of his own for Metatron, believing him to be the key to reversing the expulsion of the angels. Metatron begins trying to unite all the angels under his rule while Castiel leads other angels against him to retake Heaven. Eventually Dean kills Abaddon and Castiel defeats Metatron with the help of a repentant Gadreel, but Metatron kills Dean, causing him to become a demon himself due to the influence of the Mark of Cain.
Season 10
In the tenth season, after being resurrected by the Mark of Cain, Dean is now a demon, working alongside Crowley. Meanwhile, Sam continues to search for Dean. After Dean refuses to follow Crowley's order and embarrasses him in front of his demon followers, Crowley gives Sam his brother's location. For giving up Dean, Sam gives Crowley the First Blade. Later, Sam, with the help of Castiel, cures Dean by using sanctified human blood and returns him to his human state. After being cured, Dean is reminded by Castiel that the Mark of Cain is still a problem. Dean and Sam help Castiel track down Claire, Castiel's vessel Jimmy's, daughter. Dean ends up slaughtering several men who are keeping her captive and loses control of the Mark, a nightmare he previously had.
Meanwhile, a mysterious new witch comes into play, being revealed to be Crowley's mother Rowena. Also, the angel Hannah goes back to Heaven so that her vessel can have her life back. A large focus of the season is Dean's quest to overcome the Mark of Cain and have it removed if possible. After the Mark causes him to break Charlie's arm, Sam suggests that Dean has the ability to at least partially control the Mark, but only if he can control himself. New hope for ridding Dean of the Mark comes when Charlie unearths the Book of the Damned. Sam needs help in reading and using this powerful tome, and turns to Rowena for help, keeping the entire thing a secret from Dean. He requests help from Charlie, too, who decodes the text but is murdered by the Steins, a family that has secretly controlled much of history. After massacring the Steins, nearly killing Castiel and getting another hunter killed, Dean starts despairing of being free of the Mark, causing him to turn to Death for help. Death proposes putting Dean in isolation away the Earth, but insists Dean must kill Sam, who otherwise would work to bring Dean back. Sam and Dean both agree that it is for the good of the world. At the last moment however, Dean seemingly kills Death instead to save Sam. Oblivious to the dangers, Rowena successfully casts the spell to remove the Mark and unleashes the Darkness, a primordial evil that had been kept away by the Mark. Rowena also places Castiel under a spell so he attacks Crowley as she escapes with the Book of the Damned.
Season 11
The eleventh season premiered on October 7, 2015.
Recurring elements
Impala
Throughout the series, Dean drives a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala which he refers to as "Baby." Having been passed down to him by his father (John), it is Dean's most prized possession, with actor Jensen Ackles feeling it is Dean's "life" and "sanctuary". The brothers travel in it throughout the country as they hunt the supernatural, and the trunk holds various weaponry and their fake IDs. In the first two seasons, it has a Kansas license plate with the number KAZ 2Y5, a reference to the Winchesters' home state of Kansas, and the series premiere date of 2005. Towards the end of the second season, the car sports a new Ohio license plate (CNK 80Q3) to aid the brothers in hiding from the FBI.
The origins of the Impala were first depicted in the comic mini-series Supernatural: Origins, in which John Winchester takes ownership of the car from Mary's uncle after accidentally getting him killed during a hunt. However, fans responded negatively to this, as John is shown with the Impala in the teaser for the pilot episode, which is chronologically set before the comic series. Because of this, the comic was altered for the trade paperback version, with the Impala's true origins later being depicted in the series' fourth season. Having been sent back to 1973 by the angel Castiel, Dean convinces his father to purchase the Impala over a 1964 VW Van. The car's origins were further explored during the season five finale, in which a frame story surrounded the plot of the episode tracking the Impala's history from its manufacture, through several previous owners, up until the present day. According to Chuck Shurley, the brothers have "made it their own", and they are shown as kids sticking an army man into an ash tray that remains there (Sam), putting blocks into the heating vents (Dean) and carving their initials into the car. The Impala later proves important when seeing the old army man allows Sam to overpower Lucifer during the final confrontation. According to Chuck, as they have the Impala, the Winchesters never consider themselves truly homeless. In the seventh season, after two Leviathans go on a killing spree in an identical Impala, Sam and Dean are forced to put the car into storage and use various other cars as they are too identifiable with the Impala. Dean later pulls it out of storage to confront Dick and has the demon Meg crash it into Sucrocorp to create a distraction. Starting in season 8, Sam and Dean are once again using the Impala as their car. The Impala was stolen by the angel Gadreel while possessing Sam, once again forcing Dean to use a stolen car, but it was quickly recovered and proved instrumental in tracking down the rogue angel.
All of the cars used in the show are stock 1967 Chevrolet Impala four door hardtops. They feature Chevrolet small-block engines, recolored interiors, custom seats, and nonfunctioning radios. Other than the one used in the original, all of the Impalas had to be painted black for the series. One of the Impalas used features a detachable roof and doors for up-close shots, and is capable of being separated in half.
Trouble with the law
Because Dean and Sam do not get paid for their hunting, the brothers earn their living and pay for their hunting equipment through credit card fraud, poker winnings, and pool hustling. Furthermore, their investigations often put them on the wrong side of the law, as they have desecrated graves, impersonated various officials, and committed breaking and entering. Framed for murder and bank robbery by shapeshifters, Dean has become a highly wanted man, and the brothers are occasionally pursued by various law enforcement officers, most notably FBI Agent Victor Henricksen. Because of their wanted status, the brothers often use aliases, usually derived from hard rock musicians, film references, or a meta-reference. However, in the third season's mid-season finale episode "Jus in Bello", Sam and Dean are presumed dead in the explosion of the Monument, Colorado Sheriff's county jail, effectively ending the FBI's pursuit of them. By the seventh season, however, the FBI are in pursuit of the brothers again, believing them to be mass-murderers (while the murders were actually committed by Leviathans impersonating the Winchesters). However, with the help of a sheriff who learns the truth and the bodies of their doppelgangers, they are able to fake their deaths again, but have to lay low to prevent discovery, abandoning the Impala, taking on new aliases and using stolen cars to get around. By season 8, the threat of discovery seems to blow over as Sam and Dean return to using the Impala and their rock band aliases which they had been warned made them easy to find. Notably in Ask Jeeves in season 10, they use their real names and even though a detective is investigating a murder, he doesn't recognize them from "their" previous crime sprees.
The Colt
The 1836 Colt Paterson revolver, usually referred to as "the Colt", was made by Samuel Colt, a paranormal hunter. According to legend, anything shot by this gun, using one of its thirteen original bullets, will die, including creatures normally immune to any and all weapons.
John Winchester gives it to the demon Azazel in return for Dean's life being spared after a near-fatal car crash. At the end of the second season, Azazel uses the Colt as the key to open one of the Gates to Hell that Samuel Colt had sealed. The last bullet is then used to kill Azazel, though the gun is later altered to allow the use of more bullets. Towards the end of the third season, Lilith's right-hand demon, Crowley, acquires the gun and hides it. It is then featured in two time-travel episodes – Dean using a past version of it when he is sent back to 1973, and his future self discovering it when Dean is sent five years into the future – before Crowley returns it to the Winchesters so they can kill Lucifer. However, after Dean shoots Lucifer in the head at point-blank range, an unharmed Lucifer boasts there are five things in creation which the gun cannot kill, and he is one of them.
It is unknown what happened to the weapon after that point, as its only subsequent appearance on the show was a chronologically earlier version, seen when the Winchesters travel to 1861. Sam gets it from Samuel Colt, and Dean uses it to kill a phoenix, as they need its ashes. Dean drops the Colt just before being transported back to the present day, where it is presumably retrieved by the saloon owner Elkins, the ancestor of Daniel Elkins, who possessed the weapon at the beginning of the series.
The gun used in the series is actually a replica Paterson modified to fire metallic cartridges. The gun was described as being built in 1835, before Colt made firearms, and fires metallic cartridges which were never made to fire in a Colt revolver until 10 years after Samuel Colt's death. On the barrel of the gun is inscribed the Latin phrase non timebo mala, meaning "I will fear no evil". On the handle is a carving of a pentagram, with much of the finish removed to give it an aged appearance. The props department also has a rubber version of the Colt to be used in fight scenes for pistol-whipping.
Ruby's knife
Ruby possesses a mysterious and presumably magical demon-killing knife, which Kripke refers to as "a hand-to-hand version of the Colt". Its handle is made of elk antlers, and the knife has engravings on both sides of the blade, although the symbols are all nonsensical. It has been seen and used many times following its introduction in the third season. Upon being stabbed in a vital area, the demon is almost immediately killed, usually taking the human host with it. The only known survivor is Bobby Singer who stabbed himself with it while fighting off a possession and was left paralyzed as a result. It is unknown if it is effective against other supernatural beings, although it is useless against angels. Furthermore, the demons Alastair and Abaddon are resistant to the knife's power and Cain is completely immune. Creator Eric Kripke doubted that how the knife functions would ever be revealed, stating, "I like to leave some things mysterious. And that's likely to remain mysterious." However, the eighth season reveals it to be "an ancient demon-killing knife of the Kurds".
Word of God Tablets
A compendium of tablets dictated by God at the beginning of creation and written by the angel scribe Metatron. They cover a variety of subjects and Sam and Dean have so far located the Leviathan, Demon and Angel tablets. The tablets are first introduced when Sam and Dean steal an important object that Leviathan leader Dick Roman had dug up in Iran. The object turns out to contain the Leviathan Word of God tablet and, when uncovered, turns Kevin Tran into a Prophet, the only person that can read the tablets. Using the Leviathan tablet, Sam and Dean learn how to defeat the seemingly-unbeatable Leviathans. Later, Crowley somehow gets his hands on the Demon tablet and kidnaps Kevin to read it. Kevin escapes with the tablet, but Crowley recaptures it, leaving the Winchesters without a way to close the Gates of Hell, what Sam refers to as "the Winchester Holy Grail." Eventually they get back half of the tablet, and Kevin works on trying to translate it. He eventually succeeds in learning the instructions to close the Gates of Hell but, out of fear, hides the tablet before he can translate it completely, leaving Sam and Dean with no clues as Crowley captures Kevin and his notes on the tablet. It is also learned that there is an Angel tablet, which Crowley begins searching for with a brainwashed Castiel. The Winchesters and Castiel locate the Angel tablet first, and after it breaks the angel Naomi's control over him, Castiel goes on the run with the tablet to protect it from all threats including, for some reason, the Winchesters. After Crowley captures Kevin, he tricks him and gives him the second half of the demon tablet to translate. When Kevin is rescued by Metatron, he brings the second half of the tablet with him, but Crowley gets the angel tablet at the same time. According to Kevin, what's on the demon tablet could apparently grant Crowley great power. Eventually the Winchesters end up with both tablets, and Kevin retrieves the first half of the demon tablet and reunites it with the second half. Sam and Dean pretend to trade it for the angel tablet as part of a deal with Crowley but instead capture him and the angel tablet. Kevin later uses the angel tablet to try to find a way to reverse Metatron's spell, but both the angel and demon tablets are stolen by Gadreel and, after he kills Kevin, he delivers the two tablets to Metatron. Metatron manages to tap into the power of the angel tablet, granting him God-like power and near-invincibility. With the help of Gadreel, Castiel infiltrates Heaven and smashes the angel tablet, breaking Metatron's power. Without an active Prophet, there is currently no way to repair the tablet. While discussing removing the Mark of Cain, Castiel suggested that the demon tablet might have information on it but it is missing. Metatron later tells them that the tablets have nothing on the Mark. When Metatron leads Castiel to his Grace in a library, he incapacitates Castiel and reveals that he has the demon tablet hidden there also. Metatron takes the demon tablet and flees when he sees Castiel has his Grace back. This leaves Sam and Castiel worried about what he could do with the tablet.
Mark of Cain and the First Blade
After the Knight of Hell Abaddon begins a war to take over Hell, Crowley allies himself with the Winchesters to get the First Blade, the only thing that can kill a Knight of Hell like Abaddon. In order to use the First Blade, one must have the Mark of Cain, a cursed mark given to Cain by Lucifer after Cain killed Abel. Dean convinces Cain, now a demon, to give him the Mark to kill Abaddon, and the Winchesters and Crowley search for the First Blade after learning that Cain dropped it in the Marianas Trench. The Winchesters and Crowley locate the Blade with former Man of Letters Magnus. Dean uses the Blade to kill Magnus, activating the Mark of Cain and causing Dean to suffer from nearly uncontrollable rage. Crowley takes the Blade until the Winchesters can find Abaddon, and Dean begins to feel the Mark's influence, rubbing it frequently and becoming more prone to violence. He also begins to display superhuman strength, overpowering a vampire. Abaddon tries to lure Dean into a trap and he fights her with the Mark granting him immunity to her powers and telekinesis. Dean kills Abaddon with the First Blade and loses control of his emotions, mutilating Abaddon's corpse. He later tells Sam that the power of the Mark and Blade give him strength and calm him, and refuses to give them up. Dean takes the Blade with him on a case, and ends up framed for murder. Later, Dean almost kills a repentant Gadreel in a Mark induced fit of rage. Afterwards, Crowley explains that the Mark will make him want to kill more and more, and cause him to die if he stops killing. Cain was able to survive not killing because he is a demon, but the Mark is not meant to be used by a human. Later, after Metatron has killed Dean, Crowley explains that when Cain was human and had the Mark, he tried to kill himself because he didn't want to become the monster it was turning him into. The Mark refused to let him go and turned him into a demon. Crowley gives Dean the First Blade, causing the Mark of Cain to resurrects him as a demon and Knight of Hell. Dean becomes so evil that Crowley agrees to help Sam capture him in exchange for the First Blade, which he promises to dispose of somewhere Dean can't find. Sam turns Dean human once more, but he still bears the Mark of Cain, which makes him brutal and sadistic, shooting the corpse of a shapeshifter and viciously killing a gang of human criminals. Dean later faces down Cain himself and kills him, but not before Cain insists that there is no cure for the Mark. Metatron, the Scribe of God proves unaware of one as well. Charlie Bradbury eventually locates the Book of the Damned, an ancient spellbook for casting and removing any curse in existence. Sam calls upon the evil witch Rowena to translate the book and cast the spell while Dean falls further and further under the Mark's influence, slaughtering an entire family of evil humans including a kid who was not evil at all and nearly killing Castiel. Dean eventually turns to Death to kill him, but that proves to be beyond even Death's power and he explains the Mark's purpose: before anything else existed there was the Darkness. When God and the archangels defeated and locked it away, the Mark was created as the lock and key to its prison. The Mark was given to Lucifer and corrupted him before he passed it to Cain. If the Mark is removed without being passed on the Darkness will be unleashed. Though Death offers the solution of transporting Dean to where he will be a threat to no one, he chooses not to when the price is to kill Sam. An oblivious Rowena is able to use the Book of the Damned to remove the Mark with Castiel and Crowley's help and like Death warned, the Darkness is unleashed.
Other media
Promotion and tie-ins
The advertisements The WB chose for the show went beyond just commercials and billboards. Before the series debuted, the network placed signs for the show at gas station pumps, and gave out rubber glow-in-the-dark bracelets at New York and Los Angeles movie theaters. Also, coffee cup sleeves revealed the image of a "terrified woman seemingly pinned to a ceiling" when heated were distributed to 500 cafes throughout New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The same image was used in special mirrors the network installed in almost 200 nightclubs throughout three cities in order to reach "young, hip horror fans". Additional advertisements were also placed in bars, movie theaters, and video game stores, with hundreds of the bars also receiving Supernatural napkins and coasters.
The series also has many real-life tie-ins. The urban legend website Hellhounds Lair featured in the season one episode "Hell House" was a real website set up by the show's producers. As a tie-in to the sequel episode "Ghostfacers", in which the owners of Hellhounds Lair create their own Ghost Hunters-style reality show, The CW set up Ghostfacers.com. The Winchesters later visit this website in the fourth season episode "It's a Terrible Life". Series tie-ins, however, extend beyond the internet. For a time, Dean's cell number—revealed in the first season episode "Phantom Traveler" to be 1–866–907–3235—was a real number, with Jensen Ackles reading the message: "This is Dean Winchester. If this is an emergency, leave a message. If you are calling about 11–2–83, page me with your coordinates." The second season episode "Tall Tales" featured a tie-in to that week's issue of the tabloid newspaper Weekly World News. The February 19 and March 19, 2007, editions of the paper featured exclusive interviews with Sam and Dean, the articles being written by Paul Kupperberg.
Merchandise
Supernatural has a vast amount of merchandise available, including calendars, T-shirts, shot glasses, temporary tattoos and posters. Inkworks has released trading cards for the show, some cards featuring actors' autographs and swatches from actual costumes used on the series.
The Supernatural Role Playing Game (a pen-and-paper role-playing game) was developed by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. Originally scheduled for release in October 2007, it was delayed until August 2009. The game uses material from the series, novels, and comics. Additionally, on September 7, 2010, Watertower Music released Supernatural: Original Television Soundtrack — Seasons 1–5. It features 18 original tracks by Supernatural series composers Christopher Lennertz and Jay Gruska. Funko has also released three Pop! form figures of Dean, Sam, and Castiel as of November 21, 2013.
Further information on the series' mythology and production have been detailed through print. Official companion guides for the first six seasons have been released (ISBN 1845765354, ISBN 1-84576-657-1, ISBN 1-84856-103-2, ISBN 1-84856-738-3, ISBN 1-84856-739-1, ISBN 0-85768-289-X), all written by Nicholas Knight and published by Titan Books. Two additional guides written by Alex Irvine, The "Supernatural" Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls (ISBN 0-06-136703-6) and John Winchester's Journal (ISBN 0-06-170662-0), have been published by It Books. Irvine's books function as resource guides that contain illustrations and detailed descriptions of the supernatural creatures the Winchester family has encountered, giving additional background on creatures and mythology featured on the show. Premiering on November 27, 2007, was the Official Supernatural Magazine. Published by Titan Magazines, it contains series information and exclusive cast and crew interviews. It Books published Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting by David Reed on September 6, 2011 (ISBN 0062103377), sharing all the knowledge that the character Bobby Singer had to share about hunting, the Winchesters, and other knowledge he picked up over the years dealing with the elements of the supernatural.
Comics
The series has also developed an expanded universe. Three six-issue comic book mini-series have been published by WildStorm, a company under the DC Comics umbrella. Supernatural: Origins depicts the early lives of John, Sam, and Dean Winchester, and shows how John became a hunter. Supernatural: Rising Son, "a dysfunctional family story", details Dean as he begins following in his father's footsteps. While Kripke was heavily involved with the first series, the writer's strike prevented him from doing so with Rising Son. Supernatural: Beginning's End deals with "the definitive events that led to Sam leaving his family to attend Stanford".
A fourth miniseries, Caledonia, (named Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh, in the UK) by Brian Wood and Grant Bond, deal with Sam Winchester's trip to the United Kingdom during the Stanford years. The first two miniseries were written by Peter Johnson, one of the series co-executive producer, while the third one is by television series writers Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin.
Novels
A dozen novels based on the series have also been published.
Secondary literature
An unofficial anthology titled In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural (ISBN 1933771631) was released on February 10, 2009 by Smart Pop and featured essays covering different aspects of both the series and its fanbase. The Mythology of Supernatural: The Signs and Symbols Behind the Popular TV Show (ISBN 0425241378), published by Berkley Trade on August 2, 2011, sought to explore the religious and mythological roots of the show. And on October 1, 2011, ECW Press released the book TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural (ISBN 1770410201) which explored topics such as folklore, religion, gender and sexuality, comedy, and music through essays from a number of contributors.
Spin-off series
Ghostfacers
The growing popularity of "amateur spook-hunters" Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler prompted Kripke to consider a spin-off series for the characters. He discussed the idea of an online venture with actors A. J. Buckley and Travis Wester, and held a successful meeting with studio and network executives. Though Kripke announced their plans to produce "some new material, either webisodes, potentially cell phone content or basically an off-network Ghostfacers series" at the 2008 Comic-Con, the economic downturn delayed production until 2009.
Buckley and Wester, along with Patrick J. Doody and Chris Valenziano, penned the series. They found the format—ten three-minute segments—difficult to manage because each webisode has to work both individually and as part of the overall storyline. However, Wester noted, "We couldn't get too indulgent, we couldn't delve into long conversations. That helps not only with the storytelling but with the comedy... With drama, it takes time to establish an emotional connection with the characters. With comedy, you can jump right in."
Though an initial idea of Kripke's involved the cast searching real haunted houses, the first season instead features the Ghostfacers investigating a haunted theater. The series also stars Brittany Ishibashi as Maggie and Austin Basis as Spruce. Buckley shares a manager with Kelly Carlson, and she accepted the guest role of the ghostly actress Janet within half an hour of reading the script.
On October 23, 2011, A. J. Buckley posted on his Twitter account a link to a special webisode in which the Ghostfacers meet Castiel.
Supernatural: The Anime Series
On June 9, 2010, the official Japanese Warner Bros. website announced an anime version of the series titled Supernatural: The Animation (スーパーナチュラル・ザ・アニメーション), which debuted in Japan in January 2011 and is produced by famed Japanese anime studio Madhouse. Shigeyuki Miya and Atsuko Ishizuka are co-directors for the series, with Kripke credited as the project creator. Madhouse co-founder Masao Maruyama serves as executive producer, with Naoya Takayama supervising the scripts and Takahiro Yoshimatsu designing the characters. Yūya Uchida and Hiroki Touchi, who voice Sam and Dean for the Japanese dub of the live-action series, reprise their roles.
The anime's first season consists of 22 half-hour episodes; while the storyline covers the first two seasons of the live-action series, it also includes original content exploring the Winchesters' childhoods and expanding upon secondary characters. Warner Home Video released the first two episodes on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan on January 12, 2011; episodes 3 through 12 shipped on February 2, and the rest on April 6. Warner Home Video released the Blu-ray and DVD box sets of the anime series on July 26, 2011 in North America.
Jared Padalecki voices Sam in the English-language version of the series, while Jensen Ackles voices Dean only in the last two episodes for scheduling reasons; Andrew Farrar voices Dean in English for the first 20 episodes.
Samuel Colt
During production of Supernaturals third season, Kripke stated that the writers sometimes discussed the possibility of a prequel series. Set in the Old West, the spin-off would follow Samuel Colt and a group of hunters.
Supernatural: Bloodlines
On July 22, 2013, The CW announced there was a spin-off of Supernatural in the works, with the 20th episode of season nine serving as a back-door pilot. On January 29, 2014, it was revealed that the spin-off was to have been titled Supernatural: Bloodlines.
The backdoor pilot was written by Andrew Dabb and directed by Robert Singer. The series was going to set to explore the "clashing hunter and monster cultures in Chicago". The show was not picked up by the CW for the 2014–2015 season. However, the network has remained open to another spin-off of the series.
Impact
Ratings
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Supernatural on The WB and The CW (some including repeats).
After the first four episodes of Supernatural aired in 2005, the WB decided to pick up the series for a full season of 22 episodes. During those first episodes, the series was ranked third in males aged 18–34 and 12–34. It also posted an increase of 73% in males aged 18–49 from the year before, although it only gained 4% in total viewers, and retained 91% of viewers from its lead-in, Gilmore Girls. Supernatural had low ratings during its second season, with viewers consisting mainly of teen girls, and the CW trying to attract more male viewers. The show's future was in doubt at the end of the second season. Despite mediocre ratings in the previous year, it was back for a third season. Although its third season's rating were low, it did well with viewers aged 18–49. In this category, it ranked eighth of all returning series broadcast by a major network. The show received an early pickup for its fourth season. The show's ratings increased in its fourth season. The fourth season premiere aired on September 18, 2008, averaging its highest rating ever since its debut on The CW with 3.96 million viewers, a 33% surge over the season three premiere and a 1.7/5 in adults 18–49, up 42% from one year earlier. On October 16, 2008, the show was watched by 3.06 million viewers, making the lowest rating for the season. On October 30, 2008, the show climbed to its best performance in adults 18–34 (1.4/4), adults 18–49 (1.5/4) and total viewers (3.6mil) since its season premiere on September 18, 2008. For the fifth season premiere, viewership increased by 6% in women 18–34 (1.7/5) over the fourth season premiere. However, taking DVR viewings into account with new Live-Plus 7 Day data, total viewership for the premiere increased 38%, with women 18–34 increasing by 35% and adults 18–34 by 47%.
Awards and nominations
Reception
The first season received a Metacritic score of 59 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 69% approval rating for the first season, with an average rating of 6.8/10 based on 13 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Despite some too-hip dialogue and familiar thematic elements, Supernatural'''s vigilante brothers manage to stir up some legitimate scares." Subsequent seasons have also enjoyed positive reviews on the site. Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly gave the first season a B, saying the show "comes off as weekly installments of a horror movie series", but that "Adding to the show's cred are the '67 Chevy Impala the boys rumble around in and their kick-ass soundtrack". Jeff Swindoll of Monsters and Critics "really liked" the first season for its "horrific content and the brotherly chemistry between its two stars". He also noted that the season finished "with one bang of a cliffhanger". Swindoll enjoyed the second season, too, saying that it "still works thanks to the brotherly chemistry between Padalecki and Ackles" and noted the second season focused more on the show's mythology.
Swindoll also liked the third season, saying "Eric Kripke must've sold his soul to the devil so that the show wouldn't suffer a third season slump." He also enjoyed the moments featuring Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), likening him to the character Cooter from Dukes of Hazzard. However, Daniel Bettridge of Den of Geek believed that the writer's strike hindered the season, with many issues being left unresolved and the finale feeling "a little rushed". He also felt that new characters Ruby (Katie Cassidy) and Bela (Lauren Cohan) were "disappointingly unexplored and ineffectively used". While Diana Steenbergen of IGN liked that there was a season-long story arc with Dean's demonic deal, she believed that viewers would know that the pact would not be resolved until the finale, making the self-enclosed episodes feel like they are "treading water, waiting for the main storyline to resume". In 2008, AOL TV placed the show on its list of TV's Biggest Guilty Pleasures.
Another Monsters and Critics reviewer, June L., gave the fourth season a positive review, saying the show "remains intriguing and entertaining, giving viewers much to ponder in terms of the philosophical analysis of the nature of good and evil." Steenbergen felt that the series made a transition from a "pretty good show to being a pretty great show". She praised Misha Collins for his portrayal of the angel Castiel, and felt that the interactions between Dean and Castiel were "one of the highlights of the season". Before the premiere of the fifth season, Rolling Stone listed the series as one of "The 50 Best Reasons to Watch TV", citing Sam and Dean Winchester as the "Bo and Luke Duke of demon hunting".
The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan named Supernatural among the top ten shows of 2009, stating that the "thoughtfully crafted show got bolder and more creative in 2009, coming up with hilarious and innovative episodes and taking risks with its storytelling." Mike Hale of The New York Times also named the series on his top ten list for the year: "Supernatural is currently among the wildest and most entertaining series in prime time." In 2010, AOL TV ranked Supernatural fourth of the Top 20 Magic/Supernatural Shows of All Time, noting that the show had been compared to The X-Files early in its run before "distinguishing itself as a unique, unpredictable and addictive series that not only features monsters, magic and Lucifer himself, but also boasts a dynamic duo arguably better at the banter than Mulder and Scully -- Sam and Dean Winchester".
In 2012, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #19 in the "25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past 25 Years", saying, "Supernatural began with a pretty straightforward premise – hot guys kill spooky things – but it didn't stay that way for long. The characters have literally been to hell and back, and along the way, they have woven a complicated and compelling mythology filled with friends (angel Castiel), recurring foes (demon Crowley), and inside jokes (Wincest!). Supernatural has also, however, dedicated episodes to mocking the sillier aspects of its own existence, like its hypercritical fandom. This self-referential approach has rewarded longtime viewers and helped build a community so passionate, it's almost scary."
Syndication
On January 4, 2010, the cable television network TNT began airing reruns of Supernatural. In Canada, the series has been syndicated on Space, Dusk, ABC Spark, M3, and E!.
Fandom and popular culture
Being a cult series, Supernatural has garnered a dedicated fanbase. They are active online, and many have written fanfiction stories about the show, ranging from Wincest (the romantic pairing of brothers Dean and Sam Winchester) to Destiel (the romantic pairing of Dean Winchester and Castiel) to various other character pairings. The writers have referenced this several times in the series, including the 200th episode, which makes references to Wincest, Destiel, and Sastiel (the romantic pairing of Sam Winchester and Castiel).
The first fan conventions dedicated to Supernatural'' took place in Nashville, Tennessee, in October 2006 and in London in May 2007, and conventions have since expanded through to Germany and throughout the United States. The series' stars and large guest cast make appearances, with fans from the United States, Europe, China, and Australia attending.
Before the debut of the series' fifth season, in which Lucifer is finally freed from his imprisonment, fans attempted to promote the show through Twitter. Enough fans posted the hash tag "#LuciferIsComing" that it made it into "trending topics" — a list depicting words and phrases posted with the highest frequency on the website. However, Twitter users who were unaware of the fans' intentions responded with numerous posts of "#GodIsHere", and the topic was blocked from Twitter's trending topics after complaints. Actor Misha Collins, who portrays Castiel in the series, tried to continue the campaign by requesting that fans post "#PDiddyIsScaredOfHisTV", rapper P. Diddy being the one whom many fans believe to be the instigator of the initial backlash. However, after an hour, this attempt to trend the topic was also stymied by Twitter.
Notes
References
External links
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2016-01 | List_of_largest_empires-697410083 | List_of_largest_empires | List of largest empires
An empire involves the extension of a state's sovereignty over external territories and variety of different ethnic groups. The term "empire" in this context (not necessarily a state ruled by an Emperor) does not have a precise definition, but is generally applied to political entities that are considered to be especially large by the standards of their time and that have acquired a significant part of their territory by conquest. For example, first the Portuguese Empire, then the Spanish Empire and later the British Empire were called "the empires on which the sun never sets", because of their vast territories and possessions around the globe. This article provides a list of the largest empires in world history, but the list is not and cannot be definitive since the decision about which entities to consider as "empires", such as the concept of American Imperialism, is difficult and fraught with controversy.
There are various notions of size that can be used to rank empires. For each of these notions, only estimates can be given in the case of most historical empires. Furthermore, there is usually no clear consensus among historians regarding the best estimate – if only because there is often no unambiguous information about an empire's historical boundaries or population. Thus, the values given here should be interpreted as only indicative and not as determining an accurate ranking.
Measurement
The calculation of the land area of a particular empire is controversial. In general, the list aims to include all land that was explored and explicitly claimed, even if the areas were populated very sparsely or not at all. For example, a large portion of Northern Siberia is included in the size of the Russian Empire but not the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire's northern border was somewhat ill-defined, but in most places it was simply the natural border between the steppe and the taiga. At the time the majority of the taiga and tundra were unexplored and uninhabited, and the Mongol Empire did not claim them as its own. This area was only very sparsely populated by the Russian Empire, but it had been explicitly claimed by the Russian Empire by the 17th century, and its extent had been entirely explored by the late 19th century. Similarly, the northernmost Canadian islands such as Ellesmere Island were explored and claimed by the British Empire by the mid-19th century (virtually the entire mainland was at least sparsely populated well before that).
Due to the historical trend of increasing population and GDP, the most recent empires tend to score highest in these categories, so the list of largest empires by population or GDP is highly dependent on which recent political entities are defined as empires. The measures of population and GDP as a percentage of the world total can be used to compensate for this historical growth and ensure that each empire is judged by the standards of its own time. However, decent GDP data is only available for the last few centuries, and accurate data only for the last few decades.
Debates regarding definition of imperial domains
Compilations of history's largest empires (in both geographical size and population) often vary due to differing definitions of imperial borders throughout history and across distinct historical traditions. Imperial domains have been variously defined in terms of direct administrative rule from a common ruling authority, military presence, colonization and settlement, collection of tribute, economic dependence, or even incorporation into a common trading or ideological network. Many imperial domains have therefore enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy, self-rule, or even outright independence (though sometimes with a dependent or protectorate relationship to a stronger power). Some regions claimed by an imperial authority have been large, yet arid and very sparsely populated lands without much administrative control whatsoever. Therefore, empires can vary in size according to these designations, often quite significantly.
For example, in India, which experienced varying levels of European contact and imperial forays since Vasco da Gama's expeditions in 1497–1498, French, Dutch, Portuguese and especially British authorities claimed authority over increasing portions of the Indian Subcontinent. This process culminated in the period of the British Raj (and its smaller French and Portuguese counterparts) after 1857. Approximately half of Indian territory consisted of Princely States under de facto and de jure rule of local rajas and maharajas. The Indian princes acknowledged the suzerainty of the British monarchy during the British Raj, and had no control of their foreign policy until 1947. Furthermore, the Indian independence Act, which ended the British presence by 1947, did not apply to the Princely States, which required separate negotiations with the new Indian nation as independent states in themselves.
Another issue is that many of history's empires have ruled over vast and mostly uninhabited territorial expanses, sparsely populated by largely autonomous tribes, and with little in the way of direct administration or settlement by an imperial power. For example, various Mongol khanates from the 13th century established dominion over arid steppes in Central Asia and Siberia that were difficult to control from a central authority, as was the case with the expansionist Tsardom of Russia empires from the 17th century, which established control in the same regions. In both cases, administrative structures and settlements were gradually introduced into the regions—with Russian settlers, for example, initiating forts and frontier cities in the 19th century in particular—and so the size of each empire in any given decade would depend on how strict one's criteria are in regard to the presence of true settlement and administration. Likewise, in more recent history, almost half the land expanse that is often regarded as part of the British Empire consisted of essentially barren and uninhabitable terrain in Canada and the interior of Australia, which was often difficult to even map, let alone settle and administer. Even today, the population of those regions (particularly in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of Canada) consists largely of sparse settlements of self-governing indigenous peoples, with little in the way of submission to a central ruling authority.
During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 8th centuries, Rashidun armies established the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires ever. The 7th century saw the introduction of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, where Muhammad established a new unified political polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Arab power well beyond the Arabian peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Arab Empire with an area of influence that stretched from northwest India, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees. However, internal feuding among ruling figures in the empire led it to fragment into several states under separate administrations, such as the Umayyads (whose rule continued in Spain after it collapsed elsewhere), Abbasids, Ayyubids, Mamluks and many others. These were in addition to a variety of other Muslim states in Sudan, Indonesia and elsewhere that later arose outside of the main Islamic Empires, through trade and other contacts. Thus, the size of these empires vary depending on how "membership" in the empire is defined—as being under a single administration, accepting a particular ruler or following the dictates of the Caliph (which technically, Sunni Muslims in general were expected to do).
Similarly, the Mongol Empire lost its unity upon the death of the Great Khan Möngke during fighting in China in 1259, with the Golden Horde's Berke Khan and the Ilkhanate's Hulagu Khan even taking up arms against each other and supporting rival factions for selection of the Great Khan. However, upon the death of Berke—a Muslim—the religious impetus for conflict among the khanates subsided, with the Mongols again supposedly loyal to the new Great Khan Kublai before fragmenting yet again later. If the khanates are considered to have been a unified Mongol Empire under Kublai—stretching from Korea and China in the east through Siberia and Central Asia and into Persia and Eastern Europe in the west—it would easily be the world's largest in terms of both land area and population (as a percentage of the world total). A related question arises with the granting of dominion and commonwealth statuses among former imperial domains, in which the domains acquire a high degree of self-rule, equivalent to independence in some estimations. For example, the Australian colonies, which federated in 1901, attained dominion status in 1907, which may or may not have indicated a departure from the British Empire, depending on interpretation of that status.
Finally, many of history's empires have had unusual arrangements among multiple powers, such as joint rule by several authorities, layers of rule (with different powers assuming different levels of administrative authority), territorial division with blurred boundaries or other forms of empire without a single obvious central authority. For example, the Manchus, who established the Qing Dynasty in 17th-century China, also conquered nomadic lands to the north, including Mongolia. The Manchus increasingly merged with the Chinese population over the centuries, so that the administration took on both Manchu and Chinese features with no clear division among them. The Mongol chieftains of Outer Mongolia in particular, pledged loyalty to the Manchus but retained substantial autonomy, and when the Qing Dynasty collapsed in the early 20th century, the status of Outer Mongolia relative to the new Chinese state became unclear. Lastly, there is the opposite case of a nation being nominally independent but under de facto control of another power. Britain had a very complicated arrangement with Egypt and Sudan. Egyptian forces battled the British in the Alexandria Expedition in 1807, but in the wake of this, British officials exerted varying degrees of sway in Egypt especially by the late 19th century, with the French also assuming a role in the Suez Canal territory. Sudan, in turn, was technically a colony of the Egyptians, but the British exerted de facto sway on Sudan indirectly via Egypt. Thus, accounts vary on the imperial status (or lack thereof) of both Egypt and Sudan. In the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, many nations took on a Communist character and attached themselves to the global Communist center of the Soviet Union. Mongolia, North Korea, and China following Communist victory in the Chinese civil war, all took guidance from the Soviet Union especially in the years just after their Communist transformations. The Soviet Union also exercised varying control over Eastern Europe via the Warsaw Pact even though the Pact countries were formally independent, while Communist nations in Africa and Latin America also sought Soviet guidance. Therefore, the lists of largest empires below represent merely a sample of possible rankings depending on the specific criteria used to define an empire.
European colonial empires
The first global empires were a product of the European Age of Exploration that began with a race of exploration between the then most advanced maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, in the 15th century. The initial impulse behind these maritime empires and those that followed was trade, driven by the new ideas and the capitalism that grew out of the European Renaissance. Agreements were also reached to divide the world up between them in 1479, 1493, and 1494.
Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and empire under the leadership of Henry the Navigator. Portugal would eventually control Brazil, territories such as Uruguay and some fishing ports in the Americas; Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe (among other territories and bases) in the North and Sub-Saharan Africa; cities, forts or territories in all the Asian Subcontinents, as Muscat, Ormus and Bahrein (amongst other bases) in the Persian Gulf; Goa, Bombay and Daman and Diu (amongst other coastal cities) in India; Portuguese Ceylon; Malacca, bases in Southeast Asia and Oceania, as Makassar, Solor, Banda, Ambon and others in the Moluccas, Portuguese Timor; and the granted entrepôt-base of Macau and the entrepôt-enclave of Dejima (Nagasaki) in the Far East, amongst other smaller or short-lived possessions across the globe (see Evolution of the Portuguese Empire).
During its peak, the Spanish Empire had possession of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Italy, parts of Germany, parts of France, and many colonies in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Starting with the Greater Antilles and other bases, and especially after, with the conquest of inland Mexico, Peru (amongst other related territories in the Americas), and the Philippines in the 16th century, Spain established overseas dominions on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors (the Mongol Empire had been larger but was restricted to Eurasia). Possessions in Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, in the North, Central, and South America, in the Pacific Ocean, and the Far East, qualified the Spanish Empire as attaining a global presence in this sense.
In 1581, Philip II of Spain inherited the vacant Portuguese throne and became Philip I of Portugal. The Spanish Empire was at it greatest extent at that time, including most of the Americas, Italy, The Seventeen Provinces, and smaller regions of Europe, Asia and Africa. The Portuguese Empire, also significant, included Brazil and the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia. Even though the empires continued to be administered separately, this so-called "union of crowns" resulted in one of the largest empires of all time, and the saying "the sun never sets..." was used for the first time. The Iberian Union lasted until 1640 when Portugal restored a Portuguese king to the throne.
Subsequent global empires included the French, Dutch, and British empires. The latter, consolidated during the period of British maritime hegemony in the 19th century, became the largest of all empires by virtue of the improved transportation technologies of the time. At its height, the British Empire covered a quarter of the Earth's land area and comprised one fifth of its population. Germany and Italy were unified later than the other major European countries and so they joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas only during the "Scramble for Africa" in the 19th century. By the 1860s, the Russian Empire — continued as the Soviet Union — became the largest contiguous state in the world. Present-day Russia continues this distinction, despite having lost its Soviet periphery. Russia today includes slightly over half the world's longitudes.
Largest empires by land area and population
For context, note that the total land area of the Earth is .
All empires at their greatest extent
Maps
Ancient empires
Medieval empires
Modern empires
Largest empires by economy
GDP estimates in the following list are mostly given for empires in modern times, from the 18th to 20th centuries. All dollar amounts are in 1990 USD.
GDP size
– $918.7 billion (in 1938)
– $375.6 billion (in 1938)
– $260.7 billion (in 1938)
– $257.7 billion (in 1917)
– $241.3 billion (GDP decline to 1912, immediately before its downfall)
French Empire – $234.1 billion (in 1938)
Italian Empire – $143.4 billion (in 1938)
Afsharid dynasty – $119.85 billion (in 1740)
– $100.5 billion (in 1918)
Mughal Empire – $90.8 billion (GDP decline in 1700)
– $60 billion (in 1900)
– $26.4 billion (in 1923)
– $13.6 billion (in 1889)
– $12.6 billion (in 1913)
See also
List of empires
List of largest empires that existed in India
List of Bronze Age States
List of Classical Age States
List of Iron Age States
List of Late Antiquity Age States
List of states during the Middle Ages
Historical powers
List of historical countries and empires spanning more than one continent
List of countries by area
List of countries by GDP
List of countries by population
List of extinct states
List of political and geographic subdivisions by total area
European empires
African empires
The World Economy: Historical Statistics
Notes and references
Bibliography
Jonathan M. Adams, Thomas D. Hall and Peter Turchin (2004). East-West Orientation of Historical Empires. University of Connecticut.
J. Beloch (1886), Die Bevölkerung der griechisch–römischen Welt, Duncker and Humblot, Leipzig.
Jean-Noël Biraben (2003). "The rising numbers of humankind", Populations & Societies 394.
Roger Boesche (2003). "Kautilya's Arthashastra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India", The Journal of Military History 67 (p. 9–38).
Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison (2005). The Economics of World War I. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85212-9.
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Alexis Álvarez, and Daniel Pasciuti (2002). Power and Size: Urbanization and Empire Formation in World-Systems Since the Bronze Age. University of California, Riverside.
Raymond W. Goldsmith (1984), "An estimate of the size and structure of the national product of the Early Roman Empire", Journal of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth 30
Bruce R. Gordon (2005). (See for sources used.)
Mark Harrison (1998). The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison.
Angus Maddison (2001). The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. OECD, Paris.
Angus Maddison (2006). The Contours of the World Economy 1–2030 AD. Oxford University Press.
Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones (1978), "Atlas of World Population History", Facts on File (p. 342–351). New York.
Sevket Pamuk (2005), "The Ottoman Empire in World War I". In Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison (2005), The Economics of World War I, p. 112–136. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85212-9.
Donald Quataert (2005). The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922.
Walter Scheidel (2005). The monetary systems of the Han and Roman empires. Stanford University.
Walter Scheidel (2006). Imperial state formation in Rome and China. Stanford University.
Carla M. Sinopoli (2003). The Political Economy of Craft Production: Crafting Empire in South India, C. 1350–1650.
Ralph Thomlinson (1975), Demographic Problems, Controversy Over Population Control, Second Edition.
Frances Wood (2006). China: The Three Emperors. Royal Academy.
H. Yoon (1985). "An early Chinese idea of a dynamic environmental cycle", GeoJournal 10 (2), p. 211–212.
K. A. Nilakanta Sastri.(1935)"The Cholas"" University of Madras.
External links
Flash animation: Imperial History of the Middle East
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2016-01 | Global_Positioning_System-697289235 | Global_Positioning_System | Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. The system provides critical capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. The United States government created the system, maintains it, and makes it freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.
The US began the GPS project in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems, integrating ideas from several predecessors, including a number of classified engineering design studies from the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) developed the system, which originally used 24 satellites. It became fully operational in 1995. Roger L. Easton, Ivan A. Getting and Bradford Parkinson are credited with inventing it.
Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS and implement the next generation of GPS Block IIIA satellites and Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX). Announcements from Vice President Al Gore and the White House in 1998 initiated these changes. In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized the modernization effort, GPS III.
In addition to GPS, other systems are in use or under development. The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) was developed contemporaneously with GPS, but suffered from incomplete coverage of the globe until the mid-2000s. There are also the planned European Union Galileo positioning system, India's Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, and the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.
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History
The design of GPS is based partly on similar ground-based radio-navigation systems, such as LORAN and the Decca Navigator, developed in the early 1940s and used by the British Royal Navy during World War II.
Predecessors
In 1956, the German-American physicist Friedwardt Winterberg proposed a test of general relativity — detecting time slowing in a strong gravitational field using accurate atomic clocks placed in orbit inside artificial satellites. Calculations using general relativity determined that the clocks on the GPS satellites would be seen by the Earth's observers to run 38 microseconds faster per day (than those on the Earth), and this was corrected for in the design of GPS.
The Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkins's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), decided to monitor Sputnik's radio transmissions. Within hours they realized that, because of the Doppler effect, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit. The Director of the APL gave them access to their UNIVAC to do the heavy calculations required. The next spring, Frank McClure, the deputy director of the APL, asked Guier and Weiffenbach to investigate the inverse problem — pinpointing the user's location, given that of the satellite. (At the time, the Navy was developing the submarine-launched Polaris missile, which required them to know the submarine's location.) This led them and APL to develop the TRANSIT system. In 1959, ARPA (renamed DARPA in 1972) also played a role in TRANSIT.
The first satellite navigation system, TRANSIT, used by the United States Navy, was first successfully tested in 1960. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the U.S. Navy developed the Timation satellite that proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology required by GPS. In the 1970s, the ground-based OMEGA navigation system, based on phase comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations, became the first worldwide radio navigation system. Limitations of these systems drove the need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy.
While there were wide needs for accurate navigation in military and civilian sectors, almost none of those was seen as justification for the billions of dollars it would cost in research, development, deployment, and operation for a constellation of navigation satellites. During the Cold War arms race, the nuclear threat to the existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded. It is also the reason for the ultra secrecy at that time. The nuclear triad consisted of the United States Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) along with United States Air Force (USAF) strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Considered vital to the nuclear deterrence posture, accurate determination of the SLBM launch position was a force multiplier.
Precise navigation would enable United States ballistic missile submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs. The USAF, with two thirds of the nuclear triad, also had requirements for a more accurate and reliable navigation system. The Navy and Air Force were developing their own technologies in parallel to solve what was essentially the same problem. To increase the survivability of ICBMs, there was a proposal to use mobile launch platforms (such as Russian SS-24 and SS-25) and so the need to fix the launch position had similarity to the SLBM situation.
In 1960, the Air Force proposed a radio-navigation system called MOSAIC (MObile System for Accurate ICBM Control) that was essentially a 3-D LORAN. A follow-on study, Project 57, was worked in 1963 and it was "in this study that the GPS concept was born." That same year, the concept was pursued as Project 621B, which had "many of the attributes that you now see in GPS" and promised increased accuracy for Air Force bombers as well as ICBMs. Updates from the Navy TRANSIT system were too slow for the high speeds of Air Force operation. The Naval Research Laboratory continued advancements with their Timation (Time Navigation) satellites, first launched in 1967, and with the third one in 1974 carrying the first atomic clock into orbit.
Another important predecessor to GPS came from a different branch of the United States military. In 1964, the United States Army orbited its first Sequential Collation of Range (SECOR) satellite used for geodetic surveying. The SECOR system included three ground-based transmitters from known locations that would send signals to the satellite transponder in orbit. A fourth ground-based station, at an undetermined position, could then use those signals to fix its location precisely. The last SECOR satellite was launched in 1969. Decades later, during the early years of GPS, civilian surveying became one of the first fields to make use of the new technology, because surveyors could reap benefits of signals from the less-than-complete GPS constellation years before it was declared operational. GPS can be thought of as an evolution of the SECOR system where the ground-based transmitters have been migrated into orbit.
Development
With these parallel developments in the 1960s, it was realized that a superior system could be developed by synthesizing the best technologies from 621B, Transit, Timation, and SECOR in a multi-service program.
During Labor Day weekend in 1973, a meeting of about twelve military officers at the Pentagon discussed the creation of a Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS). It was at this meeting that "the real synthesis that became GPS was created." Later that year, the DNSS program was named Navstar, or Navigation System Using Timing and Ranging. With the individual satellites being associated with the name Navstar (as with the predecessors Transit and Timation), a more fully encompassing name was used to identify the constellation of Navstar satellites, Navstar-GPS. Ten "Block I" prototype satellites were launched between 1978 and 1985 (with one prototype being destroyed in a launch failure).
After Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747 carrying 269 people, was shot down in 1983 after straying into the USSR's prohibited airspace, in the vicinity of Sakhalin and Moneron Islands, President Ronald Reagan issued a directive making GPS freely available for civilian use, once it was sufficiently developed, as a common good. The first Block II satellite was launched on February 14, 1989, and the 24th satellite was launched in 1994. The GPS program cost at this point, not including the cost of the user equipment, but including the costs of the satellite launches, has been estimated at about USD$5 billion (then-year dollars). Roger L. Easton is widely credited as the primary inventor of GPS.
Initially, the highest quality signal was reserved for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded (Selective Availability). This changed with President Bill Clinton signing a policy directive in 1996 to turn off Selective Availability in May 2000 to provide the same precision to civilians that was afforded to the military. The directive was proposed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Perry, because of the widespread growth of differential GPS services to improve civilian accuracy and eliminate the U.S. military advantage. Moreover, the U.S. military was actively developing technologies to deny GPS service to potential adversaries on a regional basis.
Since its deployment, the U.S. has implemented several improvements to the GPS service including new signals for civil use and increased accuracy and integrity for all users, all the while maintaining compatibility with existing GPS equipment. Modernization of the satellite system has been an ongoing initiative by the U.S. Department of Defense through a series of satellite acquisitions to meet the growing needs of the military, civilians, and the commercial market.
As of early 2015, high-quality, FAA grade, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) GPS receivers provide horizontal accuracy of better than 3.5 meters, although many factors such as receiver quality and atmospheric issues can affect this accuracy.
GPS is owned and operated by the United States Government as a national resource. The Department of Defense is the steward of GPS. Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB) oversaw GPS policy matters from 1996 to 2004. After that the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee was established by presidential directive in 2004 to advise and coordinate federal departments and agencies on matters concerning the GPS and related systems. The executive committee is chaired jointly by the deputy secretaries of defense and transportation. Its membership includes equivalent-level officials from the departments of state, commerce, and homeland security, the joint chiefs of staff, and NASA. Components of the executive office of the president participate as observers to the executive committee, and the FCC chairman participates as a liaison.
The U.S. Department of Defense is required by law to "maintain a Standard Positioning Service (as defined in the federal radio navigation plan and the standard positioning service signal specification) that will be available on a continuous, worldwide basis," and "develop measures to prevent hostile use of GPS and its augmentations without unduly disrupting or degrading civilian uses."
Timeline and modernization
In 1972, the USAF Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility (Holloman AFB), conducted developmental flight tests of two prototype GPS receivers over White Sands Missile Range, using ground-based pseudo-satellites.
In 1978, the first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched.
In 1983, after Soviet interceptor aircraft shot down the civilian airliner KAL 007 that strayed into prohibited airspace because of navigational errors, killing all 269 people on board, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that GPS would be made available for civilian uses once it was completed, although it had been previously published [in Navigation magazine] that the CA code (Coarse Acquisition code) would be available to civilian users.
By 1985, ten more experimental Block-I satellites had been launched to validate the concept.
Beginning in 1988, Command & Control of these satellites was transitioned from Onizuka AFS, California to the 2nd Satellite Control Squadron (2SCS) located at Falcon Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
On February 14, 1989, the first modern Block-II satellite was launched.
The Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 was the first conflict in which the military widely used GPS.
In 1991, a project to create a miniature GPS receiver successfully ended, replacing the previous 50 pound military receivers with a 2.75 pound handheld receiver.
In 1992, the 2nd Space Wing, which originally managed the system, was inactivated and replaced by the 50th Space Wing.
By December 1993, GPS achieved initial operational capability (IOC), indicating a full constellation (24 satellites) was available and providing the Standard Positioning Service (SPS).
Full Operational Capability (FOC) was declared by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) in April 1995, signifying full availability of the military's secure Precise Positioning Service (PPS).
In 1996, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian users as well as military users, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive declaring GPS a dual-use system and establishing an Interagency GPS Executive Board to manage it as a national asset.
In 1998, United States Vice President Al Gore announced plans to upgrade GPS with two new civilian signals for enhanced user accuracy and reliability, particularly with respect to aviation safety and in 2000 the United States Congress authorized the effort, referring to it as GPS III.
On May 2, 2000 "Selective Availability" was discontinued as a result of the 1996 executive order, allowing users to receive a non-degraded signal globally.
In 2004, the United States Government signed an agreement with the European Community establishing cooperation related to GPS and Europe's planned Galileo system.
In 2004, United States President George W. Bush updated the national policy and replaced the executive board with the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing.
November 2004, Qualcomm announced successful tests of assisted GPS for mobile phones.
In 2005, the first modernized GPS satellite was launched and began transmitting a second civilian signal (L2C) for enhanced user performance.
On September 14, 2007, the aging mainframe-based Ground Segment Control System was transferred to the new Architecture Evolution Plan.
On May 19, 2009, the United States Government Accountability Office issued a report warning that some GPS satellites could fail as soon as 2010.
On May 21, 2009, the Air Force Space Command allayed fears of GPS failure saying "There's only a small risk we will not continue to exceed our performance standard."
On January 11, 2010, an update of ground control systems caused a software incompatibility with 8000 to 10000 military receivers manufactured by a division of Trimble Navigation Limited of Sunnyvale, Calif.
On February 25, 2010, the U.S. Air Force awarded the contract to develop the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) to improve accuracy and availability of GPS navigation signals, and serve as a critical part of GPS modernization.
Awards
On February 10, 1993, the National Aeronautic Association selected the GPS Team as winners of the 1992 Robert J. Collier Trophy, the nation's most prestigious aviation award. This team combines researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory, the USAF, the Aerospace Corporation, Rockwell International Corporation, and IBM Federal Systems Company. The citation honors them "for the most significant development for safe and efficient navigation and surveillance of air and spacecraft since the introduction of radio navigation 50 years ago."
Two GPS developers received the National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize for 2003:
Ivan Getting, emeritus president of The Aerospace Corporation and an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, established the basis for GPS, improving on the World War II land-based radio system called LORAN (Long-range Radio Aid to Navigation).
Bradford Parkinson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, conceived the present satellite-based system in the early 1960s and developed it in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force. Parkinson served twenty-one years in the Air Force, from 1957 to 1978, and retired with the rank of colonel.
GPS developer Roger L. Easton received the National Medal of Technology on February 13, 2006.
Francis X. Kane (Col. USAF, ret.) was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame at Lackland A.F.B., San Antonio, Texas, March 2, 2010 for his role in space technology development and the engineering design concept of GPS conducted as part of Project 621B.
In 1998, GPS technology was inducted into the Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame.
On October 4, 2011, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) awarded the Global Positioning System (GPS) its 60th Anniversary Award, nominated by IAF member, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The IAF Honors and Awards Committee recognized the uniqueness of the GPS program and the exemplary role it has played in building international collaboration for the benefit of humanity.
Basic concept of GPS
Fundamentals
The GPS concept is based on time. The satellites carry very stable atomic clocks that are synchronized to each other and to ground clocks. Any drift from true time maintained on the ground is corrected daily. Likewise, the satellite locations are monitored precisely. GPS receivers have clocks as well—however, they are not synchronized with true time, and are less stable. GPS satellites continuously transmit their current time and position. A GPS receiver monitors multiple satellites and solves equations to determine the exact position of the receiver and its deviation from true time. At a minimum, four satellites must be in view of the receiver for it to compute four unknown quantities (three position coordinates and clock deviation from satellite time).
More detailed description
Each GPS satellite continually broadcasts a signal (carrier wave with modulation) that includes:
A pseudorandom code (sequence of ones and zeros) that is known to the receiver. By time-aligning a receiver-generated version and the receiver-measured version of the code, the time of arrival (TOA) of a defined point in the code sequence, called an epoch, can be found in the receiver clock time scale
A message that includes the time of transmission (TOT) of the code epoch (in GPS system time scale) and the satellite position at that time
Conceptually, the receiver measures the TOAs (according to its own clock) of four satellite signals. From the TOAs and the TOTs, the receiver forms four time of flight (TOF) values, which are (given the speed of light) approximately equivalent to receiver-satellite range differences. The receiver then computes its three-dimensional position and clock deviation from the four TOFs.
In practice the receiver position (in three dimensional Cartesian coordinates with origin at the Earth's center) and the offset of the receiver clock relative to the GPS time are computed simultaneously, using the navigation equations to process the TOFs.
The receiver's Earth-centered solution location is usually converted to latitude, longitude and height relative to an ellipsoidal Earth model. The height may then be further converted to height relative the geoid (e.g., EGM96) (essentially, mean sea level). These coordinates may be displayed, e.g. on a moving map display and/or recorded and/or used by some other system (e.g., a vehicle guidance system).
User-satellite geometry
Although usually not formed explicitly in the receiver processing, the conceptual time differences of arrival (TDOAs) define the measurement geometry. Each TDOA corresponds to a hyperboloid of revolution (see Multilateration). The line connecting the two satellites involved (and its extensions) forms the axis of the hyperboloid. The receiver is located at the point where three hyperboloids intersect.
It is sometimes incorrectly said that the user location is at the intersection of three spheres. While simpler to visualize, this is only the case if the receiver has a clock synchronized with the satellite clocks (i.e., the receiver measures true ranges to the satellites rather than range differences). There are significant performance benefits to the user carrying a clock synchronized with the satellites. Foremost is that only three satellites are needed to compute a position solution. If this were part of the GPS system concept so that all users needed to carry a synchronized clock, then a smaller number of satellites could be deployed. However, the cost and complexity of the user equipment would increase significantly.
Receiver in continuous operation
The description above is representative of a receiver start-up situation. Most receivers have a track algorithm, sometimes called a tracker, that combines sets of satellite measurements collected at different times—in effect, taking advantage of the fact that successive receiver positions are usually close to each other. After a set of measurements are processed, the tracker predicts the receiver location corresponding to the next set of satellite measurements. When the new measurements are collected, the receiver uses a weighting scheme to combine the new measurements with the tracker prediction. In general, a tracker can (a) improve receiver position and time accuracy, (b) reject bad measurements, and (c) estimate receiver speed and direction.
The disadvantage of a tracker is that changes in speed or direction can only be computed with a delay, and that derived direction becomes inaccurate when the distance traveled between two position measurements drops below or near the random error of position measurement. GPS units can use measurements of the Doppler shift of the signals received to compute velocity accurately. More advanced navigation systems use additional sensors like a compass or an inertial navigation system to complement GPS.
Non-navigation applications
In typical GPS operation as a navigator, four or more satellites must be visible to obtain an accurate result. The solution of the navigation equations gives the position of the receiver along with the difference between the time kept by the receiver's on-board clock and the true time-of-day, thereby eliminating the need for a more precise and possibly impractical receiver based clock. Applications for GPS such as time transfer, traffic signal timing, and synchronization of cell phone base stations, make use of this cheap and highly accurate timing. Some GPS applications use this time for display, or, other than for the basic position calculations, do not use it at all.
Although four satellites are required for normal operation, fewer apply in special cases. If one variable is already known, a receiver can determine its position using only three satellites. For example, a ship or aircraft may have known elevation. Some GPS receivers may use additional clues or assumptions such as reusing the last known altitude, dead reckoning, inertial navigation, or including information from the vehicle computer, to give a (possibly degraded) position when fewer than four satellites are visible.
Structure
The current GPS consists of three major segments. These are the space segment (SS), a control segment (CS), and a user segment (US). The U.S. Air Force develops, maintains, and operates the space and control segments. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space, and each GPS receiver uses these signals to calculate its three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) and the current time.
The space segment is composed of 24 to 32 satellites in medium Earth orbit and also includes the payload adapters to the boosters required to launch them into orbit. The control segment is composed of a master control station (MCS), an alternate master control station, and a host of dedicated and shared ground antennas and monitor stations. The user segment is composed of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied military users of the secure GPS Precise Positioning Service, and tens of millions of civil, commercial, and scientific users of the Standard Positioning Service (see GPS navigation devices).
Space segment
The space segment (SS) is composed of the orbiting GPS satellites, or Space Vehicles (SV) in GPS parlance. The GPS design originally called for 24 SVs, eight each in three approximately circular orbits, but this was modified to six orbital planes with four satellites each. The six orbit planes have approximately 55° inclination (tilt relative to the Earth's equator) and are separated by 60° right ascension of the ascending node (angle along the equator from a reference point to the orbit's intersection). The orbital period is one-half a sidereal day, i.e., 11 hours and 58 minutes so that the satellites pass over the same locations or almost the same locations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at least six satellites are always within line of sight from almost everywhere on the Earth's surface. The result of this objective is that the four satellites are not evenly spaced (90 degrees) apart within each orbit. In general terms, the angular difference between satellites in each orbit is 30, 105, 120, and 105 degrees apart, which sum to 360 degrees.
Orbiting at an altitude of approximately ; orbital radius of approximately , each SV makes two complete orbits each sidereal day, repeating the same ground track each day. This was very helpful during development because even with only four satellites, correct alignment means all four are visible from one spot for a few hours each day. For military operations, the ground track repeat can be used to ensure good coverage in combat zones.
, there are 32 satellites in the GPS constellation. The additional satellites improve the precision of GPS receiver calculations by providing redundant measurements. With the increased number of satellites, the constellation was changed to a nonuniform arrangement. Such an arrangement was shown to improve reliability and availability of the system, relative to a uniform system, when multiple satellites fail. About nine satellites are visible from any point on the ground at any one time (see animation at right), ensuring considerable redundancy over the minimum four satellites needed for a position.
Control segment
The control segment is composed of:
a master control station (MCS),
an alternate master control station,
four dedicated ground antennas, and
six dedicated monitor stations.
The MCS can also access U.S. Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) ground antennas (for additional command and control capability) and NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) monitor stations. The flight paths of the satellites are tracked by dedicated U.S. Air Force monitoring stations in Hawaii, Kwajalein Atoll, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, Colorado Springs, Colorado and Cape Canaveral, along with shared NGA monitor stations operated in England, Argentina, Ecuador, Bahrain, Australia and Washington DC. The tracking information is sent to the Air Force Space Command MCS at Schriever Air Force Base ESE of Colorado Springs, which is operated by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS) of the U.S. Air Force. Then 2 SOPS contacts each GPS satellite regularly with a navigational update using dedicated or shared (AFSCN) ground antennas (GPS dedicated ground antennas are located at Kwajalein, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, and Cape Canaveral). These updates synchronize the atomic clocks on board the satellites to within a few nanoseconds of each other, and adjust the ephemeris of each satellite's internal orbital model. The updates are created by a Kalman filter that uses inputs from the ground monitoring stations, space weather information, and various other inputs.
Satellite maneuvers are not precise by GPS standards—so to change a satellite's orbit, the satellite must be marked unhealthy, so receivers don't use it. After the satellite maneuver, engineers track the new orbit from the ground, upload the new ephemeris, and mark the satellite healthy again.
The Operation Control Segment (OCS) currently serves as the control segment of record. It provides the operational capability that supports GPS users and keeps the GPS system operational and performing within specification.
OCS successfully replaced the legacy 1970s-era mainframe computer at Schriever Air Force Base in September 2007. After installation, the system helped enable upgrades and provide a foundation for a new security architecture that supported U.S. armed forces. OCS will continue to be the ground control system of record until the new segment, Next Generation GPS Operation Control System (OCX), is fully developed and functional.
The new capabilities provided by OCX will be the cornerstone for revolutionizing GPS's mission capabilities, and enabling Air Force Space Command to greatly enhance GPS operational services to U.S. combat forces, civil partners and myriad domestic and international users.
The GPS OCX program also will reduce cost, schedule and technical risk. It is designed to provide 50% sustainment cost savings through efficient software architecture and Performance-Based Logistics. In addition, GPS OCX is expected to cost millions less than the cost to upgrade OCS while providing four times the capability.
The GPS OCX program represents a critical part of GPS modernization and provides significant information assurance improvements over the current GPS OCS program.
OCX will have the ability to control and manage GPS legacy satellites as well as the next generation of GPS III satellites, while enabling the full array of military signals.
Built on a flexible architecture that can rapidly adapt to the changing needs of today's and future GPS users allowing immediate access to GPS data and constellation status through secure, accurate and reliable information.
Provides the warfighter with more secure, actionable and predictive information to enhance situational awareness.
Enables new modernized signals (L1C, L2C, and L5) and has M-code capability, which the legacy system is unable to do.
Provides significant information assurance improvements over the current program including detecting and preventing cyber attacks, while isolating, containing and operating during such attacks.
Supports higher volume near real-time command and control capabilities and abilities.
On September 14, 2011, the U.S. Air Force announced the completion of GPS OCX Preliminary Design Review and confirmed that the OCX program is ready for the next phase of development.
The GPS OCX program has achieved major milestones and is on track to support the GPS IIIA launch in May 2014.
User segment
The user segment is composed of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied military users of the secure GPS Precise Positioning Service, and tens of millions of civil, commercial and scientific users of the Standard Positioning Service. In general, GPS receivers are composed of an antenna, tuned to the frequencies transmitted by the satellites, receiver-processors, and a highly stable clock (often a crystal oscillator). They may also include a display for providing location and speed information to the user. A receiver is often described by its number of channels: this signifies how many satellites it can monitor simultaneously. Originally limited to four or five, this has progressively increased over the years so that, , receivers typically have between 12 and 20 channels.
GPS receivers may include an input for differential corrections, using the RTCM SC-104 format. This is typically in the form of an RS-232 port at 4,800 bit/s speed. Data is actually sent at a much lower rate, which limits the accuracy of the signal sent using RTCM. Receivers with internal DGPS receivers can outperform those using external RTCM data. , even low-cost units commonly include Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) receivers.
Many GPS receivers can relay position data to a PC or other device using the NMEA 0183 protocol. Although this protocol is officially defined by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA), references to this protocol have been compiled from public records, allowing open source tools like gpsd to read the protocol without violating intellectual property laws. Other proprietary protocols exist as well, such as the SiRF and MTK protocols. Receivers can interface with other devices using methods including a serial connection, USB, or Bluetooth.
Applications
While originally a military project, GPS is considered a dual-use technology, meaning it has significant military and civilian applications.
GPS has become a widely deployed and useful tool for commerce, scientific uses, tracking, and surveillance. GPS's accurate time facilitates everyday activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and even the control of power grids by allowing well synchronized hand-off switching.
Civilian
Many civilian applications use one or more of GPS's three basic components: absolute location, relative movement, and time transfer.
Astronomy: both positional and clock synchronization data is used in astrometry and celestial mechanics calculations. It is also used in amateur astronomy using small telescopes to professionals observatories, for example, while finding extrasolar planets.
Automated vehicle: applying location and routes for cars and trucks to function without a human driver.
Cartography: both civilian and military cartographers use GPS extensively.
Cellular telephony: clock synchronization enables time transfer, which is critical for synchronizing its spreading codes with other base stations to facilitate inter-cell handoff and support hybrid GPS/cellular position detection for mobile emergency calls and other applications. The first handsets with integrated GPS launched in the late 1990s. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated the feature in either the handset or in the towers (for use in triangulation) in 2002 so emergency services could locate 911 callers. Third-party software developers later gained access to GPS APIs from Nextel upon launch, followed by Sprint in 2006, and Verizon soon thereafter.
Clock synchronization: the accuracy of GPS time signals (±10 ns) is second only to the atomic clocks they are based on.
Disaster relief/emergency services: depend upon GPS for location and timing capabilities.
GPS-equipped radiosondes and dropsondes: measure and calculate the atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction up to 27 km from the Earth's surface
Radio occultation for weather and atmospheric science applications.
Fleet tracking: the use of GPS technology to identify, locate and maintain contact reports with one or more fleet vehicles in real-time.
Geofencing: vehicle tracking systems, person tracking systems, and pet tracking systems use GPS to locate a vehicle, person, or pet. These devices are attached to the vehicle, person, or the pet collar. The application provides continuous tracking and mobile or Internet updates should the target leave a designated area.
Geotagging: applying location coordinates to digital objects such as photographs (in Exif data) and other documents for purposes such as creating map overlays with devices like Nikon GP-1
GPS aircraft tracking
GPS for mining: the use of RTK GPS has significantly improved several mining operations such as drilling, shoveling, vehicle tracking, and surveying. RTK GPS provides centimeter-level positioning accuracy.
GPS data mining: It is possible to use GPS data from multiple users to understand movement patterns. It is possible to aggregate data from multiple users to understand common trajectories and interesting locations.
GPS tours: location determines what content to display; for instance, information about an approaching point of interest.
Navigation: navigators value digitally precise velocity and orientation measurements.
Phasor measurements: GPS enables highly accurate timestamping of power system measurements, making it possible to compute phasors.
Recreation: for example, geocaching, geodashing, GPS drawing and waymarking.
Robotics: self-navigating, autonomous robots using a GPS sensors, which calculate latitude, longitude, time, speed, and heading.
Sport: used in football and rugby for the control and analysis of the training load.
Surveying: surveyors use absolute locations to make maps and determine property boundaries.
Tectonics: GPS enables direct fault motion measurement of earthquakes. Between earthquakes GPS can be used to measure crustal motion and deformation to estimate seismic strain buildup for creating seismic hazard maps.
Telematics: GPS technology integrated with computers and mobile communications technology in automotive navigation systems
Restrictions on civilian use
The U.S. government controls the export of some civilian receivers. All GPS receivers capable of functioning above altitude and , or designed or modified for use with unmanned air vehicles like, e.g., ballistic or cruise missile systems, are classified as munitions (weapons)—which means they require State Department export licenses.
This rule applies even to otherwise purely civilian units that only receive the L1 frequency and the C/A (Coarse/Acquisition) code.
Disabling operation above these limits exempts the receiver from classification as a munition. Vendor interpretations differ. The rule refers to operation at both the target altitude and speed, but some receivers stop operating even when stationary. This has caused problems with some amateur radio balloon launches that regularly reach .
These limits only apply to units or components exported from the USA. There is a growing trade in various components, including GPS units from other countries. These are expressly sold as ITAR-free.
Military
As of 2009, military GPS applications include:
Navigation: Soldiers use GPS to find objectives, even in the dark or in unfamiliar territory, and to coordinate troop and supply movement. In the United States armed forces, commanders use the Commanders Digital Assistant and lower ranks use the Soldier Digital Assistant.
Target tracking: Various military weapons systems use GPS to track potential ground and air targets before flagging them as hostile. These weapon systems pass target coordinates to precision-guided munitions to allow them to engage targets accurately. Military aircraft, particularly in air-to-ground roles, use GPS to find targets.
Missile and projectile guidance: GPS allows accurate targeting of various military weapons including ICBMs, cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions and Artillery projectiles. Embedded GPS receivers able to withstand accelerations of 12,000 g or about 118 km/s2 have been developed for use in howitzers.
Search and rescue.
Reconnaissance: Patrol movement can be managed more closely.
GPS satellites carry a set of nuclear detonation detectors consisting of an optical sensor (Y-sensor), an X-ray sensor, a dosimeter, and an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sensor (W-sensor), that form a major portion of the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System. General William Shelton has stated that future satellites may drop this feature to save money.
Communication
The navigational signals transmitted by GPS satellites encode a variety of information including satellite positions, the state of the internal clocks, and the health of the network. These signals are transmitted on two separate carrier frequencies that are common to all satellites in the network. Two different encodings are used: a public encoding that enables lower resolution navigation, and an encrypted encoding used by the U.S. military.
Message format
{|class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:0 0 0.5em 1em;" border="1"
|+
! Subframes !! Description
|-
| 1 || Satellite clock,GPS time relationship
|-
| 2–3 || Ephemeris(precise satellite orbit)
|-
| 4–5 || Almanac component(satellite network synopsis,error correction)
|}
Each GPS satellite continuously broadcasts a navigation message on L1 C/A and L2 P/Y frequencies at a rate of 50 bits per second (see bitrate). Each complete message takes 750 seconds (12 1/2 minutes) to complete. The message structure has a basic format of a 1500-bit-long frame made up of five subframes, each subframe being 300 bits (6 seconds) long. Subframes 4 and 5 are subcommutated 25 times each, so that a complete data message requires the transmission of 25 full frames. Each subframe consists of ten words, each 30 bits long. Thus, with 300 bits in a subframe times 5 subframes in a frame times 25 frames in a message, each message is 37,500 bits long. At a transmission rate of 50-bit/s, this gives 750 seconds to transmit an entire almanac message (GPS). Each 30-second frame begins precisely on the minute or half-minute as indicated by the atomic clock on each satellite.
The first subframe of each frame encodes the week number and the time within the week, as well as the data about the health of the satellite. The second and the third subframes contain the ephemeris – the precise orbit for the satellite. The fourth and fifth subframes contain the almanac, which contains coarse orbit and status information for up to 32 satellites in the constellation as well as data related to error correction. Thus, to obtain an accurate satellite location from this transmitted message, the receiver must demodulate the message from each satellite it includes in its solution for 18 to 30 seconds. To collect all transmitted almanacs, the receiver must demodulate the message for 732 to 750 seconds or 12 1/2 minutes.
All satellites broadcast at the same frequencies, encoding signals using unique code division multiple access (CDMA) so receivers can distinguish individual satellites from each other. The system uses two distinct CDMA encoding types: the coarse/acquisition (C/A) code, which is accessible by the general public, and the precise (P(Y)) code, which is encrypted so that only the U.S. military and other NATO nations who have been given access to the encryption code can access it.
The ephemeris is updated every 2 hours and is generally valid for 4 hours, with provisions for updates every 6 hours or longer in non-nominal conditions. The almanac is updated typically every 24 hours. Additionally, data for a few weeks following is uploaded in case of transmission updates that delay data upload.
Satellite frequencies
{|class="wikitable" style="float:right; width:30em; margin:0 0 0.5em 1em;" border="1"
|+
! Band !! Frequency !! Description
|-
| L1 || 1575.42 MHz || Coarse-acquisition (C/A) and encrypted precision (P(Y)) codes, plus the L1 civilian (L1C) and military (M) codes on future Block III satellites.
|-
| L2 || 1227.60 MHz || P(Y) code, plus the L2C and military codes on the Block IIR-M and newer satellites.
|-
| L3 || 1381.05 MHz || Used for nuclear detonation (NUDET) detection.
|-
| L4 || 1379.913 MHz || Being studied for additional ionospheric correction.
|-
| L5 || 1176.45 MHz || Proposed for use as a civilian safety-of-life (SoL) signal.
|}
All satellites broadcast at the same two frequencies, 1.57542 GHz (L1 signal) and 1.2276 GHz (L2 signal). The satellite network uses a CDMA spread-spectrum technique where the low-bitrate message data is encoded with a high-rate pseudo-random (PRN) sequence that is different for each satellite. The receiver must be aware of the PRN codes for each satellite to reconstruct the actual message data. The C/A code, for civilian use, transmits data at 1.023 million chips per second, whereas the P code, for U.S. military use, transmits at 10.23 million chips per second. The actual internal reference of the satellites is 10.22999999543 MHz to compensate for relativistic effects that make observers on the Earth perceive a different time reference with respect to the transmitters in orbit. The L1 carrier is modulated by both the C/A and P codes, while the L2 carrier is only modulated by the P code. The P code can be encrypted as a so-called P(Y) code that is only available to military equipment with a proper decryption key. Both the C/A and P(Y) codes impart the precise time-of-day to the user.
The L3 signal at a frequency of 1.38105 GHz is used to transmit data from the satellites to ground stations. This data is used by the United States Nuclear Detonation (NUDET) Detection System (USNDS) to detect, locate, and report nuclear detonations (NUDETs) in the Earth's atmosphere and near space. One usage is the enforcement of nuclear test ban treaties.
The L4 band at 1.379913 GHz is being studied for additional ionospheric correction.
The L5 frequency band at 1.17645 GHz was added in the process of GPS modernization. This frequency falls into an internationally protected range for aeronautical navigation, promising little or no interference under all circumstances. The first Block IIF satellite that provides this signal was launched in 2010. The L5 consists of two carrier components that are in phase quadrature with each other. Each carrier component is bi-phase shift key (BPSK) modulated by a separate bit train. "L5, the third civil GPS signal, will eventually support safety-of-life applications for aviation and provide improved availability and accuracy."
A conditional waiver has recently been granted to LightSquared to operate a terrestrial broadband service near the L1 band. Although LightSquared had applied for a license to operate in the 1525 to 1559 band as early as 2003 and it was put out for public comment, the FCC asked LightSquared to form a study group with the GPS community to test GPS receivers and identify issue that might arise due to the larger signal power from the LightSquared terrestrial network. The GPS community had not objected to the LightSquared (formerly MSV and SkyTerra) applications until November 2010, when LightSquared applied for a modification to its Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) authorization. This filing (SAT-MOD-20101118-00239) amounted to a request to run several orders of magnitude more power in the same frequency band for terrestrial base stations, essentially repurposing what was supposed to be a "quiet neighborhood" for signals from space as the equivalent of a cellular network. Testing in the first half of 2011 has demonstrated that the impact of the lower 10 MHz of spectrum is minimal to GPS devices (less than 1% of the total GPS devices are affected). The upper 10 MHz intended for use by LightSquared may have some impact on GPS devices. There is some concern that this may seriously degrade the GPS signal for many consumer uses. Aviation Week magazine reports that the latest testing (June 2011) confirms "significant jamming" of GPS by LightSquared's system.
Demodulation and decoding
Because all of the satellite signals are modulated onto the same L1 carrier frequency, the signals must be separated after demodulation. This is done by assigning each satellite a unique binary sequence known as a Gold code. The signals are decoded after demodulation using addition of the Gold codes corresponding to the satellites monitored by the receiver.
If the almanac information has previously been acquired, the receiver picks the satellites to listen for by their PRNs, unique numbers in the range 1 through 32. If the almanac information is not in memory, the receiver enters a search mode until a lock is obtained on one of the satellites. To obtain a lock, it is necessary that there be an unobstructed line of sight from the receiver to the satellite. The receiver can then acquire the almanac and determine the satellites it should listen for. As it detects each satellite's signal, it identifies it by its distinct C/A code pattern. There can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before the first estimate of position because of the need to read the ephemeris data.
Processing of the navigation message enables the determination of the time of transmission and the satellite position at this time. For more information see Demodulation and Decoding, Advanced.
Navigation equations
Problem description
The receiver uses messages received from satellites to determine the satellite positions and time sent. The x, y, and z components of satellite position and the time sent are designated as [xi, yi, zi, si] where the subscript i denotes the satellite and has the value 1, 2, ..., n, where n ≥ 4. When the time of message reception indicated by the on-board receiver clock is t̃i, the true reception time is , where b is the receiver's clock bias from the much more accurate GPS system clocks employed by the satellites. The receiver clock bias is the same for all received satellite signals (assuming the satellite clocks are all perfectly synchronized). The message's transit time is , where si is the satellite time. Assuming the message traveled at the speed of light, c, the distance traveled is .
For n satellites, the equations to satisfy are:
or in terms of pseudoranges, , as
.
Since the equations have four unknowns [x, y, z, b]—the three components of GPS receiver position and the clock bias—signals from at least four satellites are necessary to attempt solving these equations. They can be solved by algebraic or numerical methods. Existence and uniqueness of GPS solutions are discussed by Abell and Chaffee. When n is greater than 4 this system is overdetermined and a fitting method must be used.
With each combination of satellites, GDOP quantities can be calculated based on the relative sky directions of the satellites used. The receiver location is expressed in a specific coordinate system, such as latitude and longitude using the WGS 84 geodetic datum or a country-specific system.
Geometric interpretation
The GPS equations can be solved by numerical and analytical methods. Geometrical interpretations can enhance the understanding of these solution methods.
Spheres
The measured ranges, called pseudoranges, contain clock errors. In a simplified idealization in which the ranges are synchronized, these true ranges represent the radii of spheres, each centered on one of the transmitting satellites. The solution for the position of the receiver is then at the intersection of the surfaces of three of these spheres. If more than the minimum number of ranges is available, a near intersection of more than three sphere surfaces could be found via, e.g. least squares.
Hyperboloids
If the distance traveled between the receiver and satellite i and the distance traveled between the receiver and satellite j are subtracted, the result is , which only involves known or measured quantities. The locus of points having a constant difference in distance to two points (here, two satellites) is a hyperboloid (see Multilateration). Thus, from four or more measured reception times, the receiver can be placed at the intersection of the surfaces of three or more hyperboloids.
Spherical cones
The solution space [x, y, z, b] can be seen as a four-dimensional geometric space. In that case each of the equations describes a spherical cone, with the cusp located at the satellite, and the base a sphere around the satellite. The receiver is at the intersection of four or more of such cones.
Solution methods
Least squares
When more than four satellites are available, the calculation can use the four best, or more than four simultaneously (up to all visible satellites), depending on the number of receiver channels, processing capability, and geometric dilution of precision (GDOP).
Using more than four involves an over-determined system of equations with no unique solution; such a system can be solved by a least-squares or weighted least squares method.
Iterative
Both the equations for four satellites, or the least squares equations for more than four, are non-linear and need special solution methods. A common approach is by iteration on a linearized form of the equations, (e.g., Gauss–Newton algorithm).
The GPS system was initially developed assuming use of a numerical least-squares solution method—i.e., before closed-form solutions were found.
Closed-form
One closed-form solution to the above set of equations was developed by S. Bancroft. Its properties are well known; in particular, proponents claim it is superior in low-GDOP situations, compared to iterative least squares methods.
Bancroft's method is algebraic, as opposed to numerical, and can be used for four or more satellites. When four satellites are used, the key steps are inversion of a 4x4 matrix and solution of a single-variable quadratic equation. Bancroft's method provides one or two solutions for the unknown quantities. When there are two (usually the case), only one is a near-Earth sensible solution.
When a receiver uses more than four satellites for a solution, Bancroft uses the generalized inverse (i.e., the pseudoinverse) to find a solution. However, a case has been made that iterative methods (e.g., Gauss–Newton algorithm) for solving over-determined non-linear least squares (NLLS) problems generally provide more accurate solutions.
Leick et al. (2015) states that "Bancroft's (1985) solution is a very early, if not the first, closed-form solution."
Other closed-form solutions were published afterwards, although their adoption in practice is unclear.
Error sources and analysis
GPS error analysis examines error sources in GPS results and the expected size of those errors. GPS makes corrections for receiver clock errors and other effects, but some residual errors remain uncorrected. Error sources include signal arrival time measurements, numerical calculations, atmospheric effects (ionospheric/tropospheric delays), ephemeris and clock data, multipath signals, and natural and artificial interference. Magnitude of residual errors from these sources depends on geometric dilution of precision. Artificial errors may result from jamming devices and threaten ships and aircraft or from intentional signal degradation through selective availability, which limited accuracy to ~6–12 m, but has been switched off since May 1, 2000.
Accuracy enhancement and surveying
Augmentation
Integrating external information into the calculation process can materially improve accuracy. Such augmentation systems are generally named or described based on how the information arrives. Some systems transmit additional error information (such as clock drift, ephemera, or ionospheric delay), others characterize prior errors, while a third group provides additional navigational or vehicle information.
Examples of augmentation systems include the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), Differential GPS (DGPS), inertial navigation systems (INS) and Assisted GPS. The standard accuracy of about can be augmented to with DGPS, and to about with WAAS.
Precise monitoring
Accuracy can be improved through precise monitoring and measurement of existing GPS signals in additional or alternate ways.
The largest remaining error is usually the unpredictable delay through the ionosphere. The spacecraft broadcast ionospheric model parameters, but some errors remain. This is one reason GPS spacecraft transmit on at least two frequencies, L1 and L2. Ionospheric delay is a well-defined function of frequency and the total electron content (TEC) along the path, so measuring the arrival time difference between the frequencies determines TEC and thus the precise ionospheric delay at each frequency.
Military receivers can decode the P(Y) code transmitted on both L1 and L2. Without decryption keys, it is still possible to use a codeless technique to compare the P(Y) codes on L1 and L2 to gain much of the same error information. However, this technique is slow, so it is currently available only on specialized surveying equipment. In the future, additional civilian codes are expected to be transmitted on the L2 and L5 frequencies (see GPS modernization). All users will then be able to perform dual-frequency measurements and directly compute ionospheric delay errors.
A second form of precise monitoring is called Carrier-Phase Enhancement (CPGPS). This corrects the error that arises because the pulse transition of the PRN is not instantaneous, and thus the correlation (satellite–receiver sequence matching) operation is imperfect. CPGPS uses the L1 carrier wave, which has a period of , which is about one-thousandth of the C/A Gold code bit period of , to act as an additional clock signal and resolve the uncertainty. The phase difference error in the normal GPS amounts to of ambiguity. CPGPS working to within 1% of perfect transition reduces this error to of ambiguity. By eliminating this error source, CPGPS coupled with DGPS normally realizes between of absolute accuracy.
Relative Kinematic Positioning (RKP) is a third alternative for a precise GPS-based positioning system. In this approach, determination of range signal can be resolved to a precision of less than . This is done by resolving the number of cycles that the signal is transmitted and received by the receiver by using a combination of differential GPS (DGPS) correction data, transmitting GPS signal phase information and ambiguity resolution techniques via statistical tests—possibly with processing in real-time (real-time kinematic positioning, RTK).
Timekeeping
Leap seconds
While most clocks derive their time from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the atomic clocks on the satellites are set to GPS time (GPST; see the page of United States Naval Observatory). The difference is that GPS time is not corrected to match the rotation of the Earth, so it does not contain leap seconds or other corrections that are periodically added to UTC. GPS time was set to match UTC in 1980, but has since diverged. The lack of corrections means that GPS time remains at a constant offset with International Atomic Time (TAI) (TAI − GPS = 19 seconds). Periodic corrections are performed to the on-board clocks to keep them synchronized with ground clocks.
The GPS navigation message includes the difference between GPS time and UTC. As of July 2015, GPS time is 17 seconds ahead of UTC because of the leap second added to UTC on June 30, 2015. Receivers subtract this offset from GPS time to calculate UTC and specific timezone values. New GPS units may not show the correct UTC time until after receiving the UTC offset message. The GPS-UTC offset field can accommodate 255 leap seconds (eight bits).
Accuracy
GPS time is theoretically accurate to about 14 nanoseconds. However, most receivers lose accuracy in the interpretation of the signals and are only accurate to 100 nanoseconds.
Format
As opposed to the year, month, and day format of the Gregorian calendar, the GPS date is expressed as a week number and a seconds-into-week number. The week number is transmitted as a ten-bit field in the C/A and P(Y) navigation messages, and so it becomes zero again every 1,024 weeks (19.6 years). GPS week zero started at 00:00:00 UTC (00:00:19 TAI) on January 6, 1980, and the week number became zero again for the first time at 23:59:47 UTC on August 21, 1999 (00:00:19 TAI on August 22, 1999). To determine the current Gregorian date, a GPS receiver must be provided with the approximate date (to within 3,584 days) to correctly translate the GPS date signal. To address this concern the modernized GPS navigation message uses a 13-bit field that only repeats every 8,192 weeks (157 years), thus lasting until the year 2137 (157 years after GPS week zero).
Carrier phase tracking (surveying)
Another method that is used in surveying applications is carrier phase tracking. The period of the carrier frequency multiplied by the speed of light gives the wavelength, which is about 0.19 meters for the L1 carrier. Accuracy within 1% of wavelength in detecting the leading edge reduces this component of pseudorange error to as little as 2 millimeters. This compares to 3 meters for the C/A code and 0.3 meters for the P code.
However, 2 millimeter accuracy requires measuring the total phase—the number of waves multiplied by the wavelength plus the fractional wavelength, which requires specially equipped receivers. This method has many surveying applications. It is accurate enough for real-time tracking of the very slow motions of tectonic plates, typically per year.
Triple differencing followed by numerical root finding, and a mathematical technique called least squares can estimate the position of one receiver given the position of another. First, compute the difference between satellites, then between receivers, and finally between epochs. Other orders of taking differences are equally valid. Detailed discussion of the errors is omitted.
The satellite carrier total phase can be measured with ambiguity as to the number of cycles. Let denote the phase of the carrier of satellite j measured by receiver i at time . This notation shows the meaning of the subscripts i, j, and k. The receiver (r), satellite (s), and time (t) come in alphabetical order as arguments of and to balance readability and conciseness, let be a concise abbreviation. Also we define three functions, :, which return differences between receivers, satellites, and time points, respectively. Each function has variables with three subscripts as its arguments. These three functions are defined below. If is a function of the three integer arguments, i, j, and k then it is a valid argument for the functions, :, with the values defined as
,
, and
.
Also if are valid arguments for the three functions and a and b are constants then
is a valid argument with values defined as
,
, and
.
Receiver clock errors can be approximately eliminated by differencing the phases measured from satellite 1 with that from satellite 2 at the same epoch. This difference is designated as
Double differencing computes the difference of receiver 1's satellite difference from that of receiver 2. This approximately eliminates satellite clock errors. This double difference is:
Triple differencing subtracts the receiver difference from time 1 from that of time 2. This eliminates the ambiguity associated with the integral number of wavelengths in carrier phase provided this ambiguity does not change with time. Thus the triple difference result eliminates practically all clock bias errors and the integer ambiguity. Atmospheric delay and satellite ephemeris errors have been significantly reduced. This triple difference is:
Triple difference results can be used to estimate unknown variables. For example, if the position of receiver 1 is known but the position of receiver 2 unknown, it may be possible to estimate the position of receiver 2 using numerical root finding and least squares. Triple difference results for three independent time pairs may be sufficient to solve for receiver 2's three position components. This may require a numerical procedure. An approximation of receiver 2's position is required to use such a numerical method. This initial value can probably be provided from the navigation message and the intersection of sphere surfaces. Such a reasonable estimate can be key to successful multidimensional root finding. Iterating from three time pairs and a fairly good initial value produces one observed triple difference result for receiver 2's position. Processing additional time pairs can improve accuracy, overdetermining the answer with multiple solutions. Least squares can estimate an overdetermined system. Least squares determines the position of receiver 2 that best fits the observed triple difference results for receiver 2 positions under the criterion of minimizing the sum of the squares.
Regulatory spectrum issues concerning GPS receivers
In the United States, GPS receivers are regulated under the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Part 15 rules. As indicated in the manuals of GPS-enabled devices sold in the United States, as a Part 15 device, it "must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation." With respect to GPS devices in particular, the FCC states that GPS receiver manufacturers, "must use receivers that reasonably discriminate against reception of signals outside their allocated spectrum." For the last 30 years, GPS receivers have operated next to the Mobile Satellite Service band, and have discriminated against reception of mobile satellite services, such as Inmarsat, without any issue.
The spectrum allocated for GPS L1 use by the FCC is 1559 to 1610 MHz, while the spectrum allocated for satellite-to-ground use owned by Lightsquared is the Mobile Satellite Service band. Since 1996, the FCC has authorized licensed use of the spectrum neighboring the GPS band of 1525 to 1559 MHz to the Virginia company LightSquared. On March 1, 2001, the FCC received an application from LightSquared's predecessor, Motient Services to use their allocated frequencies for an integrated satellite-terrestrial service. In 2002, the U.S. GPS Industry Council came to an out-of-band-emissions (OOBE) agreement with LightSquared to prevent transmissions from LightSquared's ground-based stations from emitting transmissions into the neighboring GPS band of 1559 to 1610 MHz. In 2004, the FCC adopted the OOBE agreement in its authorization for LightSquared to deploy a ground-based network ancillary to their satellite system – known as the Ancillary Tower Components (ATCs) – "We will authorize MSS ATC subject to conditions that ensure that the added terrestrial component remains ancillary to the principal MSS offering. We do not intend, nor will we permit, the terrestrial component to become a stand-alone service." This authorization was reviewed and approved by the U.S. Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee, which includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Interior, and U.S. Department of Transportation.
In January 2011, the FCC conditionally authorized LightSquared's wholesale customers—such as Best Buy, Sharp, and C Spire—to only purchase an integrated satellite-ground-based service from LightSquared and re-sell that integrated service on devices that are equipped to only use the ground-based signal using LightSquared's allocated frequencies of 1525 to 1559 MHz. In December 2010, GPS receiver manufacturers expressed concerns to the FCC that LightSquared's signal would interfere with GPS receiver devices although the FCC's policy considerations leading up to the January 2011 order did not pertain to any proposed changes to the maximum number of ground-based LightSquared stations or the maximum power at which these stations could operate. The January 2011 order makes final authorization contingent upon studies of GPS interference issues carried out by a LightSquared led working group along with GPS industry and Federal agency participation. On February 14, 2012, the FCC initiated proceedings to vacate LightSquared's Conditional Waiver Order based on the NTIA's conclusion that there was currently no practical way to mitigate potential GPS interference.
GPS receiver manufacturers design GPS receivers to use spectrum beyond the GPS-allocated band. In some cases, GPS receivers are designed to use up to 400 MHz of spectrum in either direction of the L1 frequency of 1575.42 MHz, because mobile satellite services in those regions are broadcasting from space to ground, and at power levels commensurate with mobile satellite services. However, as regulated under the FCC's Part 15 rules, GPS receivers are not warranted protection from signals outside GPS-allocated spectrum. This is why GPS operates next to the Mobile Satellite Service band, and also why the Mobile Satellite Service band operates next to GPS. The symbiotic relationship of spectrum allocation ensures that users of both bands are able to operate cooperatively and freely.
The FCC adopted rules in February 2003 that allowed Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) licensees such as LightSquared to construct a small number of ancillary ground-based towers in their licensed spectrum to "promote more efficient use of terrestrial wireless spectrum." In those 2003 rules, the FCC stated "As a preliminary matter, terrestrial [Commercial Mobile Radio Service (“CMRS”)] and MSS ATC are expected to have different prices, coverage, product acceptance and distribution; therefore, the two services appear, at best, to be imperfect substitutes for one another that would be operating in predominately different market segments... MSS ATC is unlikely to compete directly with terrestrial CMRS for the same customer base...". In 2004, the FCC clarified that the ground-based towers would be ancillary, noting that "We will authorize MSS ATC subject to conditions that ensure that the added terrestrial component remains ancillary to the principal MSS offering. We do not intend, nor will we permit, the terrestrial component to become a stand-alone service." In July 2010, the FCC stated that it expected LightSquared to use its authority to offer an integrated satellite-terrestrial service to "provide mobile broadband services similar to those provided by terrestrial mobile providers and enhance competition in the mobile broadband sector." However, GPS receiver manufacturers have argued that LightSquared's licensed spectrum of 1525 to 1559 MHz was never envisioned as being used for high-speed wireless broadband based on the 2003 and 2004 FCC ATC rulings making clear that the Ancillary Tower Component (ATC) would be, in fact, ancillary to the primary satellite component. To build public support of efforts to continue the 2004 FCC authorization of LightSquared's ancillary terrestrial component vs. a simple ground-based LTE service in the Mobile Satellite Service band, GPS receiver manufacturer Trimble Navigation Ltd. formed the "Coalition To Save Our GPS."
The FCC and LightSquared have each made public commitments to solve the GPS interference issue before the network is allowed to operate. However, according to Chris Dancy of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, airline pilots with the type of systems that would be affected "may go off course and not even realize it." The problems could also affect the Federal Aviation Administration upgrade to the air traffic control system, United States Defense Department guidance, and local emergency services including 911.
On February 14, 2012, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved to bar LightSquared's planned national broadband network after being informed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, that "there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time". LightSquared is challenging the FCC's action.
Other systems
Other satellite navigation systems in use or various states of development include:
GLONASS – Russia's global navigation system. Fully operational worldwide.
Galileo – a global system being developed by the European Union and other partner countries, planned to be operational by 2016 (and fully deployed by 2020)
Beidou – People's Republic of China's regional system, currently limited to Asia and the West Pacific
COMPASS – People's Republic of China's global system, planned to be operational by 2020
IRNSS – India's regional navigation system, covering India and Northern Indian Ocean
QZSS – Japanese regional system covering Asia and Oceania
See also
GPS/INS
GPS navigation software
GPS navigation device
Indoor positioning system
Local positioning system
Military invention
Mobile phone tracking
Navigation paradox
S-GPS
Notes
References
Further reading
Global Positioning System Open Courseware from MIT, 2012
External links
Schriever Air Force Base – GPS Operations Center Responsible for operation of the Global Positioning System
FAA GPS FAQ
GPS.gov—General public education website created by the U.S. Government
USCG Navigation Center—Status of the GPS constellation, government policy, and links to other references; includes satellite almanac data.
The GPS Program Office (GPS Wing)—Responsible for designing and acquiring the system on behalf of the United States Government.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manual: and
National Geodetic Survey Orbits for the Global Positioning System satellites in the Global Navigation Satellite System
GPS PPS Performance Standard—The official Precise Positioning Service specification
GPS and GLONASS Simulation (Java applet) Simulation and graphical depiction of space vehicle motion including computation of dilution of precision (DOP)
Navipedia information on GPS—Wiki initiated by the European Space Agency
Relativity Science Calculator – Explaining Global Positioning System |
2016-01 | Francis_Drake-696614251 | Francis_Drake | Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, vice admiral ( – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete it as captain and leader of the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation.
Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico.
His exploits made him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque. King Philip II was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4 million (US$6.5M) by modern standards, for his life.
Birth and early years
Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, England. Although his birth is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the Six Articles were in force. "Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith" (1566). This would date his birth to 1544. A date of c.1540 is suggested from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42, the other painted in 1594 when he was said to be 53.
He was the eldest of the twelve sons of Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer, and his wife Mary Mylwaye. The first son was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.
Because of religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, the Drake family fled from Devonshire into Kent. There the father obtained an appointment to minister to men in the King's Navy. He was ordained deacon and made vicar of Upnor Church on the Medway. Drake's father apprenticed Francis to his neighbour, the master of a barque used for coastal trade transporting merchandise to France. The ship master was so satisfied with the young Drake's conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, he bequeathed the barque to Drake.
Marriage and family
Francis Drake married Mary Newman in 1569. She died 12 years later, in 1581. In 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham—born circa 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, of Combe Sydenham, who was the High Sheriff of Somerset. After Drake's death, the widow Elizabeth eventually married Sir William Courtenay of Powderham. As Sir Francis Drake had no children, his estate and titles passed on to his nephew (also named Francis).
Sailing career
At age 23, Drake made his first voyage to the Americas, sailing with his second cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on one of a fleet of ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth. In 1568 Drake was again with the Hawkins fleet when it was trapped by the Spaniards in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa. He escaped along with Hawkins.
Following the defeat at San Juan de Ulúa, Drake vowed revenge. He made two voyages to the West Indies, in 1570 and 1571, of which little is known.
In 1572, he embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as Tierra Firme and the English as the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be landed and sent overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would pick it up at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake left Plymouth on 24 May 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, the Pascha (70 tons) and the Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.
His first raid was late in July 1572. Drake and his men captured the town and its treasure. When his men noticed that Drake was bleeding profusely from a wound, they insisted on withdrawing to save his life and left the treasure. Drake stayed in the area for almost a year, raiding Spanish shipping and attempting to capture a treasure shipment.
In 1573, he joined Guillaume Le Testu, a French buccaneer, in an attack on a richly laden mule train. Drake and his party found that they had captured around 20 tons of silver and gold. They buried much of the treasure, as it was too much for their party to carry. (An account of this may have given rise to subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure.) Wounded, Le Testu was captured and later beheaded. The small band of adventurers dragged as much gold and silver as they could carry back across some 18 miles of jungle-covered mountains to where they had left the raiding boats. When they got to the coast, the boats were gone. Drake and his men, downhearted, exhausted and hungry, had nowhere to go and the Spanish were not far behind.
At this point Drake rallied his men, buried the treasure on the beach, and built a raft to sail with two volunteers ten miles along the surf-lashed coast to where they had left the flagship. When Drake finally reached its deck, his men were alarmed at his bedraggled appearance. Fearing the worst, they asked him how the raid had gone. Drake could not resist a joke and teased them by looking downhearted. Then he laughed, pulled a necklace of Spanish gold from around his neck and said "Our voyage is made, lads!" By 9 August 1573, he had returned to Plymouth.
Circumnavigation of the earth (1577–1580)
With the success of the Panama isthmus raid, in 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Drake used the Plans that Sir Richard Greynvile had received the Patent for in 1574 from Elizabeth, which was rescinded a year later after protests from Philip of Spain. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair.
After this major setback, he set sail again on 13 December, aboard Pelican, with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa Maria), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.
Drake's fleet suffered great attrition; he scuttled both Christopher and the flyboat Swan due to loss of men on the Atlantic crossing. He made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier, where he put to death some mutineers.
Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the grim Spanish gibbets. They discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they burned the ship. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own 'mutineer' Thomas Doughty. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan.
Entering the Pacific (1578)
The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later (September 1578) Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, the Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, the Elizabeth captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only the Pelican. After this passage, the Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island which Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast.
Despite popular lore, it seems unlikely that he reached Cape Horn or the eponymous Drake Passage, because his descriptions do not fit the first and his shipmates denied having seen an open sea. The first report of his discovery of an open channel south of Tierra del Fuego was written after the 1618 publication of the voyage of Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire around Cape Horn in 1616.
He pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). The Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports and pillaging towns. Some Spanish ships were captured, and Drake used their more accurate charts. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island, where he was seriously injured by hostile Mapuche. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.
Capture of Spanish treasure ships
Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship laden with 25,000 pesos of Peruvian gold, amounting in value to 37,000 ducats of Spanish money (about £7m by modern standards). Drake also discovered news of another ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which was sailing west towards Manila. It would come to be called the Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship, which proved his most profitable capture.
Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests full of royals of plate and 26 tons of silver. Drake was naturally pleased at his good luck in capturing the galleon and he showed it by dining with the captured ship's officers and gentleman passengers. He offloaded his captives a short time later, and gave each one gifts appropriate to their rank, as well as a letter of safe conduct.
Coast of California: Nova Albion (1579)
After looting the Cacafuego, Drake turned north, hoping to meet another Spanish treasure ship coming south on its return from Manila to Acapulco. Although he failed to find a treasure ship, Drake reputedly sailed as far north as the 38th parallel, landing on the coast of California on 17 June 1579. He found a good port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly relations with the Coast Miwok natives. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown, called Nova Albion—Latin for "New Britain". Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.
The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may have been altered to this end. All first-hand records from the voyage, including logs, paintings and charts, were lost when Whitehall Palace burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands – Drake's Plate of Brass – fitting the description in his account, was discovered in Marin County, California but was later declared a hoax. Now a National Historic Landmark, the officially recognised location of Drake's New Albion is Drakes Bay, California.
Across the Pacific and around Africa
Drake left the Pacific coast, heading southwest to catch the winds that would carry his ship across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the western Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After the sailors waited three days for expedient tides and dumped cargo, they freed the barque. Befriending a sultan king of the Moluccas, Drake and his men became involved in some intrigues with the Portuguese there. He made multiple stops on his way toward the tip of Africa, eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Sierra Leone by 22 July 1580.
Return to Plymouth (1580)
On 26 September, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth (and the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520).
The Queen declared that all written accounts of Drake's voyages were to become the Queen's secrets of the Realm, and Drake and the other participants of his voyages on the pain of death sworn to their secrecy; she intended to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain. Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. Taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, it was made of enamelled gold and bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull.
For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. On one side is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The "Drake Jewel", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Award of knighthood
Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake a knighthood aboard Golden Hind in Deptford on 4 April 1581; the dubbing being performed by a French diplomat, Monsieur de Marchaumont, who was negotiating for Elizabeth to marry the King of France's brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou. By getting the French diplomat involved in the knighting, Elizabeth was gaining the implicit political support of the French for Drake's actions. During the Victorian era, in a spirit of nationalism, the story was promoted that Elizabeth I had done the knighting.
Award of arms
After receiving his knighthood Drake unilaterally adopted the armorials of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, near Musbury, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. These arms were: Argent, a wyvern wings displayed and tail nowed gules, and the crest, a dexter arm Proper grasping a battle axe Sable, headed Argent. The head of that family, also a distinguished sailor, Sir Bernard Drake (d.1586), angrily refuted Sir Francis's claimed kinship and his right to bear his family's arms. That dispute led to "a box in the ear" being given to Sir Francis by Sir Bernard at court, as recorded by John Prince in his "Worthies of Devon" (1697). Queen Elizabeth, to assuage matters, awarded Sir Francis his own coat of arms, blazoned as follows:
The above is considered by students of heraldry to be an early example of "debased arms" due to their over-complexity, particularly as regards the crest. The motto, Sic Parvis Magna, translated literally, is: "Thus great things from small things (come)". The hand out of the clouds, labelled Auxilio Divino, means "With Divine Help". The full achievement is depicted in the form of a large coloured plaster overmantel in the Lifetimes Gallery at Buckland Abbey
Nevertheless, Drake continued to quarter his new arms with the wyvern gules. The arms adopted by his nephew Sir Francis Drake, 1st Baronet (1588–1637) of Buckland were the arms of Drake of Ash, but the wyvern without a "nowed" (knotted) tail.
Political career
In September 1581, Drake became the Mayor of Plymouth, and was a member of parliament in 1581, for an unknown constituency (possibly Camelford), and again in 1584 for Bossiney and Plymouth in 1593.
Purchase of Buckland Abbey
In 1580 Drake purchased Buckland Abbey via intermediaries from Sir Richard Greynvile, hiding who was actually purchasing the Abbey, a large manor house near Yelverton in Devon, from Sir Richard. He lived there for fifteen years, until his final voyage, and it remained in his family for several generations. Buckland Abbey is now in the care of the National Trust and a number of mementos of his life are displayed there.
Great Expedition
War had already been declared by Phillip II after the Treaty of Nonsuch, so the Queen through Francis Walsingham ordered Sir Francis Drake to lead an expedition to attack the Spanish colonies in a kind of preemptive strike. An expedition left Plymouth in September 1585 with Drake in command of twenty one ships with 1,800 soldiers under Christopher Carleill. He first attacked Vigo in Spain and held the place for two weeks ransoming supplies. He then plundered Santiago in the Cape Verde islands after which the fleet then sailed across the Atlantic, sacked the port of Santo Domingo and captured the city of Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia. On 6 June 1586, during the return leg of the voyage, he raided the Spanish fort of San Augustín in Spanish Florida.
After the raids he then went on to find Sir Walter Raleigh's settlement much further North at Roanoke which he replenished and also took back with him all of the original colonists before Sir Richard Greynvile arrived with supplies and more colonists. He finally reached England on 22 July, when he sailed into Portsmouth, England to a hero's welcome.
Spanish Armada
Encouraged by these acts Philip II ordered a planned invasion of England.
Cadiz raid
In another pre-emptive strike, Drake "singed the beard of the King of Spain" in 1587 by sailing a fleet into Cadiz and also Corunna, two of Spain's main ports, and occupied the harbours. He destroyed 37 naval and merchant ships. The attack delayed the Spanish invasion by a year. Over the next month, Drake patrolled the Iberian coasts between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, intercepting and destroying ships on the Spanish supply lines. Drake estimated that he captured around 1600–1700 tons of barrel staves, enough to make 25,000 to for containing provisions.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Drake was vice admiral in command of the English fleet (under Lord Howard of Effingham) when it overcame the Spanish Armada that was attempting to invade England in 1588. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake broke off and captured the Spanish galleon Rosario, along with Admiral Pedro de Valdés and all his crew. The Spanish ship was known to be carrying substantial funds to pay the Spanish Army in the Low Countries. Drake's ship had been leading the English pursuit of the Armada by means of a lantern. By extinguishing this for the capture, Drake put the fleet into disarray overnight.
On the night of 29 July, along with Howard, Drake organised fire-ships, causing the majority of the Spanish captains to break formation and sail out of Calais into the open sea. The next day, Drake was present at the Battle of Gravelines. He wrote as follows to Admiral Henry Seymour after coming upon part of the Spanish Armada, whilst aboard Revenge on 31 July 1588 (21 July 1588 O.S.):Coming up to them, there has passed some common shot between some of our fleet and some of them; and as far as we perceive, they are determined to sell their lives with blows.
The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later. Adverse winds and currents caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer, perhaps prompting a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat.
Drake-Norris Expedition
In 1589, the year after defeating the Armada, Drake and Sir John Norreys were given three tasks. They were ordered to first seek out and destroy the remaining ships, second they were to support the rebels in Lisbon, Portugal against King Philip II (then king of Spain and Portugal), and third they were to take the Azores if possible. Drake and Norreys destroyed a few ships in the harbour of A Coruña in Spain but lost more than 12,000 lives and 20 ships. This delayed Drake, and he was forced to forgo hunting the rest of the surviving ships and head on to Lisbon.
Defeat and Death
Drake's seafaring career continued into his mid-fifties. In 1595, he failed to conquer the port of Las Palmas, and following a disastrous campaign against Spanish America, where he suffered a number of defeats, he unsuccessfully attacked San Juan de Puerto Rico, eventually losing the Battle of San Juan.
The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through the cabin of Drake's flagship, and he survived; but a few weeks later, in January 1596, he died of dysentery when he was about 55, while anchored off the coast of Portobelo, Panama, where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Following his death, the English fleet withdrew.
Before dying, he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Portobelo. Divers continue to search for the coffin.
Cultural impact
In the UK there are various places named after him, especially in Plymouth, Devon, where various places carry his name, including the naval base (HMS Drake), Drake's Island and a roundabout named Drake Circus, along with a shopping mall named after the roundabout. Plymouth Hoe is also home to a statue of Drake.
In the United States Drakes Bay and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard of Marin County, California are both named after him, as well as the high school in San Anselmo, California. The boulevard runs between Drakes Bay at Point Reyes to Point San Quentin on San Francisco Bay. A large hotel in Union Square, San Francisco also bears his name. Additionally, the Sir Francis Drake Channel in the British Virgin Islands bears his name.
In British Columbia, Canada, where some theorize he may also have landed to the north of the usual site considered to be Nova Albion, various mountains were named in the 1930s for him, or in connection with Elizabeth I or other figures of that era, including Mount Sir Francis Drake, Mount Queen Bess, and the Golden Hinde, the highest mountain on Vancouver Island.
Drake's will was the focus of a vast confidence scheme which Oscar Hartzell perpetrated in the 1920s and 1930s. He convinced thousands of people, mostly in the American Midwest, that Drake's fortune was being held by the British government, and had compounded to a huge amount. If their last name was Drake they might be eligible for a share if they paid Hartzell to be their agent. The swindle continued until a copy of Drake's will was brought to Hartzell's mail fraud trial and he was convicted and imprisoned.
Drake was portrayed by the Canadian actor Matheson Lang in the 1935 film Drake of England. Modern workings of stories involving Drake include the 1961 British television series Sir Francis Drake, and the 2009 US television movie The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake.
In 2003, he was the namesake of the Drake Tribe in Survivor: Pearl Islands.
Drake's execution of Thomas Doughty is the subject of Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane poem, "The One Black Stain."
Nathan Drake, a fictional descendant of Sir Francis Drake, searches for lost treasure supposedly found by Sir Francis during his circumnavigation in the video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and again in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.
Controversies
Slave trading
Drake accompanied his second cousin Sir John Hawkins in making the third English slave-trading expeditions, making fortunes through the abduction and transportation of West African people, and then exchanging them for high-value goods. The first Englishman recorded to have taken slaves from Africa was John Lok, a London trader who, in 1555, brought to England five slaves from Guinea.
A second London trader taking slaves at that time was William Towerson whose fleet sailed into Plymouth following his 1556 voyage to Africa and from Plymouth on his 1557 voyage. Despite the exploits of Lok and Towerson, John Hawkins of Plymouth is widely acknowledged to be an early pioneer of the English slave trade. While Hawkins made only three such trips, ultimately the English were to dominate the trade.
Around 1563 Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, on a ship owned and commanded by John Hawkins, with a cargo of people forcibly removed from the coast of West Africa. The Englishmen sold their African captives into slavery in Spanish plantations. In general, the kidnapping and forced transportation of people was considered to be a criminal offence under English law at the time, although legal protection did not extend to slaves, non-Protestants or criminals. Hawkins' own account of his actions (in which Drake took part) cites two sources for their victims. One was military attacks on African towns and villages, the other was attacking Portuguese slave ships.
Conflict in the Caribbean
During his early days as a slave-trader, Drake took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to their Catholicism and inherent distrust of non-Spanish. His hostility is said to have increased over an incident at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568, when Drake was sailing with the fleet of his second cousin John Hawkins. Whilst negotiating to resupply and repair at the Spanish port, the fleet were attacked by Spanish warships, with all but two of the English ships lost. Drake survived the attack by swimming.
The most celebrated of Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main was his capture of the Spanish Silver Train at Nombre de Dios in March 1573. With a crew including many French privateers and Maroons—African slaves who had escaped the Spanish—Drake raided the waters around Darien (in modern Panama) and tracked the Silver Train to the nearby port of Nombre de Dios. He made off with a fortune in gold, but had to leave behind another fortune in silver, because it was too heavy to carry back to England.
It was during this expedition that he climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean. He remarked as he saw it that he hoped one day an Englishman would be able to sail it—which he would do years later as part of his circumnavigation of the world.
When Drake returned to Plymouth after the raids, the government signed a temporary truce with King Philip II of Spain and so was unable to acknowledge Drake's accomplishment officially. Drake was considered a hero in England and a pirate in Spain for his raids.
Ireland
In 1575, Drake was present at the Rathlin Island Massacre, which was a part of the English plantation effort in Ulster, where 600 men, women, and children were massacred after surrendering.
Francis Drake was in charge of the ships which transported John Norreys' troops to Rathlin Island, commanding a small frigate called Falcon, with a total complement of 25. At the time of the massacre, he was charged with the task of keeping Scottish vessels from bringing reinforcements to Rathlin Island. The people who were massacred were, in fact, the families of Sorley Boy MacDonnell's followers.
Execution of Thomas Doughty
On his voyage to interfere with Spanish treasure fleets, Drake had several quarrels with his co-commander Thomas Doughty and on 3 June 1578, accused him of witchcraft and charged him with mutiny and treason in a shipboard trial. Drake claimed to have a (never presented) commission from the Queen to carry out such acts and denied Doughty a trial in England. The main pieces of evidence against Doughty were the testimony of the ship's carpenter, Edward Bright, who after the trial was promoted to master of the ship Marigold, and Doughty's admission of telling Lord Burghley, a vocal opponent of agitating the Spanish, of the intent of the voyage. Drake consented to his request of Communion and dined with him, of which Francis Fletcher had this strange account:
Drake had Thomas Doughty beheaded on 2 July 1578. When the ship's chaplain Francis Fletcher in a sermon suggested that the woes of the voyage in January 1580 were connected to the unjust demise of Doughty, Drake chained the clergyman to a hatch cover and pronounced him excommunicated.
See also
Drake in California
Drake's Leat, a water supply for Plymouth, promoted by Drake
Francis William Drake, relative of Sir Francis Drake
Giovanni Battista Boazio, Drake's mapmaker
References
Bibliography
Bawlf, Samuel (2003) The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577–1580 Walker & Company ISBN 0-8027-1405-6
Corbett, Julian Stafford 1890. Sir Francis Drake
Hughes-Hallett, Lucy (2004) Heroes: A History of Hero Worship Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 1-4000-4399-9
Kelsey, Harry (1998) Sir Francis Drake, the Queen's Pirate New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07182-5
Mattingly, Garett (1959) The Defeat of the Spanish Armada ISBN 0-395-08366-4 – a detailed account of the defeat of the Spanish Armada which received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee in 1960
Merideth, Mrs Charles, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, during a residence in that colony from 1839 to 1844; Bound With: "Life of Drake" by John Barrow (1st ed, 1844) [xi, 164; and xii, 187 pp. respectively]
Payne, Edward John, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1900)
Rodger, N. A. M. The Safeguard of the Sea; A Naval History of Britain 660–1649 (London, 1997)
Wilson, Derek (1977) The World Encompassed: Drake's Great Voyage, 1577–80. Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-014679-6
External links
The Circumnavigation
Google Earth Tour of Drake's Circumnavigation
Lesson plans for classroom use
General sites
Francis Drake at Spartacus Educational
Hand-coloured map depicting Sir Francis Drake's attack on Saint Augustine from the State Archives of Florida
In Drake's Wake – "The world's best Drake resource"
Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography by Hans P. Kraus From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
Mission to rescue Drake's body
Oliver Seeler's website "Sir Francis Drake"
Drake's methods of Navigation
Encyclopedias
Category:1540 births
Category:1596 deaths
Category:16th-century explorers
Category:English people of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)
Category:British slave traders
Category:Burials at sea
Category:Circumnavigators of the globe
Category:English explorers
Category:English knights
Category:English sailors
Category:Explorers of California
Category:Explorers of Oregon
Category:Mayors of Plymouth
Category:Members of the pre-1707 English Parliament for constituencies in Cornwall
Category:People connected with Plymouth
Category:People from Tavistock, Devon
Category:People connected with Tavistock
Category:Deaths from dysentery
Category:People who died at sea
Category:English privateers
Category:English bowls players
Category:People of the Elizabethan era
Category:People of the Tudor period |
2016-01 | Net_neutrality-697557683 | Net_neutrality | Net neutrality
Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication. The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier.
A widely cited example of a violation of net neutrality principles was the Internet service provider Comcast surreptitiously slowing uploads from peer-to-peer file sharing applications using forged packets. Research suggests that a combination of policy instruments will help realize the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the network neutrality debate. Combined with strong public opinion, this has led some governments to regulate broadband internet services as a public utility, similar to electricity, gas and water supply.
Definition and related principles
Net neutrality
Network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. According to Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, the best way to explain network neutrality is that a public information network will end up being most useful if all content, sites, and platforms are treated equally. A more detailed proposed definition of technical and service network neutrality suggests that service network neutrality is the adherence to the paradigm that operation of a service at a certain layer is not influenced by any data other than the data interpreted at that layer, and in accordance with the protocol specification for that layer.
Open Internet
The idea of an open Internet is the idea that the full resources of the Internet and means to operate on it are easily accessible to all individuals and companies. This often includes ideas such as net neutrality, open standards, transparency, lack of Internet censorship, and low barriers to entry. The concept of the open Internet is sometimes expressed as an expectation of decentralized technological power, and is seen by some as closely related to open-source software.
Proponents often see net neutrality as an important component of an open Internet, where policies such as equal treatment of data and open web standards allow those on the Internet to easily communicate and conduct business without interference from a third party. A closed Internet refers to the opposite situation, in which established persons, corporations or governments favor certain uses. A closed Internet may have restricted access to necessary web standards, artificially degrade some services, or explicitly filter out content.
Dumb pipe
The concept of a dumb network made up of dumb pipes has been around since at least the early 1990s. The idea of a dumb network is that the endpoints of a network are generally where the intelligence lies, and that the network itself generally leaves the management and operation of communication to the end users.
In 2013 the software company MetroTech Net, Inc. (MTN) coined the term Dumb Wave which is the modern application of the Dumb Pipe concept to the ubiquitous wireless network.
End-to-end principle
The end-to-end principle is a principle of network design, first laid out explicitly in the 1981 conference paper End-to-end arguments in system design by Jerome H. Saltzer, David P. Reed, and David D. Clark. The principle states that, whenever possible, communications protocol operations should be defined to occur at the end-points of a communications system, or as close as possible to the resource being controlled. According to the end-to-end principle, protocol features are only justified in the lower layers of a system if they are a performance optimization; hence, TCP retransmission for reliability is still justified, but efforts to improve TCP reliability should stop after peak performance has been reached.
They argued that reliable systems tend to require end-to-end processing to operate correctly, in addition to any processing in the intermediate system. They pointed out that most features in the lowest level of a communications system have costs for all higher-layer clients, even if those clients do not need the features, and are redundant if the clients have to re-implement the features on an end-to-end basis. This leads to the model of a minimal dumb network with smart terminals, a completely different model from the previous paradigm of the smart network with dumb terminals.
Because the end-to-end principle is one of the central design principles of the Internet, and because the practical means for implementing data discrimination violate the end-to-end principle, the principle often enters discussions about net neutrality. The end-to-end principle is closely related, and sometimes seen as a direct precursor to the principle of net neutrality.
Traffic shaping
Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth by delaying packets that meet certain criteria. More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) which imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile). Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network in a specified period (bandwidth throttling), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting), or more complex criteria such as generic cell rate algorithm.
Over-provisioning
If the core of a network has more bandwidth than is permitted to enter at the edges, then good QoS can be obtained without policing. For example, the telephone network employs admission control to limit user demand on the network core by refusing to create a circuit for the requested connection. Over-provisioning is a form of statistical multiplexing that makes liberal estimates of peak user demand. Over-provisioning is used in private networks such as WebEx and the Internet 2 Abilene Network, an American university network. David Isenberg believes that continued over-provisioning will always provide more capacity for less expense than QoS and deep packet inspection technologies.
By issue
Discrimination by protocol
Discrimination by protocol is the favoring or blocking information based on aspects of the communications protocol that the computers are using to communicate. Comcast admitted no wrongdoing in its proposed settlement of up to 16 dollars per share in December 2009. However, a U.S. appeals court ruled in April 2010 that the FCC exceeded its authority when it sanctioned Comcast in 2008 for deliberately preventing some subscribers from using peer-to-peer file-sharing services to download large files. However, the FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard responded, "the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet, nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end." In spite of the ruling in favor of Comcast, a study by Measurement Lab in October 2011 verified that Comcast had virtually stopped its BitTorrent throttling practices.
Discrimination by IP address
During the early decades of the Internet, creating a non-neutral Internet was technically infeasible. Originally developed to filter malware, the Internet security company NetScreen Technologies released network firewalls in 2003 with so called deep packet inspection. Deep packet inspection helped make real-time discrimination between different kinds of data possible, and is often used for Internet censorship.
In a practice called zero-rating, companies will reimburse data use from certain addresses, favoring use of those services. Examples include Facebook Zero and Google Free Zone, and are especially common in the developing world.
Sometimes ISPs will charge some companies, but not others, for the traffic they cause on the ISP's network. French telecoms operator Orange, complaining that traffic from YouTube and other Google sites consists of roughly 50% of total traffic on the Orange network, reached a deal with Google, in which they charge Google for the traffic incurred on the Orange network. Some also thought that Orange's rival ISP Free throttled YouTube traffic. However, an investigation done by the French telecommunications regulatory body revealed that the network was simply congested during peak hours.
Favoring private networks
Proponents of net neutrality argue that without new regulations, internet service providers would be able to favor their own private protocols over others. ISPs are able to encourage the use of specific services by utilizing private networks to discriminate what data is counted against bandwidth caps.
For example, Comcast struck a deal with Microsoft that allowed users to stream television through the Xfinity app on their Xbox 360s without it affecting their bandwidth limit. However, utilizing other television streaming apps, such as Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu, counted towards the limit. Comcast denied that this infringed on net neutrality principles since “it runs its Xfinity for Xbox service on its own, private Internet protocol network.”
Peering discrimination
There is some disagreement about whether peering is a net neutrality issue.
In the first quarter of 2014, streaming website Netflix reached an arrangement with ISP Comcast to improve the quality of its service to Netflix clients. This arrangement was made in response to increasingly slow connection speeds through Comcast over the course of 2013, where average speeds dropped by over 25% of their values a year before to an all-time low. After the deal was struck in January 2014, the Netflix speed index recorded a 66% increase in connection.
Netflix agreed to a similar deal with Verizon in 2014 after Verizon DSL customers connection speed dropped to less than 1 Mbit/s early in the year. Netflix spoke out against this deal with a controversial statement delivered to all Verizon customers experiencing low connection speeds using the Netflix client. This sparked an internal debate between the two companies that led to Verizon obtaining a cease and desist order on 5 June 2014 that forced Netflix to stop displaying this message.
Legal aspects
Legal enforcement of net neutrality principles takes a variety of forms, from provisions that outlaw anti-competitive blocking and throttling of Internet services, all the way to legal enforcement that prevents companies from subsidizing Internet use on particular sites. Contrary to popular rhetoric and various individuals involved in the ongoing academic debate, research suggests that a single policy instrument (such as a no-blocking policy or a quality of service tiering policy) cannot achieve the range of valued political and economic objectives central to the debate. As Bauer and Obar suggest, "safeguarding multiple goals requires a combination of instruments that will likely involve government and nongovernment measures. Furthermore, promoting goals such as the freedom of speech, political participation, investment, and innovation calls for complementary policies."
By country
Brazil
The Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (in Portuguese: Marco Civil da Internet, officially Law No 12.965) became law on April 23, 2014 at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. It governs the use of the Internet in Brazil, through forecasting principles, guarantees, rights and duties to those who use the network as well as the determination of guidelines for state action. The legislation has proven controversial, as in December 2015 it was used as basis to block the popular WhatsApp application in Brazilian territory.
Canada
In a January 25, 2011 decision, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that usage-based billing could be introduced.
Prime Minister Harper signaled that the government may be looking into the ruling: "We're very concerned about CRTC's decision on usage-based billing and its impact on consumers. I've asked for a review of the decision". Some have suggested that the ruling adversely affects net neutrality, since it discriminates against media that is larger in size, such as audio and video.
Chile
On 13 June 2010, the National Congress of Chile, amended its telecommunications law in order to preserve network neutrality, becoming the first country in the world to do so. The law, published on 26 August 2010, added three articles to the General Law of Telecommunications, forbidding ISPs from arbitrarily blocking, interfering with, discriminating, hindering or restricting an Internet user's right to use, send, receive or offer any legal content, application, service or any other type of legal activity or use through the Internet. ISPs must offer Internet access in which content is not arbitrarily treated differently based on its source or ownership.
India
, India had no laws governing net neutrality and there have been violations of net neutrality principles by some service providers. While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines for the Unified Access Service license promote net neutrality, they do not enforce it. The Information Technology Act, 2000 does not prohibit companies from throttling their service in accordance with their business interests. In India, telecom operators and ISPs offering VoIP services have to pay a part of their revenues to the government.
In March 2015, the TRAI released a formal consultation paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services, seeking comments from the public . The consultation paper was criticised for being one sided and having confusing statements. It was condemned by various politicians and internet users. By 24 April 2015, over a million emails had been sent to TRAI demanding net neutrality. The public can share their comments on the consultation paper until January 7, 2016.
Violations of net neutrality have been common in India. Examples beyond Facebook's Internet.org include Aircel's Wikipedia Zero along with Aircel's free access to Facebook and WhatsApp, Airtel's free access to Google, and Reliance's free access to Twitter.
Netherlands
On June 4, 2012, the Netherlands became the first country in Europe and the second in the world, after Chile, to enact a network neutrality law. The main provision of the law requires that "Providers of public electronic communication networks used to provide Internet access services as well as providers of Internet access services will not hinder or slow down services or applications on the Internet".
Singapore
in 2014/2015 repeatedly wants to charge OTT Providers.
Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) in reference to their Policy Framework for Net Neutrality will not allow such a surcharge. Consumer also argue that they already pay for their service.
Slovenia
At the end of 2012 Slovenia legislated a Law of electronic communication. The law implements strong principle of net neutrality. Slovenia became second country in Europe to enact net neutrality law.
Government Agency for communications, networks and services is enforcing the law and executes inspections. In January 2015 it found zero-rating infringements at two largest mobile network providers Telekom and Simobil.
United States
There has been extensive debate about whether net neutrality should be required by law in the United States. Advocates of net neutrality have raised concerns about the ability of broadband providers to use their last mile infrastructure to block Internet applications and content (e.g. websites, services, and protocols), and even to block out competitors. Opponents claim net neutrality regulations would deter investment into improving broadband infrastructure and try to fix something that isn't broken.
On 26 February 2015, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in favor of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband access as a telecommunications service and thus applying Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 to Internet service providers. On 12 March 2015, the FCC released the specific details of its new net neutrality rule. And on 13 April 2015, the FCC published the final rule on its new regulations. The rule took effect on June 12, 2015.
United Kingdom
In 2007, Plusnet was using deep packet inspection to implement limits and differential charges for peer-to-peer, file transfer protocol, and online game traffic. However, their network management philosophy was made clear for each package they sold, was consistent between different websites.
EU and net neutrality
On 27 September 2015, the European Parliament voted against adopting net neutrality for the entire European Union; of EU member states, only Slovenia and the Netherlands have net neutrality laws.
Arguments for net neutrality
Proponents of net neutrality include consumer advocates, human rights organizations such as Article 19, online companies and some technology companies. Many major Internet application companies are advocates of neutrality. Yahoo!, Vonage, eBay, Amazon, IAC/InterActiveCorp. Microsoft, Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, Daily Kos, Greenpeace, along with many other companies and organizations, have also taken a stance in support of net neutrality. Cogent Communications, an international Internet service provider, has made an announcement in favor of certain net neutrality policies. In 2008, Google published a statement speaking out against letting broadband providers abuse their market power to affect access to competing applications or content. They further equated the situation to that of the telephony market, where telephone companies are not allowed to control who their customers call or what those customers are allowed to say. However, Google's support of net neutrality was called into question in 2014. Several civil rights groups, such as the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, and Fight for the Future support net neutrality.
Individuals who support net neutrality include Tim Berners-Lee, Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Lessig, Robert W. McChesney, Steve Wozniak, Susan P. Crawford, Marvin Ammori, Ben Scott, David Reed, and U.S. President Barack Obama. On 10 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama recommended that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet service as a telecommunications service in order to preserve net neutrality. On 12 November 2014, AT&T stopped build-out of their fiber network until it has "solid net neutrality rules to follow". On 31 January 2015, AP News reported that the FCC will present the notion of applying ("with some caveats") Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 to the Internet in a vote expected on 26 February 2015.
Control of data
Supporters of net neutrality want to designate cable companies as common carriers, which would require them to allow Internet service providers (ISPs) free access to cable lines, the model used for dial-up Internet. They want to ensure that cable companies cannot screen, interrupt or filter Internet content without court order. Common carrier status would give the FCC the power to enforce net neutrality rules.
SaveTheInternet.com accuses cable and telecommunications companies of wanting the role of gatekeepers, being able to control which websites load quickly, load slowly, or don't load at all. According to SaveTheInternet.com these companies want to charge content providers who require guaranteed speedy data delivery... to create advantages for their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video servicesand slowing access or blocking access to those of competitors. Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and current vice president of Google argues that the Internet was designed without any authorities controlling access to new content or new services. He concludes that the principles responsible for making the Internet such a success would be fundamentally undermined were broadband carriers given the ability to affect what people see and do online. Cerf has also written about the importance of looking at problems like Net Neutrality through the a combination of the Internet's layered system and the multistakeholder model that governs it. He shows how challenges can arise that can implicate Net Neutrality in certain infrastructure-based cases, such as when ISPs to enter into exclusive arrangements with large building owners, leaving the residents unable to exercise any choice in broadband provider.
Digital rights and freedoms
Proponents of net neutrality argue that a neutral net will foster free speech and lead to further democratic participation on the internet. Senator Al Franken from Minnesota fears that without new regulations, the major Internet Service Providers will use their position of power to stifle people’s rights. He calls net neutrality the “First Amendment issue of our time.” By ensuring that all people and websites have equal access to each other, regardless of their ability to pay, proponents of net neutrality wish to prevent the need to pay for speech and the further centralization of media power.
Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that net neutrality ensures that the Internet remains a free and open technology, fostering democratic communication. Lessig and McChesney go on to argue that the monopolization of the Internet would stifle the diversity of independent news sources and the generation of innovative and novel web content.
User intolerance for slow-loading sites
Proponents of net neutrality invoke the human psychological process of adaptation where when people get used to something better, they would not ever want to go back to something worse. In the context of the Internet, the proponents argue that a user who gets used to the "fast lane" on the Internet would find the "slow lane" intolerable in comparison, greatly disadvantaging any provider who is unable to pay for the "fast lane". Video providers Netflix and Vimeo in their comments to FCC in favor of net neutrality use the research of S.S. Krishnan and Ramesh Sitaraman that provides the first quantitative evidence of adaptation to speed among online video users. Their research studied the patience level of millions of Internet video users who waited for a slow-loading video to start playing. Users who had a faster Internet connectivity, such as fiber-to-the-home, demonstrated less patience and abandoned their videos sooner than similar users with slower Internet connectivity. The results demonstrate how users can get used to faster Internet connectivity, leading to higher expectation of Internet speed, and lower tolerance for any delay that occurs. Author Nicholas Carr and other social commentators have written about the habituation phenomenon by stating that a faster flow of information on the Internet can make people less patient.
Competition and innovation
Net neutrality advocates argue that allowing cable companies the right to demand a toll to guarantee quality or premium delivery would create an exploitative business model based on the ISPs position as gatekeepers. Advocates warn that by charging websites for access, network owners may be able to block competitor Web sites and services, as well as refuse access to those unable to pay. According to Tim Wu, cable companies plan to reserve bandwidth for their own television services, and charge companies a toll for priority service.
Proponents of net neutrality argue that allowing for preferential treatment of Internet traffic, or tiered service, would put newer online companies at a disadvantage and slow innovation in online services. Tim Wu argues that, without network neutrality, the Internet will undergo a transformation from a market ruled by innovation to one ruled by deal-making. SaveTheInternet.com argues that net neutrality puts everyone on equal terms, which helps drive innovation. They claim it is a preservation of the way the internet has always operated, where the quality of websites and services determined whether they succeeded or failed, rather than deals with ISPs. Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney argue that eliminating net neutrality would lead to the Internet resembling the world of cable TV, so that access to and distribution of content would be managed by a handful of massive companies. These companies would then control what is seen as well as how much it costs to see it. Speedy and secure Internet use for such industries as health care, finance, retailing, and gambling could be subject to large fees charged by these companies. They further explain that a majority of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started with little capital in their garages, inspired by great ideas. This was possible because the protections of net neutrality ensured limited control by owners of the networks, maximal competition in this space, and permitted innovators from outside access to the network. Internet content was guaranteed a free and highly competitive space by the existence of net neutrality.
Preserving Internet standards
Net neutrality advocates have sponsored legislation claiming that authorizing incumbent network providers to override transport and application layer separation on the Internet would signal the decline of fundamental Internet standards and international consensus authority. Further, the legislation asserts that bit-shaping the transport of application data will undermine the transport layer's designed flexibility.
Preventing pseudo-services
Alok Bhardwaj, founder of Epic Privacy Browser, argues that any violations to network neutrality, realistically speaking, will not involve genuine investment but rather payoffs for unnecessary and dubious services. He believes that it is unlikely that new investment will be made to lay special networks for particular websites to reach end-users faster. Rather, he believes that non-net neutrality will involve leveraging quality of service to extract remuneration from websites that want to avoid being slowed down.
End-to-end principle
Some advocates say network neutrality is needed in order to maintain the end-to-end principle. According to Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney, all content must be treated the same and must move at the same speed in order for net neutrality to be true. They say that it is this simple but brilliant end-to-end aspect that has allowed the Internet to act as a powerful force for economic and social good.
Under this principle, a neutral network is a dumb network, merely passing packets regardless of the applications they support. This point of view was expressed by David S. Isenberg in his paper, "The Rise of the Stupid Network". He states that the vision of an intelligent network is being replaced by a new network philosophy and architecture in which the network is designed for always-on use, not intermittence and scarcity. Rather than intelligence being designed into the network itself, the intelligence would be pushed out to the end-user's device; and the network would be designed simply to deliver bits without fancy network routing or smart number translation. The data would be in control, telling the network where it should be sent. End-user devices would then be allowed to behave flexibly, as bits would essentially be free and there would be no assumption that the data is of a single data rate or data type.
Contrary to this idea, the research paper titled End-to-end arguments in system design by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark argues that network intelligence doesn't relieve end systems of the requirement to check inbound data for errors and to rate-limit the sender, nor for a wholesale removal of intelligence from the network core.
Arguments against net neutrality
Opponents of net neutrality regulations include civil rights groups, economists, internet providers and technologists.
Among corporations, opponents include AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, dLink, Wintel, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Panasonic, Ericsson, and others. Notable technologists who oppose net neutrality include Marc Andreessen, Scott McNealy, Peter Thiel, David Farber, Nicholas Negroponte, Rajeev Suri, Jeff Pulver, John Perry Barlow, and Bob Kahn.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker's paper titled, "Net Neutrality and Consumer Welfare", published by the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, alleges that claims by net neutrality proponents "do not provide a compelling rationale for regulation" because there is "significant and growing competition" among broadband access providers.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt states that, while Google views that similar data types should not be discriminated against, it is okay to discriminate across different data types—a position that both Google and Verizon generally agree on, according to Schmidt. According to the Journal, when President Barack Obama announced his support for strong net neutrality rules late in 2014, Schmidt told a top White House official the president was making a mistake.
Several civil rights groups, such as the National Urban League, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH, and League of United Latin American Citizens, also oppose Title II net neutrality regulations, who said that the call to regulate broadband Internet service as a utility would harm minority communities by stifling investment in underserved areas.
A number of other opponents created Hands Off The Internet, a website created in 2006 to promote arguments against internet regulation. Principal financial support for the website came from AT&T, and members included BellSouth, Alcatel, Cingular, and Citizens Against Government Waste.
Robert Pepper, a senior managing director, global advanced technology policy, at Cisco Systems, and former FCC chief of policy development, says: "The supporters of net neutrality regulation believe that more rules are necessary. In their view, without greater regulation, service providers might parcel out bandwidth or services, creating a bifurcated world in which the wealthy enjoy first-class Internet access, while everyone else is left with slow connections and degraded content. That scenario, however, is a false paradigm. Such an all-or-nothing world doesn't exist today, nor will it exist in the future. Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer". Computer scientist Bob Kahn has said net neutrality is a slogan that would freeze innovation in the core of the Internet.
Farber has written and spoken strongly in favor of continued research and development on core Internet protocols. He joined academic colleagues Michael Katz, Christopher Yoo, and Gerald Faulhaber in an op-ed for the Washington Post strongly critical of network neutrality, essentially stating that while the Internet is in need of remodeling, congressional action aimed at protecting the best parts of the current Internet could interfere with efforts to build a replacement.
Reduction in innovation and investments
According to a letter to key Congressional and FCC leaders sent by 60 major ISP technology suppliers including IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Cisco, Title II regulation of the internet "means that instead of billions of broadband investment driving other sectors of the economy forward, any reduction in this spending will stifle growth across the entire economy. This is not idle speculation or fear mongering...Title II is going to lead to a slowdown, if not a hold, in broadband build out, because if you don’t know that you can recover on your investment, you won’t make it."
According to the Wall Street Journal, in one of Google’s few lobbying sessions with FCC officials, the company urged the agency to craft rules that encourage investment in broadband Internet networks—a position that mirrors the argument made by opponents of strong net neutrality rules, such as AT&T and Comcast.
Opponents of net neutrality argue that prioritization of bandwidth is necessary for future innovation on the Internet. Telecommunications providers such as telephone and cable companies, and some technology companies that supply networking gear, argue telecom providers should have the ability to provide preferential treatment in the form of tiered services, for example by giving online companies willing to pay the ability to transfer their data packets faster than other Internet traffic. The added revenue from such services could be used to pay for the building of increased broadband access to more consumers.
Opponents say that net neutrality would make it more difficult for Internet service providers (ISPs) and other network operators to recoup their investments in broadband networks. John Thorne, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Verizon, a broadband and telecommunications company, has argued that they will have no incentive to make large investments to develop advanced fibre-optic networks if they are prohibited from charging higher preferred access fees to companies that wish to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of such networks. Thorne and other ISPs have accused Google and Skype of freeloading or free riding for using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.
Marc Andreessen states that "a pure net neutrality view is difficult to sustain if you also want to have continued investment in broadband networks. If you’re a large telco right now, you spend on the order of $20 billion a year on capex. You need to know how you’re going to get a return on that investment. If you have these pure net neutrality rules where you can never charge a company like Netflix anything, you’re not ever going to get a return on continued network investment — which means you’ll stop investing in the network. And I would not want to be sitting here 10 or 20 years from now with the same broadband speeds we’re getting today."
Counterweight to server-side non-neutrality
Those in favor of forms of non-neutral tiered Internet access argue that the Internet is already not a level playing field: large companies achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by replicating servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Should prices drop for lower levels of access, or access to only certain protocols, for instance, a change of this type would make Internet usage more neutral, with respect to the needs of those individuals and corporations specifically seeking differentiated tiers of service. Network expert Richard Bennett has written, "A richly funded Web site, which delivers data faster than its competitors to the front porches of the Internet service providers, wants it delivered the rest of the way on an equal basis. This system, which Google calls broadband neutrality, actually preserves a more fundamental inequality."
Broadband infrastructure
Proponents of net neutrality regulations say network operators have continued to under-invest in infrastructure. However, according to Copenhagen Economics, US investment in telecom infrastructure is 50 percent higher that of the European Union. As a share of GDP, The US's broadband investment rate per GDP trails only the UK and South Korea slightly, but exceeds Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, and France sizably.
On broadband speed, Akamai reported that the US trails only South Korea and Japan among its major trading partners, and trails only Japan in the G-7 in both average peak connection speed and percentage of the population connection at 10 Mbit/s or higher, but are substantially ahead of most of its other major trading partners.
The White House reported in June 2013 that U.S. connection speeds are "the fastest compared to other countries with either a similar population or land mass."
Akamai's report on "The State of the Internet" in the 2nd quarter of 2014 says "a total of 39 states saw 4K readiness rate more than double over the past year." In other words, as ZDNet reports, those states saw a "major" increase in the availability of the 15Mbit/s speed needed for 4K video.
According to the Progressive Policy Institute and ITU data, the United States has the most affordable entry-level prices for fixed broadband in the OECD.
In Indonesia, there is a very high number of Internet connections that are subjected to exclusive deals between the ISP and the building owner, and changing this dynamic could unlock much more consumer choice and higher speeds.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and Federal Election Commission's Lee Goldman wrote in a Politico piece in February 2015, "Compare Europe, which has long had utility-style regulations, with the United States, which has embraced a light-touch regulatory model. Broadband speeds in the United States, both wired and wireless, are significantly faster than those in Europe. Broadband investment in the United States is several multiples that of Europe. And broadband’s reach is much wider in the United States, despite its much lower population density."
Significant and growing competition
A 2010 paper on net neutrality by Nobel Prize economist Gary Becker and his colleagues stated that "there is significant and growing competition among broadband access providers and that few significant competitive problems have been observed to date, suggesting that there is no compelling competitive rationale for such regulation."
Becker and fellow economists Dennis Carlton and Hal Sidler found that "Between mid-2002 and mid-2008, the number of high-speed broadband access lines in the United States grew from 16 million to nearly 133 million, and the number of residential broadband lines grew from 14 million to nearly 80 million. Internet traffic roughly tripled between 2007 and 2009. At the same time, prices for broadband Internet access services have fallen sharply."
The PPI reports that the profit margins of U.S. broadband providers are generally one-sixth to one-eighth of companies that use broadband (such as Apple or Google), contradicting the idea of monopolistic price-gouging by providers.
Broadband choice
A report by the Progressive Policy Institute in June 2014 argues that nearly every American can choose from at least 5-6 broadband internet service providers, despite claims that there are only a 'small number' of broadband providers. Citing research from the FCC, the Institute wrote that 90 percent of American households have access to at least one wired and one wireless broadband provider at speeds of at least 4 Mbit/s (500 kbyte/s) downstream and 1 Mbit/s (125 kbyte/s) upstream and that nearly 88 percent of Americans can choose from at least two wired providers of broadband disregarding speed (typically choosing between a cable and telco offering). Further, three of the four national wireless companies report that they offer 4G LTE to between 250-300 million Americans, with the fourth (T-Mobile) sitting at 209 million and counting.
Similarly, the FCC reported in June 2008 that 99.8 percent of zip codes in the United States had two or more providers of high speed Internet lines available, and 94.6 percent of zip codes had four or more providers, as reported by University of Chicago economists Gary Becker, Dennis Carlton, and Hal Sider in a 2010 paper.
When FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler redefined broadband from 4 Mbit/s to 25 Mbit/s (3.125 MB/s) or greater in January 2015, FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Reilly believed the redefinition was to set up the agency's intent to settle the net neutrality fight with new regulations. The commissioners argued that the stricter speed guidelines painted the broadband industry as less competitive, justifying the FCC's moves with Title II net neutrality regulations.
Deterring competition
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai states that the FCC completely brushes away the concerns of smaller competitors who are going to be subject to various taxes, such as state property taxes and general receipts taxes. As a result, according to Pai, that does nothing to create more competition within the market.
According to Pai, the FCC's ruling to impose Title II regulations is opposed by the country’s smallest private competitors and many municipal broadband providers. In his dissent, Pai noted that 142 wireless ISPs (WISPs) said that FCC’s new "regulatory intrusion into our businesses...would likely force us to raise prices, delay deployment expansion, or both." He also noted that 24 of the country’s smallest ISPs, each with fewer than 1,000 residential broadband customers, wrote to the FCC stating that Title II "will badly strain our limited resources" because they "have no in-house attorneys and no budget line items for outside counsel." Further, another 43 municipal broadband providers told the FCC that Title II "will trigger consequences beyond the Commission’s control and risk serious harm to our ability to fund and deploy broadband without bringing any concrete benefit for consumers or edge providers that the market is not already proving today without the aid of any additional regulation."
Potentially increased taxes
FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, who opposed the net neutrality ruling, claims that the ruling issued by the FCC to impose Title II regulations explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new fees and taxes on broadband by subjecting them to the telephone-style taxes under the Universal Service Fund.
Net neutrality proponent Free Press argues that, "the average potential increase in taxes and fees per household would be far less" than the estimate given by net neutrality opponents, and that if there were to be additional taxes, the tax figure may be around $4 billion. Under favorable circumstances, "the increase would be exactly zero." Meanwhile, the Progressive Policy Institute claims that Title II could trigger taxes and fees up to $11 billion a year. Financial website Nerd Wallet did their own assessment and settled on a possible $6.25 billion tax impact, estimating that the average American household may see their tax bill increase $67 annually.
FCC spokesperson Kim Hart said that the ruling "does not raise taxes or fees. Period." However, the opposing commissioner, Ajit Pai, claims that "the plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband...These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay." Pai explained that, "One avenue for higher bills is the new taxes and fees that will be applied to broadband. Here’s the background. If you look at your phone bill, you’ll see a 'Universal Service Fee,' or something like it. These fees —- what most Americans would call taxes -- are paid by Americans on their telephone service. They funnel about $9 billion each year through the FCC. Consumers haven’t had to pay these taxes on their broadband bills because broadband has never before been a Title II service. But now it is. And so the Order explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes."
Prevent overuse of bandwidth
Since the early 1990s, Internet traffic has increased steadily. The arrival of picture-rich websites and MP3s led to a sharp increase in the mid-1990s followed by a subsequent sharp increase since 2003 as video streaming and Peer-to-peer file sharing became more common. In reaction to companies including YouTube, as well as smaller companies starting to offer free video content, using substantial amounts of bandwidth, at least one Internet service provider (ISP), SBC Communications (now AT&T Inc.), has suggested that it should have the right to charge these companies for making their content available over the provider's network.
Bret Swanson of the Wall Street Journal wrote in 2007 that the popular websites of that time, including YouTube, MySpace, and blogs, were put at risk by net neutrality. He noted that, at the time, YouTube streamed as much data in three months as the world's radio, cable and broadcast television channels did in one year, 75 petabytes. He argued that networks were not remotely prepared to handle the amount of data required to run these sites. He also argued that net neutrality would prevent broadband networks from being built, which would limit available bandwidth and thus endanger innovation.
One example of these concerns was the series of tubes analogy, which was presented by US senator Ted Stevens during a committee hearing in the US senate in 2006.
High costs to entry for cable broadband
According to a Wired magazine article by TechFreedom's Berin Szoka, Matthew Starr, and Jon Henke, local governments and public utilities impose the most significant barriers to entry for more cable broadband competition: "While popular arguments focus on supposed 'monopolists' such as big cable companies, it’s government that’s really to blame." The authors state that local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than they actually cost and have the final say on whether an ISP can build a network. The public officials determine what hoops an ISP must jump through to get approval for access to publicly owned "rights of way" (which lets them place their wires), thus reducing the number of potential competitors who can profitably deploy internet service—such as AT&T’s U-Verse, Google Fiber, and Verizon FiOS. Kickbacks may include municipal requirements for ISPs such as building out service where it isn’t demanded, donating equipment, and delivering free broadband to government buildings.
Unnecessary regulations
According to PayPal founder and Facebook investor Peter Thiel, "Net neutrality has not been necessary to date. I don’t see any reason why it’s suddenly become important, when the Internet has functioned quite well for the past 15 years without it.... Government attempts to regulate technology have been extraordinarily counterproductive in the past." Max Levchin, the other co-founder of PayPal, echoed similar statements, telling CNBC, "The Internet is not broken, and it got here without government regulation and probably in part because of lack of government regulation."
Opponents of new federal net neutrality policies point to the success of the internet as a sign that new regulations are not necessary. They argue that the freedom which websites, ISPs and consumers have had to settle their own disputes and compete through innovation is the reason why the internet has been such a rapid success. One of Congress’s most outspoken critics of net neutrality regulations is Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who points out that “innovation [on the internet] is happening without having to go to government and say ‘Mother, may I?’ What happens when the government starts regulating a service as a public utility is it calcifies everything and freezes it in place.” In regulating how the internet is provided, opponents argue that the government will hinder innovation on the web.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who was one of the two commissioners who opposed the net neutrality proposal, criticized the FCC's ruling on internet neutrality, stating that the perceived threats from ISPs to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don’t like are non-existent: "The evidence of these continuing threats? There is none; it’s all anecdote, hypothesis, and hysteria. A small ISP in North Carolina allegedly blocked VoIP calls a decade ago. Comcast capped BitTorrent traffic to ease upload congestion eight years ago. Apple introduced Facetime over Wi-Fi first, cellular networks later. Examples this picayune and stale aren’t enough to tell a coherent story about net neutrality. The bogeyman never had it so easy."
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Reilly, the other opposing commissioner, also claims that the ruling is a solution to a hypothetical problem, "Even after enduring three weeks of spin, it is hard for me to believe that the Commission is establishing an entire Title II/net neutrality regime to protect against hypothetical harms. There is not a shred of evidence that any aspect of this structure is necessary. The D.C. Circuit called the prior, scaled-down version a ‘prophylactic’ approach. I call it guilt by imagination."
In a Chicago Tribune article, FCC Commissioner Pai and Joshua Wright of the Federal Trade Commission argue that "the Internet isn't broken, and we don't need the president's plan to 'fix' it. Quite the opposite. The Internet is an unparalleled success story. It is a free, open and thriving platform."
Related issues
Data discrimination
Tim Wu, though a proponent of network neutrality, claims that the current Internet is not neutral as its implementation of best effort generally favors file transfer and other non-time-sensitive traffic over real-time communications. Generally, a network which blocks some nodes or services for the customers of the network would normally be expected to be less useful to the customers than one that did not. Therefore, for a network to remain significantly non-neutral requires either that the customers not be concerned about the particular non-neutralities or the customers not have any meaningful choice of providers, otherwise they would presumably switch to another provider with fewer restrictions.
While the network neutrality debate continues, network providers often enter into peering arrangements among themselves. These agreements often stipulate how certain information flows should be treated. In addition, network providers often implement various policies such as blocking of port 25 to prevent insecure systems from serving as spam relays, or other ports commonly used by decentralized music search applications implementing peer-to-peer networking models. They also present terms of service that often include rules about the use of certain applications as part of their contracts with users.
Most consumer Internet providers implement policies like these. The MIT Mantid Port Blocking Measurement Project is a measurement effort to characterize Internet port blocking and potentially discriminatory practices. However, the effect of peering arrangements among network providers are only local to the peers that enter into the arrangements, and cannot affect traffic flow outside their scope.
Jon Peha from Carnegie Mellon University believes it is important to create policies that protect users from harmful traffic discrimination, while allowing beneficial discrimination. Peha discusses the technologies that enable traffic discrimination, examples of different types of discrimination, and potential impacts of regulation.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt aligns Google's views on data discrimination with Verizon's: "I want to be clear what we mean by Net neutrality: What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's okay to discriminate across different types. So you could prioritize voice over video. And there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue."
Echoing similar comments by Schmidt, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and "father of the internet", Vint Cerf, says that "it’s entirely possible that some applications needs far more latency, like games. Other applications need broadband streaming capability in order to deliver real-time video. Others don’t really care as long as they can get the bits there, like e-mail or file transfers and things like that. But it should not be the case that the supplier of the access to the network mediates this on a competitive basis, but you may still have different kinds of service depending on what the requirements are for the different applications."
Quality of service
Internet routers forward packets according to the diverse peering and transport agreements that exist between network operators. Many networks using Internet protocols now employ quality of service (QoS), and Network Service Providers frequently enter into Service Level Agreements with each other embracing some sort of QoS.
There is no single, uniform method of interconnecting networks using IP, and not all networks that use IP are part of the Internet. IPTV networks are isolated from the Internet, and are therefore not covered by network neutrality agreements.
The IP datagram includes a 3-bit wide Precedence field and a larger DiffServ Code Point (DSCP) that are used to request a level of service, consistent with the notion that protocols in a layered architecture offer services through Service Access Points. This field is sometimes ignored, especially if it requests a level of service outside the originating network's contract with the receiving network. It is commonly used in private networks, especially those including Wi-Fi networks where priority is enforced. While there are several ways of communicating service levels across Internet connections, such as SIP, RSVP, IEEE 802.11e, and MPLS, the most common scheme combines SIP and DSCP. Router manufacturers now sell routers that have logic enabling them to route traffic for various Classes of Service at "wire-speed".
With the emergence of multimedia, VoIP, IPTV, and other applications that benefit from low latency, various attempts to address the inability of some private networks to limit latency have arisen, including the proposition of offering tiered service levels that would shape Internet transmissions at the network layer based on application type. These efforts are ongoing, and are starting to yield results as wholesale Internet transport providers begin to amend service agreements to include service levels.
Advocates of net neutrality have proposed several methods to implement a net neutral Internet that includes a notion of quality-of-service:
An approach offered by Tim Berners-Lee allows discrimination between different tiers, while enforcing strict neutrality of data sent at each tier: "If I pay to connect to the Net with a given quality of service, and you pay to connect to the net with the same or higher quality of service, then you and I can communicate across the net, with that quality and quantity of service". "[We] each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me."
United States lawmakers have introduced bills that would now allow quality of service discrimination for certain services as long as no special fee is charged for higher-quality service.
Founder of Epic Privacy Browser, Alok Bhardwaj, has argued that net neutrality preservation through legislation is consistent with implementing quality of service protocols. He argues legislation should ban the charging of fees for any quality of service, which would both allow networks to implement quality of service as well as remove any incentive to abuse net neutrality ideas. He argues that since implementing quality of service doesn't require any additional costs versus a non-QoS network, there's no reason implementing quality of service should entail any additional fees. However, the core network hardware needed (with large number of queues, etc.) and the cost of designing and maintaining a QoS network are both much higher than for a non-QoS network.
Pricing models
Broadband Internet access has most often been sold to users based on Excess Information Rate or maximum available bandwidth. If Internet service providers (ISPs) can provide varying levels of service to websites at various prices, this may be a way to manage the costs of unused capacity by selling surplus bandwidth (or "leverage price discrimination to recoup costs of 'consumer surplus). However, purchasers of connectivity on the basis of Committed Information Rate or guaranteed bandwidth capacity must expect the capacity they purchase in order to meet their communications requirements.
Various studies have sought to provide network providers the necessary formulas for adequately pricing such a tiered service for their customer base. But while network neutrality is primarily focused on protocol based provisioning, most of the pricing models are based on bandwidth restrictions.
See also
Concentration of media ownership
Digital rights
Economic rent
Industrial information economy
Killswitch (film)
Municipal broadband
Search neutrality
Switzerland (software)
Wikipedia Zero
References
External links
Technological Neutrality and Conceptual Singularity
Why Consumers Should Be Worried About Net Neutrality
The FCC on Net Neutrality: Be Careful What You Wish For
Internet Policy: Who's Pulling the Strings
Financial backers of pro neutrality groups
- Film advocating in favor of Net Neutrality
Battle for the Net - Website advocating net neutrality by Fight for the Future
Don't Break The Net - Website advocating against net neutrality by TechFreedom with monetary support from telcos.
La Quadrature du NetComplex dossier and links about net neutrality
Category:Internet access |
2016-01 | Jon_Jones-696533630 | Jon_Jones | Jon Jones
Jonathan Dwight "Jon" Jones (born July 19, 1987) is an American mixed martial artist and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He is widely regarded as the best mixed martial arts fighter in the world and as one of the greatest fighters of all time. When he won the title in March 2011 at the age of 23, he became the youngest champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's (UFC) history. He was ranked as the #1 light heavyweight fighter in the world by various media outlets for a number of years, and was also ranked the #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world by multiple publications. However, in April 2015, Jones was stripped of his title and was removed from the official rankings following his arrest on felony hit-and-run charges. He was reinstated into the UFC in October 2015.
Mixed martial arts career
Early career
Before beginning his MMA career, Jones was a stand-out high school wrestler and state champion at Union-Endicott High School in upstate New York. He also played football as a defensive lineman, but due to his slight frame, his coach nicknamed him 'Bones'. He won a national JUCO championship at Iowa Central Community College. After transferring to Morrisville State College he decided to drop out of college where he was studying Criminal Justice, to begin his MMA career.
Jones made his professional MMA debut in April 2008. He amassed an undefeated record of 6–0 over a period of three months, finishing all of his opponents. This brought him to the attention of the UFC, who asked him to take a fight as a late replacement on a two-week notice in July 2008.
In his last bout before signing with the UFC, Jones defeated Moyses Gabin at BCX 5 for the USKBA Light Heavyweight Championship. He won the fight via TKO in the second round.
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Jones's UFC debut came against Andre Gusmão at UFC 87 on August 9, 2008. Jones took the fight on two weeks' notice as a late replacement for Tomasz Drawl. He put on an impressive performance, using takedowns and displaying unorthodox striking, such as spinning elbows and a spinning back kick. Jones took a unanimous decision victory.
In his second fight, Jones fought veteran Stephan Bonnar at UFC 94 on January 31, 2009. Jones showed superior wrestling abilities and executed strong takedowns and powerful throws including a suplex. Again showing unorthodox striking as he had in his debut, Jones secured one of Bonnar's legs and landed a back-elbow that nearly knocked out his opponent during the first round. Although he appeared to tire in the third round, Jones held on to win another unanimous decision victory.
Jones' third fight was against Jake O'Brien at UFC 100 on July 11, 2009. Jones controlled the majority of the fight by stuffing takedown attempts from his opponent. Jones stayed on the outside, exercising his reach advantage and finding his range toward the end of the first round with his right jab and high and low kicks. Halfway through the second round, Jones ducked and spun to deliver another one of his signature back-elbows that struck the top of O'Brien's head. Jones eventually secured a modified guillotine choke which rendered his opponent briefly unconscious just after he tapped.
In September 2009, Jones was rewarded for his victories by signing a new four-fight contract with the UFC.
On December 5, 2009, Jones faced off against fellow light heavyweight prospect Matt Hamill at The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale. Despite dominating the fight, Jones was disqualified for the use of multiple 12-6 elbows. The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts prohibit downward elbow strikes, and Jones was initially only penalized a point from the round. However, because Hamill could not continue due to a dislocated shoulder, Jones was disqualified for these strikes. Consequently, the tape was reviewed and showed that Jones' elbows further damaged Hamill's already bloody and lacerated nose. This marked the first time that Nevada has used its recently enacted instant replay rule, in which the referee's decision was supported by the commission, which utilized a slow-motion replay to review the elbows.
Jones fought Brandon Vera on March 21, 2010, at UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones. He won the fight by TKO (elbow) caused by an elbow to Vera's face followed up with punches in the first round. The elbow delivered to stop the fight also broke Vera's face in three places. Jones also won the "Knockout of the Night" award.
Jones defeated former IFL Light Heavyweight Champion Vladimir Matyushenko by TKO due to elbows in 1:52 of the first round on August 1, 2010, at UFC Live: Jones vs. Matyushenko. UFC President Dana White promised Jones a "huge step-up in the competition", if he managed to defeat Matyushenko.
Following the fight with Matyushenko, White said, "Vladimir Matyushenko is a guy who I have a lot of respect for and I didn't think it was going to happen that easy. Jones is the real deal and he just catapulted himself tonight into the top eight in the world. Tonight solidified it. To go in and do what he did to Vladimir Matyushenko, and make it look as easy as he did tonight, it cements it for me. This kid is one of the top eight in the world in that weight division. He's got to keep his head together, stay focused and keep doing all the right things in training. He's smart, good looking and bad-ass. He's going to make a lot of money -- this kid is going to do very well. Right now in the 205-pound division, all these guys are fighting each other. When the smoke clears and the dust settles, Jon Jones will fight one of the top eight guys in the world for his next fight."
After defeating Matyushenko, Jones stated that he wanted a "top-three opponent" for his next fight.
Jones mentioned in an interview with Inside MMA that he would be facing the winner of Antônio Rogério Nogueira vs. Ryan Bader. Reports that Jones had previously been offered a fight with Nogueira, but had turned down the opportunity, turned out to be false. In the Inside MMA interview, Jones also stated that he had been informed by Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta that if he finished his next two fights, he would likely receive a title shot.
White soon confirmed that Jones would face undefeated Ultimate Fighter winner Ryan Bader, on February 5, 2011, at UFC 126. Jones handed Bader his first professional loss by defeating him via tap-out due to a guillotine choke in the second round after dominating Bader in the first round. Jones was awarded the "Submission of the Night" bonus.
It was revealed that title contender and Jones' training partner Rashad Evans had sustained a knee injury in training, and would not be able to compete in his scheduled match with UFC light heavyweight champion Maurício "Shogun" Rua. Jones was told by Joe Rogan right after his bout had ended that he would replace Evans in the fight for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.
Light Heavyweight Championship
At UFC 128, Jones defeated Rua by TKO at 2:37 of round 3 to become the youngest UFC champion ever. After an early flying knee that badly hurt the champion, Shogun was dominated throughout the three rounds. A body shot and knee to the head dropped the champion to his knees, causing the referee to swiftly step in and halt the bout.
His first title defense was expected to be on August 6, 2011, at UFC 133 against Rashad Evans, his former friend and teammate, but Jones was sidelined with a hand injury. It was initially announced that the hand injury would require surgery, but Jones opted for rest and rehabilitation without surgery after further consultations with doctors. Jones's injury was originally thought to keep him out of action until late 2011, but he instead made his first title defense against Quinton Jackson on September 24, 2011, at UFC 135. Jones defeated Jackson via submission (rear-naked choke) at 1:14 in the 4th round. In the process, he became the first UFC fighter to submit Jackson. Jones has described this as his favourite fight.
Jones vs Evans was in the works for a second time and a bout was targeted for December 10, 2011, at UFC 140. However, a lingering thumb injury cost another title opportunity for Evans, and Jones instead faced Lyoto Machida at the same event.
Despite getting rocked in the first round by Machida, Jones successfully defended the light heavyweight title at UFC 140, stopping Machida at 4:26 of the second round via technical submission (guillotine choke), which caused Machida to collapse unconscious along the cage. This was the first submission loss in Machida's career.
Jones defeated his arch rival and former teammate Rashad Evans via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 50-45) on April 21, 2012, at UFC 145.
During the UFC 145 post fight press conference Dana White confirmed that Jones's next opponent would be Dan Henderson. The Jones-Henderson fight was expected to take place at UFC 151, but an injured Henderson pulled out of the bout, Jones then refused a late replacement fight with Chael Sonnen after his coach Greg Jackson told him with three training days left it would be difficult to prepare. UFC 151 was then subsequently cancelled. It was later reported that Henderson was injured three weeks prior to the announcement but kept the injury under wraps as he was still hoping to compete. However he was ultimately forced to withdraw following a final sparring session to evaluate his condition.
A rematch with Lyoto Machida was then announced for September 22, 2012, at UFC 152. Lyoto Machida, who was not contacted prior to the announcement, rejected the fight due to the lack of time to train before the bout. Jones instead defended the championship against Vitor Belfort on September 22, 2012, at UFC 152. Jones opened as a massive favorite (13-to-1) coming into the bout. Despite almost being submitted via armbar in round one, Jones successfully defended the belt against Belfort, and equaled Chuck Liddell's number of title defenses. Jones also won a $65,000 Submission of the Night bonus for his fourth-round finish of Belfort.
Jones was chosen to coach opposite Chael Sonnen on Season 17 of the Ultimate Fighter. With a bout between the coaches taking place on April 27, 2013, at UFC 159.
Jones displayed a lack of interest in the bout and actively downplayed the contest, making it clear that he did not believe Sonnen was a fit contender. In an interview Sonnen did his best to drum up interest in the bout but Jones gave him the "silent treatment", and refused to make eye contact. Jones made quick work of his challenger, finishing Sonnen via TKO in the first round. However, he dislocated a phalanx (big toe) on his left foot during the fight. With the win, Jones tied Tito Ortiz for having most consecutive title defenses in UFC light heavyweight history.
Consecutive title defenses record (Light Heavyweight championship)
Jones faced Alexander Gustafsson on September 21, 2013, at UFC 165. Jones was badly cut above the eye during the first round, but he continued and eventually won the back-and-forth fight via a controversial unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, and 49-46). After the match, Jones said Gustafsson gave him the toughest fight of his career and the champion and challenger were both sent to the hospital for the injuries. Both men suffered lacerations and facial swelling, though Jones' appeared to be worse for the wear. Both men were released from the hospital with no broken bones or serious injuries. The bout also earned both men the Fight of the Night bonus award. The match received numerous positive characterizations: "an epic battle", "instant-classic", "Fight of the Year", "Greatest light heavyweight title fight of all-time", "one of the greatest fights in UFC history".
Jones was expected to face Glover Teixeira on February 1, 2014 at UFC 169. However, on October 7, UFC President Dana White stated the announcement for this fight on that card was premature and that Jones and Teixeira would face each other on a different card. On November 13, 2013 it was announced that Jones would fight Glover Teixeira at UFC 170, scheduled for February 22, 2014, however the next day it was announced that the match had been scratched from the card. On December 4, 2013 it was announced that Jones and Teixeira would face each other at UFC 171 on March 15, 2014 in Dallas, Texas, however, the fight was moved again. Jones and Teixeira finally fought on April 26, 2014 at UFC 172.
Jones won the bout via unanimous decision.
On April 27, 2014, UFC President Dana White confirmed that a rematch with the champion Jon Jones would be next for Gustafsson, and stated the possibility of the match taking place in a stadium in Sweden on pay-per-view. On May 24, 2014 it was indicated that the rematch would take place in Las Vegas on August 30, 2014 at UFC 177. The statement, and the time and venue, wasn't official however, since Gustafsson was the only one who still had agreed to take the fight. On June 2, the fight was still on hold, and UFC President Dana White explained the situation as: "Jones doesn't want to fight Gustafsson", Jones instead expressed his preference for fighting Daniel Cormier.
On June 5, 2014, the UFC confirmed that the Jones/Gustafsson rematch would take place on September 27, 2014, at UFC 178. However, Gustafsson was forced to pull out of the bout due to a torn meniscus. Jones was then expected to face replacement Daniel Cormier at UFC 178. On August 12, 2014, it was announced that Jones had sustained a leg injury in training, forcing him out of UFC 178 in his scheduled fight against Cormier. The bout was rescheduled and eventually took place on January 3, 2015 at UFC 182. Jones won the fight by unanimous decision, losing only one round to Cormier (49-46, 49-46, 49-46). He also became the first person to take Cormier down, scoring three takedowns in total. The win also earned Jones his fourth Fight of the Night bonus award. It was later revealed that Jones failed a drug test one month prior to the event, as he tested positive for cocaine. (see below in Controversies)
Stripped of title
Jones was expected to defend his title against Anthony Johnson on May 23, 2015, at UFC 187. However, on April 28, he was stripped of the belt and suspended from the UFC indefinitely in connection with a hit-and-run incident that he was involved in. Cormier, who lost against Jones at UFC 182 in January 2015, replaced him and went on to defeat Anthony Johnson to become the new UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.
On October 23, 2015, the UFC announced that Jones had been reinstated to the active roster, nearly six months after his suspension was announced. He is expected to have a fight scheduled in 2016, though an opponent, exact date and potential event have yet to be determined by the promotion.
Jon Jones was reinstated in the official UFC pound-for-pound rankings in November 2015.
Training
Jones initially trained with Team BombSquad out of Cortland, New York, then briefly with the Tristar Gym in Montreal, Canada and most recently at Jackson's MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Personal life
Jones and his fiancée Jessie have three daughters: Leah, who was born on July 11, 2008; Carmen Nicole Jones, born in December 2009, who was named after his late sister, Carmen; and a third daughter, Olivia Haven, born in 2013. Jones is a professed Christian, and has "Philippians 4:13" tattooed on the right side of his chest.
Jon's older brother, Arthur is an American football defensive lineman for the Indianapolis Colts. Jones's younger brother, Chandler, is a defensive lineman for the New England Patriots. His older sister, Carmen, died of brain cancer before her eighteenth birthday.
On March 19, 2011, Jones was en route to Great Falls Historic Park in Paterson, New Jersey, where he planned to meditate several hours ahead of his fight against Maurício "Shogun" Rua at UFC 128. He was accompanied by his coaches Mike Winkeljohn and Greg Jackson. As their driver prepared to drop them off, Jones observed an elderly couple screaming for help. The woman informed Winkeljohn that a man had smashed her car window and had run off with her GPS. Jones, along with his two coaches, chased after the robber, caught and tripped him, and held him down until the police arrived.
On August 8, 2012, Jones became the first mixed martial artist to be sponsored by Nike on an international scale. Anderson Silva and Yoshihiro Akiyama have signed regional deals with Nike in the past, but Jones was the first to represent Nike globally. He is also the first fighter in MMA history to have his own shoe line. Jones was the first MMA fighter to represent Gatorade and MuscleTech in the Octagon.
On December 16, 2014, it was announced that Jones signed a sponsorship deal with Reebok. However, on April 29, 2015, Reebok terminated their sponsorship with Jones effective immediately following Jones's involvement in a hit-and-run incident. A day later, Jones lost his sponsorship with MuscleTech for the same reasons.
Controversies
On December 5, 2009, in his bout with Matt Hamill, Jon Jones was disqualified for using illegal elbows. However, despite instant replay being used to make the decision, Dana White still claimed the loss should not have counted and should have been a no contest.
In the early morning of May 19, 2012, Jones drove his Bentley Continental GT into a pole in Binghamton, New York. Jones was arrested for driving under the influence and was bailed out several hours later by his mother. He pled guilty to DUI charges and ended up paying a $1,000 fine, installing ignition interlocks on all of his vehicles, had to complete a victims impact class, and had his drivers license suspended for six months.
UFC 151, scheduled to occur on September 1, 2012, was cancelled due to Jon Jones declining to fight Chael Sonnen, a last-minute replacement for Dan Henderson. In the 19-year history of the UFC, it was the first card to ever be cancelled. Dana White went on record saying, "this is one of the most selfish, disgusting decisions that doesn't just affect you. This is affecting 16 other lives, their families, kids are going back to school. The list goes on and on of all the things, the money that was spent for fighters to train and the list goes on and on. Like I said, I don't think this is going to make Jon Jones popular with the fans, sponsors, cable distributors, television network executives or other fighters."
Jones has been criticized for repeatedly poking his opponents in the eyes. In response to the criticism, Jones released a video over Instagram in which he mocked fans by crying like a baby, which has since been deleted. Dana White went on record stating, "we've got to stop that stuff. The openings of the hands and putting the hands on the face are something bad, but it happens with guys who have reach. They do that a lot." White later clarified his point, saying, "It's not just taller fighters. Jones has that range and he can do it, but lots of guys do it because that’s how you block punches. So you keep your hands open and you slap punches down. Then guys are rushing in and you’re doing whatever, and guys get poked in the eyes." He also noted that in the fight against Glover Teixeira, after Jones was warned about the behavior, he was more careful to avoid any eye pokes throughout the rest of the fight. He also stated Jones would likely not receive any credit for that from detractors. Jones later responded to the controversy in an interview, saying, "I realize that I do it. I realize the criticism that I got from it. It’s not on purpose. If you watch my fights, a lot of the times when guys get poked in the eyes, it’s me extending my arm in a reactionary way. I do put a hand on people’s foreheads to maintain distance. That’s what you saw in the Teixeira fight, but to say I am purposely poking people in the eye, it’s just inaccurate. You can call it what you want."
On April 14, 2014, Jones was accused of writing homophobic slurs to a Swedish man over Instagram. In response, Jones said his phone was stolen and his account was hacked.
During a promotional event for UFC 178, Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier got into a brawl that was sparked by Jones pressing his forehead against Cormier's during a staredown which prompted Cormier to shove Jones by the throat. Both fighters had to be restrained by event organizers. UFC chief legal officer Kirk Hendrick said "there are going to be ramifications". In addition, the Nevada State Athletic Commission requested a copy of the altercation. On September 23, 2014, Jones was given a $50,000 fine and 40 hours of community service in Las Vegas by the Nevada Athletic Commission for his actions during the media day. During the disciplinary hearing due to an altercation with Cormier, Jones claimed he had lost his six-figure endorsement deal with Nike. He later admitted to having fabricated the statement.
On January 6, 2015, it was announced that Jones failed a drug test prior to UFC 182. He tested positive for benzoylecgonine, the primary metabolite of cocaine. Because benzoylecgonine is not banned out-of-competition by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the NSAC could not halt Jones from fighting at UFC 182. He was randomly tested on December 3, 2014 and results came back on December 23, 2014. A week after his first test, Jones was tested again. He passed the second test, which meant that the cocaine metabolite was out of his system before the fight. When the news was made public, Jones went into rehab for one night. He was fined $25,000 on January 17 for violating the UFC's Athlete Code of Conduct policy. On January 19, 2015, Jones was interviewed for the first time since the failed drug test and said: "...I'm not a cocaine addict by any means or not even a frequent user. I just made a really dumb decision and got caught with my pants down in this whole situation."
Hit-and-run incident
On April 27, 2015, it was confirmed by police in Albuquerque, New Mexico that Jones was being sought in connection with a hit-and-run early the previous morning. Jones was alleged to have run a red light and crashed his rental car in a collision involving two other vehicles. Jones allegedly fled the scene of the crash on foot, leaving an injured pregnant woman behind in another vehicle. The accident was witnessed by an off-duty police officer who identified the suspect as an African American man wearing a white shirt and dark pants, which he believed was Jones. According to witnesses, the man described as Jones then returned to the scene to grab cash from the vehicle before fleeing again. Paperwork found in the car was under the name of "Jonathan Jones". Inside the silver Buick SUV, law enforcement found a pipe of marijuana with marijuana inside of it. Though initially wanted for questioning that could have resulted in a simple misdemeanor, Jones' charges were elevated to a felony on April 27 for injuring a person and purposely leaving the scene of an accident.
An arrest warrant was issued against Jones and surrender arrangements were made between law enforcement and Jones' lawyers. That evening, Jones turned himself in to the Albuquerque Police Department. Later that evening, Jones posted bail of $2,500 and left the Bernalillo County Metro Detention Center. He made a court appearance on April 28 and did not enter a plea. The judge lifted any travel restrictions, and Jones was allowed to remain free, as long as he remained in contact with his lawyer and followed certain conditions. With a pending UFC fight still in his contract, UFC President Dana White and Zuffa, LLC owner Lorenzo Fertitta travelled to New Mexico from Las Vegas to meet with Jones in person. Jones apologized to his fans on Twitter by saying, "Got a lot of soul searching to do. Sorry to everyone I've let down." That same day, the UFC stripped Jones of the title, removed him from the official rankings, and suspended him indefinitely. In an official statement released that day, the UFC stated that Jones was stripped from his belt for violating the Athlete Code of Conduct Policy. The UFC believed that this was the right move because it gave Jones enough time to focus on his legal problems, but said that they would remain supportive of Jones during the process.
On September 29, 2015, Jones plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was subsequently sentenced to up to 18 months of supervised probation. He was authorized to travel for work-related purposes. If Jones can meet all of his conditions, which include 72 separate appearances for charity or youth outreach, he will avoid a felony charge on his record.
Championships and accomplishments
Mixed martial arts
Ultimate Fighting Championship
UFC Light Heavyweight Championship (One time)
Most successful light heavyweight title defenses in UFC history (8)
Most consecutive light heavyweight title defenses in UFC history (8)
Fight of the Night (Four times) vs. Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Alexander Gustafsson and Daniel Cormier
Knockout of the Night (One time) vs. Brandon Vera
Submission of the Night (Two times) vs. Ryan Bader, Vitor Belfort
Third most consecutive title defenses in UFC history (8) behind Georges St-Pierre (9) and Anderson Silva (10)
Most submission victories in UFC light heavyweight history (5)
Longest win streak in UFC light heavyweight history (12)
Youngest fighter to win a UFC championship (23 years, 242 days)
Tied for most wins in the UFC light heavyweight division (15)
Fight of the Year (2013) vs. Alexander Gustafsson
United States Kickboxing Association
USKBA Light Heavyweight Championship (One time)
Sherdog
2009 Breakthrough Fighter of the Year
2010 All-Violence 1st Team
2011 All-Violence 1st Team
2011 Beatdown of the Year for win over Maurício Rua
2011 Fighter of the Year
2012 All-Violence 1st Team
2013 All-Violence 1st Team
2013 Fight of the Year (vs Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame
World MMA Awards
2010 Breakthrough Fighter of the Year
2011 Fighter of the Year
2012 Fighter of the Year
2013 Fight of the Year vs. Alexander Gustafsson on September 21
MMAFighting.com
2013 Fight of the Year vs. Alexander Gustafsson on September 21
MMAInsider.net
2013 Fight of the Year (vs Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
FoxSports.com
2013 Fight of the Year (vs Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
Yahoo! Sports
2013 Fight of the Year (vs. Alexander Gustafsson)(UFC 165)
MMAWeekly.com
2013 Fight of the Year (vs.Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
MMAjunkie.com
2013 Fight of the Year (vs.Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
2015 January Fight of the Month vs. Daniel Cormier
ESPN
2011 Fighter of the Year
2013 Fight of the Year (vs. Alexander Gustafsson) (UFC 165)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
2014 Feud of the Year vs. Daniel Cormier
2011 Most Outstanding Fighter
Spike Guys' Choice Awards
2011 Most Dangerous Man
FIGHT! Magazine
2009 Newcomer of the Year
Amateur wrestling
National Junior College Athletic Association
NJCAA Junior Collegiate Championship out of Iowa Central Community College (2006)
NJCAA All-American out of Iowa Central Community College (2006)
National High School Coaches Association
NHSCA Senior All-American (2005)
New York State Public High School Athletic Association
NYSPHSAA Division I State Championship out of Union-Endicott High School (2005)
USA Wrestling
Northeast Junior Greco-Roman Regional Championship (2004)
Mixed martial arts record
|-
| Win
| align=center|21–1
|Daniel Cormier
|Decision (unanimous)
|UFC 182
|
|align=center|5
|align=center|5:00
|Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center|20–1
|Glover Teixeira
| Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 172
|
|align=center| 5
|align=center| 5:00
| Baltimore, Maryland, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center|19–1
|Alexander Gustafsson
|Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 165
|
|align=center| 5
|align=center| 5:00
| Toronto, Ontario, Canada
|
|-
| Win
|align=center|18–1
| Chael Sonnen
| TKO (elbows and punches)
| UFC 159
|
|align=center|1
|align=center|4:33
| Newark, New Jersey, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 17–1
| Vitor Belfort
| Submission (americana)
| UFC 152
|
|align=center| 4
|align=center| 0:54
| Toronto, Ontario, Canada
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 16–1
| Rashad Evans
| Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 145
|
|align=center| 5
|align=center| 5:00
| Atlanta, Georgia, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 15–1
| Lyoto Machida
| Technical Submission (standing guillotine choke)
| UFC 140
|
|align=center| 2
|align=center| 4:26
| Toronto, Ontario, Canada
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 14–1
| Quinton Jackson
| Submission (rear-naked choke)
| UFC 135
|
|align=center| 4
|align=center| 1:14
| Denver, Colorado, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 13–1
| Maurício Rua
| TKO (punches and knees)
| UFC 128
|
|align=center| 3
|align=center| 2:37
| Newark, New Jersey, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 12–1
| Ryan Bader
| Submission (guillotine choke)
| UFC 126
|
|align=center| 2
|align=center| 4:20
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 11–1
| Vladimir Matyushenko
| TKO (elbows)
| UFC Live: Jones vs. Matyushenko
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 1:52
| San Diego, California, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 10–1
| Brandon Vera
| TKO (elbow and punches)
| UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 3:19
| Broomfield, Colorado, United States
|
|-
| Loss
|align=center| 9–1
| Matt Hamill
| DQ (12-6 elbows)
|The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 4:14
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 9–0
| Jake O'Brien
| Submission (guillotine choke)
| UFC 100
|
|align=center| 2
|align=center| 2:43
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 8–0
| Stephan Bonnar
| Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 94
|
|align=center| 3
|align=center| 5:00
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 7–0
| André Gusmão
| Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 87
|
|align=center| 3
|align=center| 5:00
| Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 6–0
| Moyses Gabin
| TKO (punches)
| Battle Cage Xtreme 5
|
|align=center| 2
|align=center| 1:58
| Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 5–0
| Parker Porter
| KO (punch)
| World Championship Fighting 3
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 0:36
| Wilmington, Massachusetts, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 4–0
| Ryan Verrett
| TKO (punches)
| USFL: War in the Woods 3
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 0:14
| Ledyard, Connecticut, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 3–0
| Anthony Pina
| Submission (guillotine choke)
| Ice Fighter
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 1:15
| Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 2–0
| Carlos Eduardo
| KO (punch)
| Battle Cage Xtreme 4
|
|align=center| 3
|align=center| 0:24
| Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States
|
|-
| Win
|align=center| 1–0
| Brad Bernard
| TKO (punches)
| FFP: Untamed 20
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 1:32
| Boxborough, Massachusetts, United States
|
See also
List of current UFC fighters
List of male mixed martial artists
References
External links
Jonny Bones Jones Official Site
Official UFC Profile
Jon Jones profile at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame
|-
Category:1987 births
Category:Living people
Category:African-American Christians
Category:African-American mixed martial artists
Category:American mixed martial artists
Category:American Muay Thai practitioners
Category:American sport wrestlers
Category:Light heavyweight mixed martial artists
Category:Mixed martial artists from New York
Category:American sportspeople in doping cases
Category:Doping cases in mixed martial arts
Category:Sportspeople from Rochester, New York
Category:Ultimate Fighting Championship champions
Category:People from Endicott, New York |
2016-01 | Christopher_Nolan-697649557 | Christopher_Nolan | Christopher Nolan
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (; born 30 July 1970) is an English-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His nine films have grossed over US$4.2 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 26 Oscar nominations and seven awards.
Having made his directorial debut with Following (1998), Nolan gained considerable attention for his second feature, Memento (2000). The acclaim of these independent films gave Nolan the opportunity to make the big-budget thriller Insomnia (2002), and the mystery drama The Prestige (2006). He found further popular and critical success with the The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014). Nolan has co-written several of his films with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife Emma Thomas.
Nolan's films are rooted in philosophical, sociological and ethical concepts, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. His body of work is permeated by metafictive elements, temporal shifts, solipsistic perspectives, nonlinear storytelling, practical special effects, and analogous relationships between visual language and narrative elements.
Early life
Nolan was born in London. His English father, Brendan James Nolan, was an advertising executive, and his American mother, Christina (née Jensen), worked as a flight attendant and English teacher. His childhood was split between London and Chicago, and he has both British and American citizenship. He has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger brother, Jonathan.
He began making films at age seven, borrowing his father's Super 8 camera and shooting short films with his action figures. Growing up, Nolan was a great admirer of Star Wars (1977), and around the age of eight he made a stop motion animation homage called Space Wars. His uncle who worked at NASA, building guidance systems for the Apollo rockets, sent him some launch footage. "I re-filmed them off the screen and cut them in, thinking no-one would notice," Nolan later remarked. From the age of 11, he aspired to be a professional filmmaker.
Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, and later read English literature at University College London (UCL). He chose UCL specifically for its filmmaking facilities, which comprised a Steenbeck editing suite and 16 mm film cameras. Nolan was president of the Union's Film Society, and with Emma Thomas (his girlfriend and future producer) he screened 35 mm feature films during the school year and used the money earned to produce 16 mm films over the summers.
During his college years, Nolan made two short films. The first was the surreal 8 mm Tarantella (1989), which was shown on Image Union (an independent film and video showcase on the Public Broadcasting Service). The second was Larceny (1995), filmed over a weekend in black and white with a limited cast, crew, and equipment. Funded by Nolan and shot with the society's equipment, it appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts.
Career
1990s
After graduation, Nolan directed corporate videos and industrial films. He also made a third short, Doodlebug (1997), about a man chasing an insect around a flat with a shoe, only to discover when killing it that it is a miniature of himself. During this period of his career, Nolan had little or no success getting his projects off the ground; he later recalled the "stack of rejection letters" that greeted his early forays into making films, adding "there's a very limited pool of finance in the UK. To be honest, it's a very clubby kind of place ... Never had any support whatsoever from the British film industry."
In 1998 Nolan directed his first feature, which he personally funded and filmed with friends. Following depicts an unemployed young writer (Jeremy Theobald) who trails strangers through London, hoping they will provide material for his first novel, but is drawn into a criminal underworld when he fails to keep his distance. The film was inspired by Nolan's experience of living in London and having his flat burgled: "There is an interesting connection between a stranger going through your possessions and the concept of following people at random through a crowd – both take you beyond the boundaries of ordinary social relations". Following was made on a modest budget of £3,000, and was shot on weekends over the course of a year. To conserve film stock, each scene in the film was rehearsed extensively to ensure that the first or second take could be used in the final edit. Co-produced with Emma Thomas and Jeremy Theobald, Nolan wrote, photographed and edited the film himself. Following won several awards during its festival run and was well received by critics; The New Yorker wrote that it "echoed Hitchcock classics", but was "leaner and meaner". On 11 December 2012, it was released on DVD and Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection.
2000s
As a result of Followings success, Nolan was afforded the opportunity to make his breakthrough hit Memento (2000). During a road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles, his brother Jonathan pitched the idea for "Memento Mori", about a man with anterograde amnesia who uses notes and tattoos to hunt for his wife's murderer. Nolan developed a screenplay that told the story in reverse; Aaron Ryder, an executive for Newmarket Films, said it was "perhaps the most innovative script I had ever seen". The film was optioned and given a budget of $4.5 million. Memento, starring Guy Pearce and Carrie-Anne Moss, premiered in September 2000 at the Venice International Film Festival to critical acclaim. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote in his review, "I can't remember when a movie has seemed so clever, strangely affecting and slyly funny at the very same time." Basil Smith, in the book The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, draws a comparison with John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding which argues that conscious memories constitute our identities, a theme which Nolan explores in the film. The film was a box-office success and received a number of accolades, including Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for its screenplay, Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination. Memento was considered by numerous critics to be one of the best films of the 2000s.
Impressed by his work on Memento, Steven Soderbergh recruited Nolan to direct the psychological thriller Insomnia (2002), starring Academy Award winners Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. Warner Bros. initially wanted a more seasoned director, but Soderbergh and his Section Eight Productions fought for Nolan, as well as his choice of cinematographer (Wally Pfister) and editor (Dody Dorn). With a $46 million budget, it was described as "a much more conventional Hollywood film than anything the director has done before". A remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, Insomnia is about two Los Angeles detectives sent to a northern Alaskan town to investigate the methodical murder of a local teenager. It received positive reviews from critics and performed well at the box office, earning $113 million worldwide. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the film for introducing new perspectives and ideas on the issues of morality and guilt. "Unlike most remakes, the Nolan Insomnia is not a pale retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a good play." Erik Skjoldbjærg, the director of the original film, was satisfied with Nolan's version, calling it a "well crafted, smart film ... with a really good director handling it". Richard Schickel of Time deemed Insomnia a "worthy successor" to Memento, and "a triumph of atmosphere over a none-too-mysterious mystery."
After Insomnia, Nolan planned a Howard Hughes biographical film starring Jim Carrey. He had written a screenplay, but when he learned that Martin Scorsese was making a Hughes biopic (2004's The Aviator) he reluctantly tabled his script and moved on to other projects. Having turned down an offer to direct the historical epic Troy (2004), Nolan worked on adapting Ruth Rendell's crime novel The Keys to the Street into a screenplay which he planned to direct for Fox Searchlight Pictures, but eventually left the project citing the similarities to his previous films. In early 2003, Nolan approached Warner Bros. with the idea to make a new Batman film. Fascinated by the character and story, he wanted to make a film grounded in a "relatable" world more reminiscent of a classical drama than a comic-book fantasy. Batman Begins, the biggest project Nolan had undertaken to that point, premiered in June 2005 to both critical acclaim and commercial success. Starring Christian Bale in the title role, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Liam Neeson, the film revived the franchise, heralding a trend towards darker films which rebooted (or retold) backstories. It tells the origin story of the character from Bruce Wayne's initial fear of bats, the death of his parents, his journey to become Batman, and his fight against Ra's al Ghul's plot to destroy Gotham City. Praised for its psychological depth and contemporary relevance, Kyle Smith of The New York Post called it "a wake-up call to the people who keep giving us cute capers about men in tights. It wipes the smirk off the face of the superhero movie." Batman Begins was the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2005 in the United States and the year's ninth-highest-grossing film worldwide. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and three BAFTA awards.
Before returning to the Batman franchise, Nolan directed, co-wrote and produced The Prestige (2006), an adaptation of the Christopher Priest novel about two rival 19th-century magicians. In 2001, when Nolan was in post-production for Insomnia, he asked his brother Jonathan to help write the script for the film. The screenplay was an intermittent, five-year collaboration between the brothers. Nolan initially intended to make the film as early as 2003, postponing the project after agreeing to make Batman Begins. Starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in the lead roles, The Prestige received critical acclaim (including Oscar nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction), and earned over $109 million worldwide. With a dark and twisting tale, Roger Ebert described it as "quite a movie — atmospheric, obsessive, almost satanic."
In July 2006 Nolan announced that the follow-up to Batman Begins would be called The Dark Knight. Approaching the sequel, Nolan wanted to expand on the noirish quality of the first film by broadening the canvas and taking on "the dynamic of a story of the city, a large crime story ... where you're looking at the police, the justice system, the vigilante, the poor people, the rich people, the criminals." Released in 2008, to great critical acclaim, The Dark Knight has been cited as one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever made. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times found the film to be of higher artistic merit than many Hollywood blockbusters: "Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind." Ebert expressed a similar point of view, describing it as a "haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy." The film set a number of box-office records during its theatrical run, earning $534,858,444 in North America and $469,700,000 abroad, for a worldwide total of $1,004,558,444. The Dark Knight is the first feature film shot partially in the 15/70 mm IMAX format. At the 81st Academy Awards the film was nominated for eight Oscars, winning two: the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing and a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger. Nolan was recognised by his peers with nominations from the DGA, Writers Guild of America (WGA), and Producers Guild of America (PGA).
2010s
After The Dark Knights success, Warner Bros. signed Nolan to direct Inception. Nolan also wrote and co-produced the film, described as "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind". Before being released in theaters, critics like Peter Travers and Lou Lumenick wondered if Nolan's faith in moviegoers' intelligence would cost him at the box office. Starring a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film was released on 16 July 2010, and was a critical and commercial success. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times, awarded the film a perfect score of "A+" and called it "one of the best movies of the [21st] century." Mark Kermode named it the best film of 2010, stating "Inception is proof that people are not stupid, that cinema is not trash, and that it is possible for blockbusters and art to be the same thing." Veteran producer John Davis speculated that its success could inspire studios to make more original content; "I can promise you that heads of studios are already going into production meetings saying we need fresh ideas for summer movies, we want original concepts like Inception that are big and bold enough to carry themselves". The film ended up grossing over $820 million worldwide and was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture; it won Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. Nolan also received BAFTA, Golden Globe, DGA and PGA Award nominations, as well as a WGA Award for his work on the film. While in post-production on Inception, Nolan gave an interview for These Amazing Shadows (2011), a documentary spotlighting film appreciation and preservation by the National Film Registry. He also appeared in Side by Side (2012), a documentary about the history, process and workflow of both digital and photochemical film creation.
In 2012, Nolan directed his third and final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. Although he was initially hesitant about returning to the series, he agreed to come back after developing a story with his brother and David S. Goyer which he felt would end the series on a high note. The Dark Knight Rises was released on 20 July 2012 to critical acclaim; Andrew O'Hehir of Salon called it "arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling and disturbing and utterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen", further describing the work as "auteurist spectacle on a scale never before possible and never before attempted". Christy Lemire of The Associated Press wrote in her review that Nolan concluded his trilogy in a "typically spectacular, ambitious fashion", but disliked the "overloaded" story and excessive grimness; "This is the problem when you're an exceptional, visionary filmmaker. When you give people something extraordinary, they expect it every time. Anything short of that feels like a letdown." Like its predecessor it performed well at the box office, becoming the thirteenth film in the world to gross over $1-billion. During a midnight showing of the film at the Century 16 cinema in Aurora, Colorado, a gunman opened fire inside the theater, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others. Nolan released a statement to the press expressing his condolences for the victims of what he described as a senseless tragedy.
During story discussions for The Dark Knight Rises in 2010, Goyer told Nolan of his idea to present Superman in a modern context. Impressed with Goyer's concept, Nolan pitched the idea for Man of Steel (2013) to Warner Bros, who hired Nolan to produce and Goyer to write. Nolan offered Zack Snyder to direct the film, based on his stylized adaptations of 300 (2007) and Watchmen (2009) and his "innate aptitude for dealing with superheroes as real characters". Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Kevin Costner and Michael Shannon, Man of Steel grossed more than $660 million at the worldwide box office, but garnered a divisive critical reaction. Nolan and Thomas also served as executive producers on Transcendence (2014), the directorial debut of Nolan's longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister. Based on a script by Jack Paglen, the film revolves around two scientists who work toward creating a machine that possesses sentience and collective intelligence. Starring Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany, Transcendence was released in theaters on 2014 to mostly unfavorable reviews. A. A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave the film a C- rating, pointing out that "[Pfister] lacks Nolan's talent for weaving grand pop spectacle out of cultural anxieties."
In January 2013 it was announced that Nolan would direct, write and produce a science-fiction film entitled Interstellar. The first drafts of the script were written by Jonathan Nolan, and it was originally to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the scientific theories of renowned theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, the film depicted "a heroic interstellar voyage to the farthest borders of our scientific understanding". Interstellar starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Michael Caine and Ellen Burstyn, and was notably Nolan's first collaboration with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema. Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. co-financed and co-distributed the project, released on 5 November 2014 to positive reviews and strong box office results, grossing over $670 million worldwide. Interstellar was particularly praised for its scientific accuracy, which led to the publication of two scientific papers and the American Journal of Physics calling for it to be shown in school science lessons. Interstellar was named one of the best films of the year by The American Film Institute (AFI). At the 87th Academy Awards, the film won the Best Visual Effects and received four other nominations — Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Production Design. Nolan curated the short film Emic: A Time Capsule From the People of Earth (2015). It was specifically inspired by the themes of Interstellar, and "attempts to capture and celebrate the human experience on Earth".
In 2015, Nolan's production company Syncopy formed a joint venture with Zeitgeist Films, to release Blu-ray editions of Zeitgeist's prestige titles. Their first project was Elena (2011) from director Andrey Zvyagintsev. As part of a Blu-ray release of the Quay Brothers animated work, Nolan directed the documentary short Quay (2015). He also initiated a theatrical tour, showcasing the Quay's In Absentia, The Comb and Street of Crocodiles. The program and Nolan's short received critical acclaim, with Indiewire writing in their review that the brothers "will undoubtedly have hundreds, if not thousands more fans because of Nolan, and for that The Quay Brothers in 35mm will always be one of latter's most important contributions to cinema". In 2015, Nolan also joined The Film Foundation's board of directors, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation. On 7 May, it was announced that Nolan and Martin Scorsese had been appointed by the Library of Congress to serve on the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) as DGA representatives.
Future work
Nolan and Thomas are executive producers on the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), the sequel to Man of Steel and the second installment of the DC Extended Universe. According to producer Charles Roven, Nolan is involved with the production in an "advisory capacity".
On December 28, 2015, it was announced that Nolan would direct a film on World War II, titled Dunkirk, based on his own original screenplay.
Filmmaking
Style
Regarded as an auteur and postmodern filmmaker, Nolan's visual style emphasises urban settings, men in suits, muted colors, dialogue scenes framed in wide close-up with a shallow depth of field and modern locations and architecture. He has noted that all of his films are heavily influenced by film noir.
Nolan has continuously experimented with metafictive elements, temporal shifts, elliptical cutting, solipsistic perspectives, nonlinear storytelling and the merging of style and form. Discussing The Tree of Life (2011), Nolan spoke of Terrence Malick's work and how it has influenced his own approach to style, "When you think of a visual style, when you think of the visual language of a film, there tends to be a natural separation of the visual style and the narrative elements. But with the greats, whether it's Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick or Hitchcock, what you're seeing is an inseparable, a vital relationship between the image and the story it's telling".
Drawing attention to the intrinsically manipulative nature of the medium, Nolan uses narrative and stylistic techniques (notably mise en abyme and recursions) to stimulate the viewer to ask themselves why his films are put together in such ways and why the films provoke particular responses. He often uses editing as a way to represent the characters' psychological states, merging their subjectivity with that of the audience. For example, in Memento the fragmented sequential order of scenes is to put the audience into a similar experience of Leonard's defective ability to create new long-term memories. In The Prestige, the series of magic tricks and themes of duality and deception mirror the structural narrative of the film.
The protagonists of Nolan's films are usually psychologically damaged, obsessively seeking vengeance for the death of a loved one. They are often driven by philosophical beliefs, and their fate is ambiguous. In many of his films the protagonist and antagonist are mirror images of each other, a point which is made to the protagonist by the antagonist. Through these clashings of ideologies, Nolan highlights the ambivalent nature of truth. His writing style incorporates a number of storytelling techniques such as flashbacks, shifting points of view and unreliable narrators. Scenes are often interrupted by the unconventional editing style of cutting away quickly from the money shot (or nearly cutting off characters' dialogue) and crosscutting several scenes of parallel action to build to a climax. Nolan has also stressed the importance of establishing a clear point of view in his films, and makes frequent use of "the shot that walks into a room behind a character, because ... that takes [the viewer] inside the way that the character enters".
Nolan uses cinéma-vérité techniques (such as hand-held camera work) to convey realism. In an interview at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Nolan explained his emphasis on realism in The Dark Knight trilogy: "You try and get the audience to invest in cinematic reality. When I talk about reality in these films, it's often misconstrued as a direct reality, but it's really about a cinematic reality."
Method
Nolan has described his filmmaking process as a combination of intuition and geometry. "I draw a lot of diagrams when I work. I do a lot of thinking about etchings by Escher, for instance. That frees me, finding a mathematical model or a scientific model. I'll draw pictures and diagrams that illustrate the movement or the rhythm that I'm after." He also deliberately works under a tight schedule during the early stages of the editing process, forcing himself and his editor to work more spontaneously. "I always think of editing as instinctive or impressionist. Not to think too much, in a way, and feel it more." Nolan also avoids using temp music while cutting his films.
He prefers shooting on film to digital video, and opposes the use of digital intermediates and digital cinematography, which he feels are less reliable and offer inferior image quality to film. In particular, the director advocates for the use of higher-quality, larger-format film stock such as anamorphic 35 mm, VistaVision, 65 mm and IMAX. Nolan uses multi-camera for stunts and single-camera for all the dramatic action, from which he will then watch dailies every night; "Shooting single-camera means I've already seen every frame as it's gone through the gate because my attention isn't divided to multi-cameras."
When working with actors, Nolan prefers giving them the time to perform as many takes of a given scene as they want. "I've come to realize that the lighting and camera setups, the technical things, take all the time, but running another take generally only adds a couple of minutes. ... If an actor tells me they can do something more with a scene, I give them the chance, because it's not going to cost that much time. It can't all be about the technical issues." Gary Oldman praised the director for providing a relaxed atmosphere on set, adding "I've never seen him raise his voice to anyone". He also observed that Nolan would give the actors space to "find things in the scene", and not just give direction for direction's sake.
Nolan chooses to minimize the amount of computer-generated imagery for special effects in his films, preferring to use practical effects whenever possible, only using CGI to enhance elements which he has photographed in camera. For instance his films Batman Begins, Inception and Interstellar featured 620, 500 and 850 visual-effects shots, respectively, which is considered minor when compared with contemporary visual-effects epics which may have upwards of 1,500 to 2,000 VFX shots: "I believe in an absolute difference between animation and photography. However sophisticated your computer-generated imagery is, if it's been created from no physical elements and you haven't shot anything, it's going to feel like animation. There are usually two different goals in a visual effects movie. One is to fool the audience into seeing something seamless, and that's how I try to use it. The other is to impress the audience with the amount of money spent on the spectacle of the visual effect, and that, I have no interest in".
Nolan shoots the entirety of his films with one unit, rather than using a second unit for action sequences. In that way Nolan keeps his personality and point of view in every aspect of the film. "If I don't need to be directing the shots that go in the movie, why do I need to be there at all? The screen is the same size for every shot ... Many action films embrace a second unit taking on all of the action. For me, that's odd because then why did you want to do an action film?" A famously secretive filmmaker, Nolan is also known for his tight security on scripts, even going as far as telling the actors of The Dark Knight Rises the ending of the film verbally to avoid any leaks and also keeping the Interstellar plot secret from his composer Hans Zimmer.
Themes
Nolan's work explores existential, ethical and epistemological themes such as subjective experience, distortion of memory, human morality, the nature of time, and construction of personal identity. "I'm fascinated by our subjective perception of reality, that we are all stuck in a very singular point of view, a singular perspective on what we all agree to be an objective reality, and movies are one of the ways in which we try to see things from the same point of view". Film critic Tom Shone described Nolan's films as "epistemological thrillers whose protagonists, gripped by the desire for definitive answers, must negotiate mazy environments in which the truth is always beyond their reach."
His characters are often emotionally disturbed and morally ambiguous, facing the fears and anxieties of loneliness, guilt, jealousy, and greed; in addition to the larger themes of corruption and conspiracy. By grounding "everyday neurosis – our everyday sort of fears and hopes for ourselves" in a heightened reality, Nolan makes them more accessible to a universal audience. The director has said that he incorporates his personal experiences into his work, "From a creative point of view, the process of growing up, the process of maturing, getting married, having kids, I've tried to use that in my work. I've tried to just always be driven by the things that were important to me."
Writing for The Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton singled out parenthood as a signature theme in Nolan's work, adding; "the director avoids talking about his private life, but fatherhood has been at the emotional heart of almost everything he's made, at least from Batman Begins onwards (previous films, it should be said, pre-dated the birth of his kids)." While promoting Interstellar, Jessica Chastain said, "At the heart of it, it's about love; it's about a father and daughter ... I think for Chris, being a father, this story was very close to him."
Nolan's most prominent recurring theme is the concept of time. The director has identified that all of his films "have had some odd relationship with time, usually in just a structural sense, in that I have always been interested in the subjectivity of time." Writing for Film Philosophy, Emma Bell points out that the characters in Inception do not literally time-travel, "rather they escape time by being stricken in it – building the delusion that time has not passed, and is not passing now. They feel time grievously: willingly and knowingly destroying their experience by creating multiple simultaneous existences."
In Interstellar, Nolan explored the laws of physics as represented in Einstein's theory of general relativity, identifying time as the film's antagonist.
In Nolan's films reality is often an abstract and fragile concept. Alec Price and M. Dawson of Left Field Cinema, noted that the existential crises of conflicted male figures "struggling with the slippery nature of identity" is a prevalent theme in Nolan's work. The actual (or objective) world is of less importance than the way in which we absorb and remember, and it is this created (or subjective) reality that truly matters. "It is solely in the mind and the heart where any sense of permanency or equilibrium can ever be found." According to film theorist Todd McGowan, these "created realities" also reveal the ethical and political importance of creating fictions and falsehoods. Nolan's films typically deceive spectators about the events that occur and the motivations of the characters, but they do not abandon the idea of truth altogether. Instead, "They show us how truth must emerge out of the lie if it is not to lead us entirely astray." McGowan further argues that Nolan is the first filmmaker to devote himself entirely to the illusion of the medium, calling him a Hegelian filmmaker.
The Dark Knight trilogy explored themes of chaos, terrorism, escalation of violence, financial manipulation, utilitarianism, mass surveillance, and class conflicts. Batman's arc of rising (philosophically) from a man to "more than just a man", is similar to the Nietzschian Übermensch. The films also explore ideas akin to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophical glorification of a simpler, more-primitive way of life and the concept of general will. Theorist Douglas Kellner saw the series as a critical allegory about the Bush-Cheney era, highlighting the theme of government corruption and failure to solve social problems, as well as the cinematic spectacle and iconography related to 9/11.
In Inception, Nolan was inspired by lucid dreaming and dream incubation. The film's characters try to embed an idea in a person's mind without their knowledge, similar to Freud's theories that the unconscious influences one's behavior without their knowledge. Most of the film takes place in interconnected dream worlds; this creates a framework where actions in the real (or dream) worlds ripple across others. The dream is always in a state of emergence, shifting across levels as the characters navigate it. Inception, like Memento and The Prestige, uses metaleptic storytelling devices and follows Nolan's "auteur affinity of converting, moreover, converging narrative and cognitive values into and within a fictional story." Nolan has said movies are "suited towards addressing paradox, recursiveness, and worlds-within-worlds".
Influences
Nolan has cited Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Nicolas Roeg, Sidney Lumet, David Lean, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, and John Frankenheimer as influences. Nolan's personal favorite films include Blade Runner (1982), Star Wars (1977), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Chinatown (1974), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In 2013, Criterion Collection released a list of Nolan's ten favorite films from its catalog, which included The Hit (1984), 12 Angry Men (1957), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Bad Timing (1980), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983), For All Mankind (1989), Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Mr. Arkadin (1955), and Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1924) (unavailable on Criterion).
Nolan's habit for employing non-linear storylines was particularly influenced by the Graham Swift novel Waterland, which he felt "did incredible things with parallel timelines, and told a story in different dimensions that was extremely coherent". He was also influenced by the visual language of the film Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982) and the structure of Pulp Fiction (1994), stating that he was "fascinated with what Tarantino had done". For Interstellar he mentioned a number of literary influences, including Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Other influences Nolan has cited include figurative painter Francis Bacon, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, graphic artist M. C. Escher and authors Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Jim Thompson, Jorge Luis Borges, and Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities was a major influence on The Dark Knight Rises).
Views on the film industry
Christopher Nolan is a vocal proponent for the continued use of film stock over digital recording and projection formats, summing up his beliefs as, "I am not committed to film out of nostalgia. I am in favor of any kind of technical innovation but it needs to exceed what has gone before and so far nothing has exceeded anything that's come before". Nolan's major concern is that the film industry's adoption of digital formats has been driven purely by economic factors as opposed to digital being a superior medium to film, saying: "I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo."
Shortly before Christmas of 2011, Nolan invited several prominent directors, including, Edgar Wright, Michael Bay, Bryan Singer, Jon Favreau, Eli Roth, Duncan Jones and Stephen Daldry, to Universal CityWalk's IMAX theatre for a private screening of the first six minutes of The Dark Knight Rises, which had been shot on IMAX film and edited from the original camera negative. Nolan used this screening in an attempt to showcase the superiority of the IMAX format over digital, and warn the filmmakers that unless they continued to assert their choice to use film in their productions, Hollywood movie studios would begin to phase out the use of film in favor of digital. Nolan explained; "I wanted to give them a chance to see the potential, because I think IMAX is the best film format that was ever invented. It's the gold standard and what any other technology has to match up to, but none have, in my opinion. The message I wanted to put out there was that no one is taking anyone's digital cameras away. But if we want film to continue as an option, and someone is working on a big studio movie with the resources and the power to insist [on] film, they should say so. I felt as if I didn't say anything, and then we started to lose that option, it would be a shame. When I look at a digitally acquired and projected image, it looks inferior against an original negative anamorphic print or an IMAX one." In 2015, Nolan and Tacita Dean invited over 30 representatives from leading American film archives, labs and presenting institutions to participate in an informal summit entitled Reframing the Future of Film at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Nolan is also an advocate for the importance of films being shown in large screened cinema theaters as opposed to home video formats, as he believes that, "The theatrical window is to the movie business what live concerts are to the music business—and no one goes to a concert to be played an MP3 on a bare stage."
In 2014, Christopher Nolan wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal where he expressed concern that as the film industry transitions away from photochemical film towards digital formats, the difference between seeing films in theaters versus on other formats will become trivialized, leaving audiences no incentive to seek out a theatrical experience. Nolan further expressed concern that with content digitized, theaters of the future will be able to track best-selling films and adjust their programming accordingly; a process that favors large heavily marketed studio films, but will marginalize smaller innovative and unconventional pictures. In order to combat this, Nolan believes the industry needs to focus on improving the theatrical experience with bigger and more beautiful presentation formats that cannot be accessed or reproduced in the home, as well as embracing the new generation of aspiring young innovative filmmakers.
Recurring collaborators
Emma Thomas has co-produced all of his films (including Memento, in which she is credited as an associate producer). He regularly works with his brother, screenwriter and producer Jonathan Nolan, who describes their working relationship in the production notes for The Prestige: "I've always suspected that it has something to do with the fact that he's left-handed and I'm right-handed, because he's somehow able to look at my ideas and flip them around in a way that's just a little bit more twisted and interesting. It's great to be able to work with him like that". The brothers "always bounce ideas off each other", even when working on separate projects.
When Nolan's family relocated to Chicago during his formative years, he started making films with Adrien and Roko Belic. He has continued his collaboration with the brothers, receiving a credit for his editorial assistance on their Oscar-nominated documentary Genghis Blues (1999). Nolan also worked alongside Roko (and future Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Gettleman) on documenting a safari across four African countries, organized by the late photojournalist Dan Eldon in the early 1990s.
The director has worked with screenwriter David S. Goyer on all his comic-book adaptations. Nolan's former assistant and frequent collaborator, Jordan Goldberg, has produced every Nolan-directed film since The Prestige. Wally Pfister was the cinematographer for all of Nolan's films from Memento to The Dark Knight Rises. He spoke of his relationship with the director: "Mine and Chris' working relationship is defined, quite simply, by the great respect we have for each other. I've learned so much from him in terms of him pushing me to find beauty in a simpler method of photography. We're also very like-minded, we share a sense of humor, and from the beginning I trust his judgement."
Lee Smith has been Nolan's editor since Batman Begins, with Dody Dorn editing Memento and Insomnia. David Julyan composed the music for Nolan's early work, while Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard provided the music for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Zimmer scored The Dark Knight Rises, and worked with Nolan on Inception and Interstellar. The director has worked with sound designer Richard King and sound mixer Ed Novick since The Prestige. Nolan has frequently collaborated with special-effects supervisor Chris Corbould, stunt coordinator Tom Struthers and visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin. Production designer Nathan Crowley has worked with him since Insomnia (except for Inception). Nolan has called Crowley one of his closest and most inspiring creative collaborators. Casting director John Papsidera has worked on all of Nolan's films, except Following and Insomnia.
Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy have been frequent collaborators since Batman Begins. Caine is Nolan's most prolific collaborator, having appeared in six of his films, and is regarded by Nolan to be his "good luck charm". In return, Caine has described Nolan as "one of cinema's greatest directors", comparing him favorably with the likes of David Lean, John Huston and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Nolan is also known for casting stars from the 1980s in his films, i.e. Rutger Hauer (Batman Begins), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Tom Berenger (Inception), and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises). Modine said of working with Nolan: "There are no chairs on a Nolan set, he gets out of his car and goes to the set. And he stands up until lunchtime. And then he stands up until they say 'Wrap'. He's fully engaged – in every aspect of the film."
Personal life
Nolan is married to Emma Thomas, whom he met at University College London when he was 19. She has worked as a producer on all of his films, and together they founded the production company Syncopy Inc. The couple have four children and reside in Los Angeles.
Nolan prefers not to use a cell phone or an email address, saying "It's not that I'm a Luddite and don't like technology; I've just never been interested [...] When I moved to Los Angeles in 1997, nobody really had cell phones, and I just never went down that path." Nolan also prohibits use of cell phones on set.
Recognition
Having made some of the most influential and popular films of his time, Nolan's work has been as "intensely embraced, analyzed and debated by ordinary film fans as by critics and film academics". According to The Wall Street Journal, his "ability to combine box-office success with artistic ambition has given him an extraordinary amount of clout in the industry." Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute (BFI) and regular contributor to the Sight & Sound magazine, called Nolan "a persuasively inventive storyteller", singling him out as one of few contemporary filmmakers producing highly personal films within the Hollywood mainstream. He also pointed out that Nolan's films are as notable for their "considerable technical virtuosity and visual flair" as for their "brilliant narrative ingenuity and their unusually adult interest in complex philosophical questions." Scott Foundas of Variety declared him "the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation."
The filmmaker has been praised by many of his contemporaries, and some have cited his work as influencing their own. Rupert Wyatt, director of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), said in an interview that he thinks of Nolan as a "trailblazer ... he is to be hugely admired as a master filmmaker, but also someone who has given others behind him a stick to beat back the naysayers who never thought a modern mass audience would be willing to embrace story and character as much as spectacle". Michael Mann complimented Nolan for his "singular vision" and called him "a complete auteur". Nicolas Roeg said of Nolan, "[His] films have a magic to them ... People talk about 'commercial art' and the term is usually self-negating; Nolan works in the commercial arena and yet there's something very poetic about his work." Discussing the difference between art films and big-studio films, Steven Spielberg referred to Nolan's Dark Knight series as an example of both; he has described Memento and Inception as "masterworks". Nolan has also been commended by James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Danny Boyle, Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Sam Mendes, Werner Herzog, Matthew Vaughn, Paul Thomas Anderson, Paul Greengrass, Rian Johnson, and others. Noted film critic Mark Kermode complimented the director for bringing "the discipline and ethics of art-house independent moviemaking" to Hollywood blockbusters, calling him "[The] living proof that you don't have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to be profitable".
In 2007, Total Film named Nolan the 32nd greatest director of all time, and in 2012, The Guardian ranked him # 14 on their list of "The 23 Best Film Directors in the World" The following year, Entertainment Weekly named him the 12th greatest working director, writing that "Nolan is the rare director determined to make you, the moviegoer, walk out of the theater after his film and gasp, 'I've never seen anything like that before.' His movies are full of twists and riddles, and even his popcorn fare is stuffed with enough brain candy to fill up a graduate school syllabus." He was ranked No. 2 on the same list in 2011. A survey of 17 academics held in 2013, regarding which filmmakers had been referenced the most in essays and dissertations marked over the last five years, showed that Nolan was the second-most studied director in the UK after Quentin Tarantino and ahead of Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. In 2015, Time featured him as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".
Nolan's work has also been recognised as an influence on video games. In 2013, the official Xbox magazine named Nolan among the 100 most important people in games, writing that "video games have started to look a bit like his films: gritty and complex".
Awards and honors
As a writer and director of a number of science fiction and action films, Nolan has been honored with awards and nominations from the World Science Fiction Society (Hugo Awards), the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (Nebula Awards), and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards).
Nolan screened Following at the 1999 Slamdance Film Festival, and won the Black & White Award. In 2014, he received the first-ever Founder's Award from the Festival. "Throughout his incredible successes, Christopher Nolan has stood firmly behind the Slamdance filmmaking community. We are honored to present him with Slamdance's inaugural Founder's Award," said Slamdance president and co-founder Peter Baxter. At the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, Nolan and his brother Jonathan won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Memento, and in 2003, Nolan received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award from the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Festival executive director Mitch Levine said, "Nolan had in his brief time as a feature film director, redefined and advanced the very language of cinema". He was named an Honorary Fellow of UCL in 2006; a title given out to individuals "who have attained distinction in the arts, literature, science, business or public life".
In 2009, the director received the Board of the Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers. ASC president Daryn Okada said, "Chris Nolan is infused with talent with which he masterfully uses to collaboratively create memorable motion pictures ... his quest for superlative images to tell stories has earned the admiration of our members". In 2011, Nolan received the Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award from American Cinema Editors. That year he also received the Modern Master Award, the highest honor presented by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The executive director of the festival Roger Durling stated: "Every one of Nolan's films has set a new standard for the film community, with Inception being the latest example". In addition, Nolan was the recipient of the inaugural VES Visionary Award from the Visual Effects Society.
In July 2012 he became the youngest director to be honored with a hand-and-footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.
The Art Directors Guild (ADG) selected Nolan as the recipient of its Cinematic Imagery Award in 2015, an honor given to those whose body of work has "richly enhanced the visual aspects of the movie-going experience." He was selected as the 2015 Class Day speaker at Princeton University. "Nolan, more than a film producer, is a thinker and visionary in our age and we are thrilled to have him deliver the keynote address," said Class Day co-chair Hanna Kim. Nolan was awarded the Empire Inspiration Award at the 20th Empire Awards. The director was also honored with a retrospective at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Filmography
References
Sources
External links
Christopher Nolan Biography at Tribute.ca
Christopher Nolan - How to Direct Your First Feature Film
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